Do not fast four or five days and break it the following day with any amount of food. In truth lack of proportion always corrupts.

Sayings of Amma Syncletica

Basil emphasises the transformative power of monastic asceticism; in fasting, he says, ‘the whole city generally, and all its people, are brought together in well-ordered harmony: raucous voices put to rest, strife banished, insults hushed’. He proceeds to describe the transformation that fasting brings about not only of individual persons but of the whole city. By means of the solidarity deriving from Christian practice, social space itself is redeemed. Fasting, Basil states, preserves health, keeps husbands faithful, sustains marriages, prevents bloodshed, quietens cooks and servants, limits debt and reduces crime.

Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
David Grumett, Rachel Muers

According to his closest disciple who served him while patriarch, Fr Raphael Ava Mina, Kyrillos’ diet was meager and austere. When he broke his fast around midday—having started the day with psalmody at three in the morning—it would inevitably be with a piece of bread (qorban) and dukkah. With much pleading, he could occasionally be convinced to add a few small spoons of beans. Often Kyrillos would be delayed by meetings and then he would have his breakfast only after three in the afternoon. For lunch, he would usually have some dried bread with a small number of cooked vegetables—but, Fr Raphael recalls, he would never actually eat the vegetables, but only dip his bread in their sauce. Before he slept, he would usually be satisfied with some fruit or bread at most. “I never saw him touch a piece of chicken or meat, or even have a sip of milk.” That was during the non-fasting days. In fasting times, especially that of Lent and the Theotokos fast, even though he had been awake since the earliest hours of the morning, he would eat only once later in the evening.At one point during the fifty days of Resurrection, Kyrillos gave his regular cook a few days of leave, upon which Fr Raphael, who in his own words “did not know how to cook,” thought to take care of the kitchen. Each evening he would lay out roasted chicken, a few small pieces of meat, rice, bread and cheese; only to find the chicken and meat untouched, with the bread and cheese eaten. Given the poor refrigeration of the day, each evening would see a new meal largely wasted. “I need to tell you something…I don’t think he likes chicken,” the disciple recalls telling the cook when he returned. Confused, the cook rebuked Fr Raphael, saying, “He would never eat it like that….You need to cut chicken so fine and mix it with the rice so that he cannot see it!” A man of sixty, physically large and athletic, and yet they had to trick him, lest he eat only bread and cumin.

A Silent Patriarch: Kyrillos VI (1902–1971)
Fr. Daniel Fanous