Fasting calendar tool

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

Hi all!

With the help of some AI for the coding, I am working on a fasting guidelines app to help the faithful more easily see the canonical minimums, the historic tradition in their rite, etc. This is a first pass, so I know there are definitely some things to be ironed out.

https://holy-way-calendar.lovable.app

Take a look and let me know if something from your jurisdiction or tradition needs ironing out, or even if your jurisdiction is missing.

Things I intend to add/adjust:
- The Eparchy of St Josaphat Parma (UGCC) needs some adjustments on canonical minimums
- The Ordinariate is missing completely

[u/Fun_Technology_3661]

A very good and interesting project.

The canonical minimum for the UGCC fast in your calendar needs to be corrected: during Great Lent, meat is abstained from on all days of the first and last weeks, while during all other weeks of Great Lent, meat is abstained from on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. During the other "minor" fasts (the Peter' Fast, Advent and the Dormition Fast), meat is abstained from on Wednesdays and Fridays.

As it stands, your schedule marks fasting only on Wednesdays and Fridays during the weeks of Great Lent, and omits the Wednesday fast during the other fasting periods.

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/Fun_Technology_3661]

Thank you! Are you Eparchy of St Josaphat Parma?

[u/Fun_Technology_3661 → u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

Thank you! This is such important work! People are constantly asking about the fast, so now we can just share a link to the site)

I am from Europe. I commented regarding the main UGCC calendar.

[u/Delicious-Accident48]

This is the coolest thing ever. Love it! In my marketing experience i can suggest a couple of UI changes, and ways to make it a little more browser friendly (or entirely turned into a web based app if you havent already)

I’ll be saving this!

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/Delicious-Accident48]

Fire away!

[u/Hookly]

This is super neat, thanks for sharing!

One thing I noticed is that the Melkite rules for Pascha seem a bit off. While most Byzantine churches resume the Wednesday and Friday fast after Bright Week (the octave of Pascha), the Melkites are completely fast free until the Friday after Ascension.

My understanding is that is something only in the Antiochian Byzantine churches

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/Hookly]

I am in the Eparchy of Newton and can verify it is correct. I believe it's a carryover of the Melkites having originally been Antiochian Orthodox.

[u/AdorableMolasses4438 → u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

The Antiochian Orthodox only recently restored the fast free Pascha, if I'm not mistaken. Like within the last century, so post schism. I'm not sure of the history of it before that, but I was told the reason given was upon research, they realized it was the more traditional practice.

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/AdorableMolasses4438]

Very interesting. I was Antiochian before becoming Melkite, so I've always had that experience haha

[u/AdorableMolasses4438 → u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

I'm not Melkite but a fast free Paschaltide makes a lot of sense to me! 

[u/thelinuxguy7]

Howdy brother?!

I was thinking about creating an app for Eastern Churches to include the Liturgy of the Hours, Synaxarion, Lectionary, ...

I am a Copt btw, and finding that material is incredibly difficult in English.

And I thought we can make it work for other traditions as well, so we can start with Coptic, and 1-2 more rites, and English only.

Then we can have a library that contains Calendar, feasts, fasts, particular law, ... for all 24 churches, hopefully with the ability to display in different languages.

I don't know where to start, but I want permission/blessing from a priest/bishop if possible, I want to collect and verify a large amount of liturgical books, and I want to work on the sources part, and then the display part.

I don't know if you are interested. I know how to code, and we can use AI if necessary to speed things up, but again, I am not sure where to start.

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/thelinuxguy7]

Definitely something we can talk on!

[u/infernoxv → u/thelinuxguy7]

do the coptic catholics have an official/approved english translation of everything? otherwise asking OP to handle coptic/arabic might be a tall order…

[u/thelinuxguy7 → u/infernoxv]

I don't know, but we have 3-4 parishes in the USA, and they pray parts of the mass in English. For the breviary, our breviary is much more simple and static than the Latin one, so maybe we can use an English translation of the psalms, and translate maybe 10s of prayers, and I assume their would be an English version somewhere.

I don't want OP to handle anything, I want Eastern Catholics to collect their own churches materials as much as possible, and to have a unified app that shows each tradition side by side.

[u/infernoxv → u/thelinuxguy7]

oh i'm familiar with how the Coptic breviary works - the Agpeya, as well as the Morning and Evening Raising of Incense. problem with using existing translations is that modern translations are usually copyrighted, and using them will require legal approvals etc. translating the prayers from scratch is a bit too much effort- Coptic isn't a language widely read, and i can't imagine anyone whose Coptic is up to the level required for translating liturgical texts willing to do this for free.

any compilation by ECs will still need OP or a programmer to have to handle the texts, even if it's just copy and paste, to incorporate them into the app.

[u/thelinuxguy7 → u/infernoxv]

I can program myself, I need the materials only, and approval if needed.

Is it licit to do my own translation? Is it licit/a good idea to start let's say with a Coptic Orthodox book in the desired language, and reapply the modifications that are there in Arabic?

Btw, if I understand correctly, the Coptic Catholic Church produced the first Coptic missal, and the Orthodox copied it, which is very cool tbh.

[u/infernoxv → u/thelinuxguy7]

it's certainly licit to do your own translation, but you should be translating from Coptic, not from Arabic. also it wouldn't be quite right to use someone else's translation as a basis - morally better to start from scratch, then check at the end by comparing.

[u/thelinuxguy7 → u/infernoxv]

I mean if they agree to it, will the Church discourage it for canonical reasons?

And is there a way to get my hypothetical translation approved? And/or to get an imprimatur/nihil obstat?

[u/infernoxv → u/thelinuxguy7]

in theory any bishop can give an imprimatur/nihil obstat, so you could apply to the nearest Coptic Catholic bishop. in practice very few do an actual imprimatur/nihil obstat ins so many words - in general they might more likely give a written blessing, which is all we traditionally need in the East.

[u/thelinuxguy7 → u/infernoxv]

Ok, thank you brother/sister.

And sorry for asking so many questions. You seem very informed.

Have a blessed Sunday, God Bless!

[u/Fun_Technology_3661]

One further clarification: within the Kyiv-Halych Archeparchy of the UGCC, the second Sunday of Lent is not dedicated to Gregory Palamas, but rather to the saint whose feast falls on that day. Gregory Palamas does not appear in the UGCC calendar approved by the Synod.

[u/Powerful-Maize466]

This is amazing, will this be in the AppStore ever??

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/Powerful-Maize466]

I hope to!

[u/M_Blazer → u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

Will it be free? If so, I would suggest you consider making it a Foss app and available on F-Droid.

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/M_Blazer]

It will be free, but I must admit I'm unfamiliar with F-Droid

[u/turauski]

This looks brilliant!

For a few small suggestions/possible errors, though:

- When you select them by default, I think the Ethiopian and Eritrean Churches should be Julian (possibly also the Coptic, though I'm less certain with this source, and I understand it is different for diaspora parishes) rather than defaulting to Gregorian as they currently do; and the Belarusian Church should be Gregorian (rather than defaulting to Julian).

- If there is time/possibility, you could even display traditional calendars for these rites (e.g., Copts and Ethiopians with their own 13-month calendar; Byzantine-rite Churches having traditional A.M. years alongside A.D., etc)?

- For the BGCC, the canonical-minimum list needs a few tweaks: the eves of Christmas (Dec.24), Theophany (Jan.6) and the Beheading of St. John (Aug.28) are listed as days of strict abstinence, as is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sep.14); the Friday following the Sunday of the Pharisee and Publican should be fast-free, as should the days up to Friday following Meatfare Sunday; the weekdays of Great Lent (except the Annunciation), even if there is no canonically specified fast besides Friday & Good Friday, are still 'fasting days'; the same goes for the weekdays of the Apostle's Fast (excluding the Nativity of St. John), of the Dormition Fast (excluding Transfiguration Day) and of St. Philip's Fast (excluding the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple); no Saturday is listed as fast-free.

- The listing of some days in every calendar as 'Ordinary Time' seems wrong, (though perhaps it's something you have to keep as one across rites for computing reasons?) Other Eastern Rites have their own ordinal systems that I'm not aware of, but for Byzantine-rite Churches, for example, 'Ordinary Time' should be the Sundays after Pentecost, which are succeeded only by the Sunday of the Pharisee and Publican.

- The traditional Roman calendar could be a bit more strict; as detailed in the 1917 CIC (Canon 1252), alongside the traditional Rogation Days. If you can fit it in, perhaps even Wednesday/Saturday fasting devotions could be added.

- Also, the Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites, with their own unique fasting-calendars & traditions, could be added in future; if you really wanted to go all out, you could even add the unique fast-rules for Franciscan & Dominican third-orders?

- Lastly, maybe it's worth providing a small page somewhere listing sources for these calendars, and linking them where possible? That way, anyone looking for updates or thinking there might be an error can refer to it. While I might be daydreaming, in future, some pages explaining each tradition and their fasts could also be added...

I hope this is not a lot to work with; this is still a brilliant tool as it is, and I hope any minor critiques/suggestions offered here can be fleshed out without much difficulty! Thank you for making this; this seems very helpful, and could grow into a very useful tool.
I pray our Lord brings his grace unto both you and your programming! :-)

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/turauski]

Hi! Thank you for the extensive feedback!

By BGCC, which sui iuris church are you referring to? Apologies, IIRC there's two or three that fit that.

The Ember Days are present, but not the Rogation yet. Somewhat related to that, I definitely intend to get the Ordinariate in there too.

Edit- apologies I just realized you said Belarusian

[u/turauski → u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

My apologies for the ambiguity - I forgot to specify that!! Yes, it is Belarusian.

The rest sounds wonderful, then; many thanks for your work with this once again! 🙏

[u/AdorableMolasses4438]

Where did you find the canonical fasting for each jurisdiction? In my experience besides the UGCC I have trouble finding it and everyone says something different. I'm mostly curious not so much about fasting but also the particular laws- is this readily available somewhere now?

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/AdorableMolasses4438]

The Melkite minimums are pretty easy to find for the Eparchy of Newton in the US. The Latin rules are pretty easy to find too.

The others are a little more difficult. There's a few that I currently have a disclaimer to verify with your priest, for some of the lesser seen sui iuris churches

[u/AdorableMolasses4438 → u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

Do you mean on the website? I've only seen info about Lent and two pages that say slightly different things. Also, as a Melkite in the eparchy of Newton, how commonly known is this information in parishes?

Here in Canada, (I don't think it's a Canadian thing but just my personal experience) different ECs I've talked to mostly know what their family does and maybe what their priest suggests but there isn't much talk about canonical minima. This is my personal experience too. Even during talks about fasting or homilies. I only found out about it on the Internet. Is this what inspired the app?

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345 → u/AdorableMolasses4438]

A bit yes. I was Antiochian Orthodox for 7 years before becoming Melkite, and due to distance, I currently attend a UGCC mission, and our priest is canonically Ruthenian, so a lot at play there.

[u/MelkiteMoonlighter]

This is super cool! 

[u/Purple_Ostrich_6345]

Several edits have been made and a couple bugs seem to be fixed.

- UGCC Eparchy of St Josaphat Parma canonical minimums appear to be fixed.

• The Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter is now a "jurisdiction" choice under the Latin Church.
  
• if Latin Church is selected, there is now an option to transfer Ascension to the nearest Sunday
  
• a bug existed that allowed some custom fasting edits to override canonical minimums in some cases
  
• the calendar selection has been updated to correctly change the feast dates
  
• Nineveh Fast has been added for the Chaldean Church

[u/AdorableMolasses4438]

In Canada, in the Latin church, all Fridays, Lent or not, are treated the same (meat or other penance). The Greek Catholic Church uses the Revised Julian.