Inviting Orthodox young people to participate in the spiritual struggles of Great Lent, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew addressed the following words to them:
"Fasting and asceticism are not externally imposed heteronomous disciplines, but a voluntary respect for ecclesiastical practice, an obedience to the Tradition of the Church, which is not a dead letter, but a living and life-creating presence, a timeless expression of the unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church.
