The Armenian Church observes 160 fasting days each year. All Wednesdays and Fridays, except for those during the fifty days following Easter, are fasting days. Certain weekdays preceding major feasts are also fasting:
Nativity (6 days) Easter (Holy Week, 6 days) Transfiguration (5 days) Assumption (5 days) Exaltation (5 days) Great Lent (48 days including Palm Sunday and Holy Week) Fast of Catechumens (5 days) Fast of Elijah (5 days, seasonal: before Summer) Fast of St. Gregory (5 days) Fast of the Cross of Varak (5 days, seasonal: before Fall) Fast of Advent (5 days) Fast of St. James of Nisibis (5 days, seasonal, before Winter)
In the Armenian Church the fasting days are primarily a time for purification of our souls through individual and communal prayer and critical moral self-reflection. This purification is supported by a discipline of our bodies through abstaining from the consumption of meat, fats, milk products, eggs, and alcoholic drinks. By fasting we participate in a universal law of God's creation, that in order to continue growing we must engage in self-discipline and self-denial, and that only the cup which is emptied may be filled again.