Why Egypt Neither Fasts Nor Kneels for Fifty Days

But it is now time to follow the plan of the discourse we promised. Abbot Theonas had come to visit us in our cell during the Easter season, and after the evening office was over we sat for a little while on the ground and began to consider carefully why they were so very strict that no one, during the whole fifty days, should either kneel in prayer or venture to fast until the ninth hour. We asked about it all the more earnestly because we had never seen this custom so carefully kept in the monasteries of Syria. [a]