Fast of Nineveh · Ba'utha d-Ninwaye

Culture of origin: Assyrian · Cultural

Holiday sources: Assyrian · Iran

The Fast of Nineveh, Ba'utha d-Ninwaye ('the petition of the Ninevites'), is a three-day fast from Monday to Wednesday noon, starting the third Monday before Lent. It recalls Jonah's three days in the fish and the Ninevites' repentance. The Church of the East took it up in the sixth century, when a plague struck under Patriarch Ezekiel; the Assyrian Church of the East, to which most of Iran's Assyrians belong, still keeps it.