On the last day before Great Lent, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church called on believers to forgive others and apologize to those they are in "real conflict with."

"The more we are guilty toward someone, the harder it is for us to ask for forgiveness," Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said in downtown Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral on Forgiveness Sunday.

He said it is easy to follow the Christian tradition of saying sorry on that day and apologize to those you have good relations with.

"But how hard it is to come up to a person you are in a real conflict with, who seems an enemy to you, and ask that person for forgiveness," Kirill said.

On Forgiveness Sunday, Christians ask each other for forgiveness so that they could start Great Lent on Monday without holding anything against one another and so that fasting is useful for them.

During Great Lent, believers in particular abstain from meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. But the true purpose of fasting is not abstention from these products by itself. Fasting helps people cleanse their souls of sin and learn to fight bad habits and dark thoughts, as well as to control their desires. In this way believers prepare, through prayer and fasting, for Easter, Christianity's most important feast, commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The necessity to forgive others in Christianity is substantiated by Gospel words Jesus told his disciples: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew, 6:14-15)

The fasting period before Easter in Eastern Christianity lasts 48 days. The first 40 days of the period are called Great Lent, symbolizing Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness before being tempted by Satan.

They are followed by Lazarus Saturday, commemorating Jesus raising Lazarus of Bethany from the dead, and Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, and then by Holy Week, the last week of the fasting period. Holy Week lasts until Easter Sunday but does not include it.

MOSCOW, February 14 (RIA Novosti, Ivan Korzun)