Poor Lent! How much chiding, insult, and persecution it endures! But you see, it still stands, by the grace of God. And how else could it be? It has strong support! The Lord fasted, the Apostles fasted, and quite a lot at that, as the Apostle Paul said of himself, in fastings often (2 Cor. 11:27). And all the saints kept strict fasts, so that if we had an opportunity to look over the habitations of paradise we would not find there a single inhabitant who was alien to fasting. That is how it should be. Paradise was lost by violating the fast, and taking up strict fasting should number among the means by which we return to lost paradise. Our mother the Church is compassionate of heart; she is not our stepmother. Would she place upon us something that heavy and unnecessary? But she has placed it upon us! Truly it could not be any other way. Let us submit to it... Yes, and everyone who wants to be saved submits to it... Whoever tries to talk you out of fasting surely does not value salvation.

Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/60199.htm