Great Lent is the most strict and significant of all fasts.
On all days of fasting, smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages is prohibited. You can not eat animal products (meat, fish, milk and eggs), rich (white) bread, sweets, buns, mayonnaise. Allowed only plant foods (fruits, vegetables, dried fruits), pickles (sauerkraut, pickled and pickled cucumbers), crackers, dryers, tea, mushrooms, nuts, black and gray bread, kissels, cereals on the water. And on the holidays of the Annunciation Holy Mother of God and Palm Sunday is allowed to eat fish.

In the first and last week, fasting is the strictest. Complete abstinence from food is accepted on Clean Monday. On Friday of the first week, you can only eat kolivo (boiled wheat sweetened with honey or sugar).

The rest of the time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday - dry eating (water, bread, fruits, vegetables, compotes); Tuesday, Thursday - hot food without oil; Saturday, Sunday - food with vegetable oil.

But giving up certain types of food is not the main purpose of fasting. Its main purpose is to spiritually elevate a person. Bodily cleansing must be combined with the transformation of the soul. “True fasting is the removal of evil, the curbing of the tongue, the putting off of anger, the taming of lusts, the cessation of slander, lies, perjury.”

Reasonable abstinence from food in fasting is good for the body. But the church allows the sick, the elderly, and those who have not eaten regularly during the year (for example, low-income families) not to fast. But it is best to get permission from the priest. And if this is not possible, think: will fasting harm your health? After all, a person who deliberately harms his health commits a mortal sin.

For the period of fasting, our ancestors canceled the usual amusements, baked “tuzhik bread” (“I mourn for abundant food”). Everyday food utensils were replaced by “watchmen” made of clay.

BREAKFASTS

For breakfast, you can eat muesli (on water or juice).

Try:

Muesli: Boil (do not boil) oatmeal or cereal mixture. Put prepared chopped walnuts, honey or sugar, prunes, raisins, dried apricots, figs. Cover with a lid and let stand for 5 minutes.

Buckwheat flakes with sugar

Semolina porridge (thin) with honey

Fried semolina porridge (slightly brown the semolina in a pan before cooking,
stirring constantly) with sugar or salt.

Pumpkin porridge: Boil rice until half cooked. Add the same amount of grated pumpkin. Cook so that the porridge comes out semi-liquid. At the end, you can add raisins, cinnamon. Sweeten.

WHAT IS AT WORK

In general, it is hard to stick to the post at the workplace. But at our work they found a way out, a little funny - they made vegetable shawarma. They bought Korean carrots, brought sauerkraut with them, added fresh vegetables, wrapped the whole thing in pita (thin) rolled up and ate. In general, you can take the same crackers, bagels, nuts, seeds, dried bananas, jam, seaweed (at worst) and salads to work with you.

During Great Lent, for the first two and a half days (until the liturgy of the third day), those who are strong do not eat anything except the morning prosphora with holy water. Others eat only bread with sweet tea. Some eat, as in the following days, food without oil. The same strict and last - passionate
week (week). On the remaining days - Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri of the following weeks - they eat food without oil, on Sat and Sun - food with oil.

Annunciation - fish, caviar, oil and wine are allowed at the meal.
Lazarus Saturday - fish caviar, wine (and oil) are allowed.
Palm Sunday - fish, caviar, wine (and oil).
Holy Week. From Fri to Sun (morning) - the same as the first days. And in the morning, after the liturgy, everything is possible - Easter! - but they start with a consecrated egg, Easter (curd, not baked) and Easter cake (baked pastry with dried fruits and spices). At the same time, food, as always, is blessed (at least baptized) and does not overeat.

The first thing to do is a base of fried onions and carrots, you can add ketchup or tomato paste, then the soup will be tastier. Bulgarian pepper can be added to lean borscht or cabbage soup to improve the taste. Perfectly saves pea or bean soup, mushroom soups, sorrel soup. Also, for density, cereals (rice, barley) are usually added to lean soups.

Try:

Soup with pumpkin: boil potatoes, add the same amount of pumpkin, the same amount of onion. Greens - in a bowl. Serve with toasted bread.

Soup with noodles: a lot of onions, carrots. Noodles at the end. Greens in bowls. Soup is better to eat immediately, before the noodles become sour.

Potato puree soup: boil potatoes, grind separately into a smooth puree, combine with potato broth, add crushed garlic, dill. Maybe black pepper. Serve with croutons. You can add a little wild garlic instead of garlic.

Soup with cereals: boil potatoes, add any cereal (buckwheat, rice, millet ...), a lot of onions, carrots and other roots to taste (parsley, parsnip, celery). Garlic, greens in plates. You can add a little tomato (preferably not pasta, but homemade, or ketchup, such as “Veres - sauce with
mushrooms"). Instead of garlic, you can use wild garlic.

French soup: do not boil the potatoes, but cook until tender; green peas (preferably frozen, but you can also canned), white or cauliflower cabbage, carrots, onions. You can add broken asparagus. Greens - in a bowl.

Soup with beans: boil beans, onions; add 2 tomatoes (from spin) or homemade tomato juice, boil. Parsley, (ramson) in plates.

Vegetable pickle: boil potatoes, rice, carrots, then parsley, turnips (straws), leeks, finely chopped pickles without peel. Fresh parsley in bowls. Serve with toasted bread.

Soup with mushrooms: mushrooms, onions, carrots, black pepper - boil. Add finely chopped potatoes, season with flour (separately dilute the flour in cold water and pour into the soup in a thin stream). At the end - greenery, laurel. sheet.

Soup with peas: boil potatoes, then onions, carrots and how many potatoes, the same amount of green peas. Greens in bowls.

Sweet soup: Boil friable rice, boil dried fruit compote, sweeten. Pour rice compote with pieces of dried fruit. Eat cold. (Serve cold in summer).

SECOND DISHES

The most delicious, in my opinion, lean dish is fried potatoes with sauerkraut. Potatoes will most likely be the main food: french fries, mashed potatoes, potato cutlets, potatoes with gravy, baked potatoes ... In short, everything that used to be a side dish will suit you for the main meal: green peas, beans (in jars with sauce), corn. Fried mushrooms completely replace meat. If you are already tired of everything, remember the vegetable stew and hodgepodge. If it’s immediately clear what a hodgepodge can be made of, then you can put everything that comes to hand into a vegetable stew. You can add nuts (walnuts or hazelnuts) to any dish when cooking - this is both tastier and more satisfying. You can buy frozen vegetables for future use (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, mixed vegetables).

Try:

Noodles with olives: Boil any pasta, rinse with cold water, add the juice from the olives, chop the olives themselves, tomato or ketchup like “Veres - mushroom sauce”, garlic or wild garlic, basil (dried or fresh). When possible, grow well there. butter, grated cheese. Instead of noodles, you can cook green beans.

Sweet beans: Boil beans with onions. Make a sweet sauce from the broth: Stir flour into the cooled broth, brew, add sugar.

Stewed potatoes with peas or mushrooms: boil 3 parts of potatoes until half cooked, add 4 parts of diced carrots, 1 part of chopped celery roots, cook for half an hour; then 1 part onion, 1 part mushrooms (fresh or dried and boiled) or peas (any: fresh, frozen, dried and boiled) cook for 5 minutes. Greens in bowls.

Monastic beans: Boil the beans until half cooked, add a lot of finely chopped onions, cook for another half hour. Greens in bowls.

Stewed cabbage: Stew until softened 1 kg of cabbage, add red ground pepper, 2 cf. potatoes and simmer until done. Pour in 200 g of tomato juice (or fresh tomatoes, or canned). Dill at the end. Can be stewed with bell pepper (ice cream).

Cabbage with mushrooms: Boil the mushrooms until half cooked, finely chop. Stew the onion in a small amount of mushroom broth, then chopped cabbage, add red pepper, then mushrooms. Make a sauce from the remaining broth (dissolve the flour in the broth, add spices, cook until thickened).
Season the prepared cabbage with sauce and herbs.

Salad with corn (peas): Boil potatoes in their skins. Cut into small cubes, add finely chopped onion (preferably green, you can wild garlic), pickled (pickled) cucumbers (zucchini) without skin, canned corn with juice (peas).
Add some cucumber marinade. Greenery. It is possible with olives and juice from olives.

Salad with beetroot: bake 2 beets, grate coarsely; 2 pickled cucumbers without skin finely cut into cubes, 1 onion cut into half rings. Season with sugar, lemon juice, cumin, brine. Sprinkle with green onions.

Carrot salad with apples: Coarsely grate 3 carrots; 2 apples cut into strips. Soak raisins, mix with apples and carrots, season with honey diluted with water. You can sprinkle the apple with lemon juice (1 tsp) so that it does not darken.

DRINKS AND DESSERTS

Juices, kissels, compotes, tea, fruit drinks. For dessert, you can cook such a wonderful dish for children - apple and carrot puree. Remember how it used to crackle behind your ears? Or other fruit purees.

Try:
Fanta: Pour the zest from 3-5 oranges with 1-1.5 liters of warm water, add sugar to taste and let it brew overnight. Strain. Add juice of 0.5-1 lemon.

Happy posting everyone!

Why are there so many restrictions on pleasures, food, and sexual relations in Orthodoxy? It seems that no harm is done to others, the commandment to love one's neighbor is not violated. Why is it necessary to “kill your body”, your desires? Why such lack of freedom?

- Our body is not killed by restrictions on food and other pleasures, but by excess in them. And besides, even if we do not harm others and do not violate the commandment to love our neighbor, we still need to love God. This is where certain restrictions on pleasure come from, because love, when it exists, is manifested in action, in our actions.

For example, it's easy to say, "I don't love myself," but our deeds show that we love ourselves exactly as we should love God. And you can say with the same ease: "I love God", but only there is nothing easier than words - love is known from deeds. And if we want to love God, then we will limit ourselves to that which removes us from Him. There is no such goal - neither in worldly life, nor in spiritual life - for the sake of which we would not sacrifice something else. Those who do not want to sacrifice anything are left with nothing. They do not acquire anything worthwhile, and at the same time they lose what they had.

Priest Mikhail Nemnonov
priest Alexy Chumakov answers (Los Angeles)
How is it different from normal time? I already try to lead a strict spiritual life ... how and what to change during fasting? Ksenia

Hello, Xenia!

God bless you to create a strong and happy family!

Sincerely, Priest Alexander Ilyashenko

HOW TO FAST FOR PREGNANT WOMEN AND CHILDREN?

Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko, Rector of the Church of the All-Merciful Savior in Moscow,father of 12 children, chairman of the editorial board of the portal "Orthodoxy and the world

— Father Alexander, one of the questions that readers asked us is this: it is often said that a mother’s fast can have a beneficial effect on the spiritual life of a child. Will a child get better from an uneaten piece of meat?

The point is that fasting is a sacrifice to God. If mommy fasts, wanting her feasible to make a fast as a sacrifice to God, then it is pleasing to Him and the baby will feel the grace of God, as well as when visiting a temple, as when praying parents.

“Mother made a vow to God: if I remain alive, then she will go with me to a pilgrimage to St. Mitrofan of Voronezh. And, thank God, he recovered ... ... By the way, she “monday” for the children (she observed the fast on Monday), but she always hid it from us. Actually, she raised and trained all six children (three in higher educational institutions, and three in secondary schools). God save her!" Metropolitan Veniamin Fedchenkov. God's work in my life

- And in the old days they fasted strictly?

Of course, but then there was a different environment and different food. In one work of the tsarist era, an unbelieving nephew said to his aunt: “What difference does it make whether I eat ham or sturgeon balyk during fasting?” Or another case is known when a foreigner was advised to come to Russia during Lent, when the table was the most exquisite. After all, lean food can be both tasty and nutritious and healthy.

But we are very different from our ancestors in both physical and spiritual health, we have a different ecology, pace of life, overload. We are different. Therefore, one cannot literally adopt those traditions that were natural even not so long ago, even at the beginning of the twentieth century. There was a migration from the village to the cities, the peasantry was destroyed in our country, in our modern language there is no word that can be called a farmer. Life has changed dramatically. Therefore, now the question of the forms of physical fasting is so acute: earlier people had a greater margin of safety. People ate differently: milk was not from a bag, but from under a cow, bread from the oven, spring water, clean air. The peasant actively owned 10,000 operations. Imagine - we will be offered to harness a horse. Repair the plow, fold the hut. How amazingly they wielded an ax!

“And if fasting is perceived even by a believer not as a sacrifice to God, but simply as a restriction established by the Church, November 28th has come and that’s it, now it’s a month of neither meat nor milk.

“Of course, even if a person relates to fasting without due depth, but fasts out of obedience to the Mother Church, then he renders obedience, and obedience is virtue itself. And if you fast unconsciously, then the Lord fills and grants a deep understanding of fasting.

- Father, is it right for pregnant women to limit themselves to their favorite food, and eat less tasty, albeit fast food? In particular, readers remember the 8th canon of St. Timothy of Alexandria: “The woman who gave birth on Easter fortecost orders not to observe the legal fast, but to strengthen herself as much as possible with the use of wine and moderate food, for fasting was invented to curb the body, and when it is weak, it does not need curbing, but in help to recover and collect the former strength.

In this rule, everything is said in accordance with the high Greek learning: reinforce yourself in food limited. If food should be eaten as a medicine - eat it, or maybe fasting and there is no need to be treated? Moreover, this rule does not cancel fasting, the reason why we fast is also indicated here: we fast in order to be able to limit our desires. But disease itself is a limitation.

Of course, with toxicosis - a painful condition, with poor health, you need to eat what the body requires. But I would like to rely on an authority that is quite far from pregnancy: Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov: “That soldier who does not want to be a general is bad. Every soldier must understand his maneuver."

What are you fasting for? If you are a mom, your task is to give birth to a healthy baby: you need to eat right, and your state should be peaceful, joyful, and it should be transmitted to your child. If you feel bad, then eat what the body requires. And we begin to grind - otherwise it’s possible, but this? So, either you set yourself the task of giving birth to a baby and more than one, or you turn fasting into Pharisaic literalism. If your heart is peaceful, joyful, then the feat is right, but if you treat God like a bookkeeper who counts for you what you ate, then you are mistaken. But at the same time, it is very easy for a person to relax and give himself unnecessary indulgences. This requires both self-control, and church life, and reliance on the advice of a confessor and people who already have experience in this area.

- That is, a fasting person needs to go between Scylla and Charybdis in order not to lose strength and to offer sacrifice to God?

Fasting is not a referral to the hospital! We must fast as strictly as we can.

Often believers begin to fast excessively: jealousy not according to reason, in my opinion, is associated with the loss of traditions. After all, the issues of fasting, in fact, should be decided not so much by the priest as by the traditions of the family. In a large patriarchal family, where grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts fasted, a child from childhood saw before him all kinds of fasting, how adults fasted, how the pregnant wives of older brothers fasted, whether the sick fasted.

Limit yourself, especially pregnant women, should be reasonable. For example, to limit from negative external impressions, the main source of which is the TV, from the habit of judging, washing each other's bones. The apostle Paul says, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in everything” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). If your condition is like this, your fast is pleasing to God. If you are unable to keep such joy, then you are not fulfilling the main task of fasting. But even if you somehow limit yourself, the Lord will reward it, He kisses the intention.

Fast not for your own glory, but for the glory of God

Archpriest Igor Pchelintsev , clergyman of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese.

It seems to me that fasting depends on the spiritual and physical strength of the woman herself. For a woman who is churched, carrying, perhaps not her first child, living in an Orthodox family during a normal pregnancy, it is probably possible to fast according to the charter (but with the prudence that is expected from a normally churched person).

People with little church, who do not have sufficient experience of Christian life, should probably have a different measure of fasting. To begin with, we should think about the basics - about faith in Christ and about knowing the gospel. Otherwise, many people want to fast (or not to fast) for their own glory, and not for the glory of God, as the Apostle Paul says, “I eat, I eat for the glory of God, I don’t eat, I don’t eat for the glory of God.” Do not indulge your desires in general, but also do not sew up your mouth - feel like a baby.

There is no need to ask for a blessing as a sanction for fasting or for its resolution. Before fasting, ask for blessings from the confessor or parish priest. Just a blessing. It is not necessary for the confessor to approve a list of what is and what is not (and in what quantity) - this is simply unworthy of our church life.

From the questions asked, we see that often the problem of fasting is, first of all, a problem of nutrition, but (as you know) fasting is not only abstinence from food. The mind fasts, the human heart fasts, the tongue fasts. The patristic teaching calls for fasting to do deeds of mercy and kindness, learn from the Holy Scriptures, repent of sins, pray harder than usual, attend divine services (if possible), partake of the Holy Mysteries. And vice versa - to move away from unnecessary entertainment, vanity of the mind, idle talk and other evil. All this is more important than gastronomy and much more important in general for the mother and her unborn baby.

Always rejoice!

Matushka Inna Viktorovna Asmus , mother of 9 children, wife of Archpriest Valentin Asmus

As St. Seraphim of Sarov said, eat what you want, just don’t eat each other. This is our main problem. I think that pregnant women should eat according to science and there is nothing wrong with a pregnant woman being drawn to a certain product and she eats it. Fasting is a purely personal matter for each person. One should not only forget about the words of the holy Apostle Paul: “Always rejoice, give thanks to God for everything”, there is no need to try to turn Christianity into something mournful.

The measure of fasting is individual

Olga Dmitrievna Getmanova, raised 9 children. In 2006, she was awarded the Patriarchal Badge of Motherhood by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy. The wife of Roman Nikolaevich Getmanov, a well-known obstetrician-gynecologist.

Fasting during pregnancy is undoubtedly individual: if you want, eat meat, if you don’t want, don’t eat. If you do not eat meat for a month and a half, nothing will happen to you or your child. You won't be fasting all year. I myself love potatoes - I feel good with them in fasting. If you can't live without kebabs, then eat them. And if you need dairy, eat it. Just don't eat.

I don’t ask the confessor how specifically I should fast during pregnancy, but I know that he allows his parishioners to fast during dairy fasting during pregnancy.

In fact, protein consumption is no longer during pregnancy, but during feeding - that's when it's tight without milk. You fast for a week and you feel that the milk has become noticeably less.

Another well-known fact: during the blockade of Leningrad, completely emaciated women gave birth to full-weight children. This means that everything they need, they themselves take from the mother's body. It’s the mother’s teeth that can then break and hair fall out ... (Smiles)“

Refrain from what you are addicted to

Mother Elena Karpenko , mother of three children, wife of priest Dmitry Karpenko.

For a woman, pregnancy is her feat, that small sacrifice to God that she can make. You need to fast according to your strength, because, unfortunately, modern women are not so strong physically, and spiritually, I think, too. If there was a short break between pregnancies, fasting is very difficult, I know from my own experience.

You need to eat whatever you want and limit yourself only to what is not particularly necessary. Each woman must determine her diet for herself, find the "golden mean". For me, for example, abstinence from sweets has become such a limitation - to admit, this is my weakness. I know cases when women fasted throughout their pregnancy, strictly observed fasting and gave birth to strong men. That is, if you feel strength in yourself and your health allows, then you can fast.

Fasting is a purely personal matter for everyone ... The most important thing is not to get angry at others. It is necessary to abstain during pregnancy not from meat and yogurt, but from what you have an addiction to. You can limit yourself from watching TV, idle talk. After all, try not to judge, which is much harder than not eating a piece of meat.

Questions about nutrition during pregnancy are more appropriate to ask the doctor you are seeing. Still, it is worth going to confession not with questions about food, but with spiritual problems and experiences.

03.12.2008 11:10:32 Anna, St. Petersburg
Hello, please tell me, is it possible to eat dryers in the post if they include eggs? It turns out that it is impossible if there are eggs. But after all, there are drying without eggs, and the taste is no different from drying with eggs. That is, if I eat drying with or without eggs, they will be the same for me. (taste). Therefore, I think that they can be eaten. But, for example, it is impossible to cook soup on a chicken cube (which does not include anything modest), because the taste of chicken is imitated. That is, judging by the composition, it is possible to eat, but according to taste sensations it is impossible.
Similarly, dumplings with potatoes, sometimes with eggs, sometimes without eggs. And the taste is the same. So it's not clear whether they can be eaten or not?
Perhaps I was very unclear. I beg you to answer my question, because for me it is very important. Thank you.
The fact is that when I carefully study the composition of the products, it seems to me wrong, and if I eat drying with eggs, I suffer that it was impossible to eat it.

Dear Anna!

Everything must be approached rationally and with reason.

Fasting is, first of all, a spiritual cleansing from the filth of passions and sinful attachments in order to draw closer to God. A necessary condition for achieving this is restriction in food.

Bread, plain loaves, oatmeal cookies, gingerbread, cracker cookies are considered lean, all other buns, cookies and other products, on the packaging of which it is written that they contain dairy products, it is better not to eat during fasting and fasting days, except In addition, during Advent, the fish is blessed, except on Wednesday and Friday.On the other days - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday - it is allowed to eat food with vegetable oil.

During fasting, the following simple rules are required. This is an exclusion from the diet of all meat, fish and dairy dishes, as well as products containing animal fats and proteins. But you can and should eat as many raw vegetables and fruits as possible, and always greens. Fried foods should be kept to a minimum and overcooked foods should be avoided once and for all, especially those cooked in recycled or long-simmering oil. During fasting, you should consume liquids as much as possible: kvass, kissels, compotes should take their rightful place on your table.

A person, starting to observe fasts, immediately notices the result: instead of being angry at the government and reforms and envying the well-fed and rich, we feel peace of mind, peace, and most importantly, confidence in our rightness, because we know that, unlike the well-fed and rich, by fasting, we save our souls.

And over time, you will feel that fasting has already become your need and it is actually not so difficult to observe it.

Before you start fasting, you need to think very carefully about your diet. No one is forcing you to eat only dry crusts and crusts, and please, let's do without such extremes. So it really doesn’t take long to earn gastritis, and some other bad things, especially if your faith is not yet very strong and you cannot hold on to spiritual food alone, as the saints and ascetics did. Be prudent, do not earnestly "mortify" your flesh. Better learn to live with your body in friendship, listen carefully to its signals, understand what it really needs.

So, what can you eat during fasting? Of course, the most welcome guests on the table at this time are fruits and vegetables. There is the largest amount of vitamins, minerals needed by our body. So in the summer on your table every day let there be salads from fresh vegetables, and in winter - sauerkraut, pickles, carrots, beets.

We eat during fasting and boiled and stewed vegetables. But here, too, we must remember that the less heat treatment, the better - more useful substances will be preserved in the finished dish. Therefore, it is better to lay the vegetables already in boiling water, and then make sure that they are not digested. Do not cook vegetables in a large amount of water, and do not allow a strong boil when cooking.

And remember that it is not at all necessary to be limited to one potato and cabbage. The whole variety of the fruit and vegetable world is open before you, do not forget about zucchini, peppers, cauliflower, corn, green peas. The more varied, the better.

You can also cook vegetable soups by adding cereals - rice, barley.

A very important component of the lean table is porridge. Of course, boiled in water, not in milk, and without the addition of butter. But this does not mean that porridge will necessarily be tasteless. Remember that there are many fasting foods that can be added to porridge for flavor. These are raisins, nuts, carrots, and mushrooms, which can be combined with buckwheat, rice, and other cereals. Experiment, give scope to your culinary imagination!

It is believed that by not eating meat, eggs, dairy products, a person deprives himself of the required amount of protein. This is true, but only if you approach the post illiterately. Remember to include plant-based protein in your diet and you'll be fine. These are mushrooms, and eggplants, and legumes, and, of course, soybeans. Now on the shelves there are a lot of various products from the so-called " soy meat”, which, when properly prepared, flavored with spices and sauces, perfectly replaces real meat. Nutritionists argue that soy protein in its composition and biological value is an equivalent substitute for meat and fish protein.

Bakery products are not prohibited on fasting, and on non-strict fasting days - vegetable oil, and the whole variety of fish products. And how many different dishes can be prepared from all this, you will see by getting acquainted with the culinary recipes set out in the section All about Lent.

Just remember that you can’t overeat in fasting in any case - even if you are limited to strictly lean foods. Remember that fasting excludes any abuse - spices, spicy, salty, sour, sweet, fried foods. It is better to give preference to boiled dishes, as well as steamed or grilled. Keep your food varied but simple. And you, of course, will be able to feel and appreciate this joy and sanctity of the simplest food.

Let the refusal of milk and dairy products not scare you - for some time it is necessary to do this, and such a ban on the period of fasting is not only not harmful, but useful. According to some studies, milk, as a product intended by nature for baby food, is not very well absorbed by the body of adults. So slowly weaning from milk, at least during fasting, will not hurt you.

We will appreciate the significance of fasting even more if we remember that fasting consists not only in replacing fast food with fasting food, but also in limiting oneself in excesses and whims, for example, sleeping less, abstaining from delicacies, from smoking tobacco and etc.

He remembers that the Church also requires spiritual fasting from us. During fasting, we should take special care to suppress and eradicate our bad inclinations, habits and desires.

On this occasion, St. John Chrysostom spoke like this - can't you fast? But why can't you forgive the insult to your friend? Change your temper: if you are angry, try to be meek; if vindictive, do not take revenge; if you like to slander and gossip - refrain, etc. Do more good during fasting days, be more sympathetic to people, be more willing to help those in need of your help, pray harder, warmer, etc. In all these directions, fasting opens up a wide field for you to work on yourself - just be willing to work!

Orthodox Christians keep great post to express your love for Christ. Forty-eight days of bodily and spiritual humility express the humility and repentance of the laity.

The whole period is divided into Forty and Holy Week. The first forty days are devoted to the parable of the awakening of the Savior on a lonely mountain near Jericho. The last, Holy Week, is designed to remind believers of his last seven days. It precedes the feast of the Holy Resurrection of Christ (Easter).

Humility of the flesh is the first step to humble the spirit. Starting a limited diet, you need to limit yourself spiritually. During abstinence, Christians are cleansed of bad emotions, do not experience envy, anger and other negative emotions. Without spiritual purity, the whole ceremony becomes just a diet. In addition, dietary rules may be relaxed for health reasons.

Recently, it has become fashionable to fast, true believers know that there are many fasts and fast days during the year. However, many people prefer to fast during Lent, which is the longest and therefore the heaviest. Many who have withstood the fast rejoice in their victory and completely do not pay attention to how they begin to eat after fasting. An abundance of fatty, protein-rich foods can be detrimental to your health. Therefore, it is extremely important to know how to get out of fasting without harm to the body.

In almost a month and a half, your body gets used to working in an economical mode and, of course, on day 49 it is not ready to immediately begin to absorb kebabs, eggs, salads with mayonnaise and often alcohol. With such a celebration of the end of the fast, you introduce your body into shock. During fasting, your metabolic processes slow down, the synthesis of enzymes slows down and the body consumes internal reserves. It often happens that during fasting people lose weight.

Orthodox believers are now preparing to observe the Advent fast. This is one of the most serious and long fasts leading us to the great feast of the Nativity of the Savior. It lasts from November 28 to January 6 (on the night of Christmas), that is, only 40 days. It is also called Philip's Fast or Forty Days (as well as Great Lent). It is the last multi-day fast of the year.

Christmas Lent Rules

During the period of fasting, the Orthodox are prescribed the following rules:

It is forbidden to eat meat, eggs, dairy products (including cheese, butter); fish is allowed on Saturdays, Sundays, as well as on Tuesdays, Thursdays on the days of the great saints, temple holidays, on the day of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple (December 4); fish is also allowed on Monday, Wednesday, Friday only on the condition of the upcoming all-night vigil (on the patronal feast); You can cook food in vegetable oil on Tuesday, Thursday, and without it on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Dry eating in fasting

What is dry eating in fasting? Unknowing people, based on the phrase, will decide that this is nothing more than eating dry food. But no. It means something else under the concept of "dry food". In this case, food should not be cooked in water, should not be lubricated with other liquids, such as vegetable oil, vinegar. Food baked in the oven, in the microwave or in a slow cooker can be consumed during such a period of fasting.

What foods are consumed on days of dry eating during fasting? Fasting people should focus on such foods in their diet as:

Bread (rye, bran);
vegetables;
fruits;
berries;
dried fruits;
any greens;
honey;
nuts.

Priests answer questions about fasting

Why in Orthodoxy are there so many restrictions on pleasures, food, sexual relations? It seems that no harm is done to others, the commandment to love one's neighbor is not violated. Why is it necessary to “kill your body”, your desires? Why such lack of freedom?

Our body is not killed by restrictions on food and other pleasures, but by excess in them. And besides, even if we do not harm others and do not violate the commandment to love our neighbor, we still need to love God. This is where certain restrictions on pleasure come from, because love, when it exists, is manifested in action, in our actions.

Some fasting people are not averse to snacking on hastily so-called teenage food - chips, crackers, soda. Can you use them every day?

Of course not. There is also a lot of salt. Somehow they conducted an experiment: they soaked these crackers in water, and then evaporated them. Try it yourself and see what's left? And chips that are fried in rancid oil? Goodbye liver, goodbye stomach, hello gastritis and pancreatitis. In general, in everything you need to know the measure. If you drink one bottle of soda a week, then probably nothing bad will happen, but if you drink a day, anything can develop, because it also has very aggressive components.