During Great Lent, believers try to follow its strict rules, limiting themselves in food, bad habits and foul language. However, some people believe that during this period it is also necessary to refrain from sexual relations - although due to such beliefs, conflicts often arise in couples. What do the clergy say about this and is sex really incompatible with Lent?
Fasting rules: what you can and cannot do
In fact, Lent is a time of purification - people should eliminate animal products, alcoholic beverages, and so on from their diet. The only indulgence can be red wine, which is consumed in small quantities and strictly on certain days. With lovemaking while fasting, everything is somewhat more complicated - after all, sex between lawful spouses is not a sin. The priests, in response to this, veiledly assert that the Bible indicates the negative consequences of satiety and the addition of life to those who abstain.
By abstinence, the clergy means not only restrictions on food, but also sex.
However, most monks do not share a single point of view on this issue. Some are convinced that the sexual marriage of Christians is free, and no tradition can interfere with it. At the same time, the monks emphasize that, according to church canons, one should still abstain from sex - on the night before baptism or liturgy. Other priests assure that fulfilling a conjugal duty on the days of fasting is a sin, since Great Lent is a kind of victory of a person over a weak physical body, and indulging in his desires destroys this victory.
Sex and Spiritual Life
It is believed that Great Lent is the saving days through which God calls people to fight against their weaknesses and destructive passions. By limiting his thoughts, actions and habits, a person becomes stronger and more resistant to various temptations. If the lack of sex is hard to bear, one should confess and repent in the church - God will give strength to fight and forgive human weakness. Subsequently, it is necessary to support oneself with prayer in order to endure the fast with dignity befitting a man of God.
Muslims, unlike Orthodox people, are not prohibited from making love in Ramadan - however, this is only allowed for the sick, nomadic or living in a foreign land.
The Orthodox Church explains the need for abstinence during Great Lent by the taming of the flesh in order to improve the spiritual life. The weakness of the body can turn a person into an animal driven by instincts alone - such people, according to Orthodox concepts, go to hell. Therefore, the priests recommend that those who are fasting and simply sympathetic in the days of fasting give up low thoughts and indulge in the purification of the spiritual and physical body.
