How to eat and when you can eat fish in Lent

Fasting for Orthodox Christians is not a simple diet. Along with the restrictions in the diet, they assume particularly strict self-control both in actions, speeches, and in thoughts. This behavior should be typical for the believer all year round, and during the posts there is a kind of tempering of the character, checking the will and depth of religious feelings. Is a person able to resist temptations and temptations, even if he can not endure such a simple test, as a restriction of the diet?

The most strict fast is the Great, and it is called so not because it is the longest. Its spiritual significance is great. Each of the forty-eight days is filled with a special meaning.

Observance of the Lent does not mean that the believer should starve all six weeks. The Orthodox tradition is not peculiar to demand from parishioners those restrictions that may harm their health. There is a rational and even healthy way of eating in this for many a difficult period, regulating what you can eat in fasting by day.

Within two days of food it is necessary to abstain - on Good Friday, the day of the execution of Jesus, and on the very first, clean Monday.

If the Annunciation does not occur on the Holy Week, then this is the day when you can eat fish in Lent.

On normal days, the diet is very simple. You can eat bread, vegetables and fruits, on weekdays raw, and on Saturday and Sunday - cooked in lean oil. To strengthen bodily strength, you can drink a little wine, of course, dry.

Another day, when you can eat fish in Lent, falls on Palm Sunday. This is a great holiday, it's right to call it "The Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem." On the eve of this bright day it is allowed to eat caviar. On Friday, the first of December eat colic, that is, boiled wheat grains with honey, which is sacred after the Liturgy.

The menu of the Lent in the period from the second to the fifth week divides the days as follows: on Monday, Wednesday and Friday restrictions are more stringent, you can drink only water, and eat bread and raw plant foods; on Tuesday and Thursday, believers eat hot food cooked without oil , Even plant.

These are strict church rules, but excessive pedantry, leading to unpleasant consequences for the body, and especially that kind of pride, when a person fasts demonstratively, looking down on the less "advanced", is completely unacceptable. It is not the letter, but the spirit, that is to be observed.

If the parishioner, especially the elderly, worsens his well-being, any priest will bless him to change the diet, and allow him to decide on his own when one can eat fish in Lent.

Women who are waiting for a child, children, and those who suffer from any ailments, as well as those on the road or doing hard work, are allowed to eat fast food.

In addition, there is no need to starve, the menu of the fast can contain such delicious and nutritious foods as potatoes, beans, peas, nuts, cabbage, drying, mushrooms, berries and many other useful food. But there are also days when you can eat fish in Lent. So there is no need to bring yourself to physical exhaustion. It is more important not to drink hot drinks, not to be angry, to be kind to surrounding people, to exclude from obscenity, filthiness and improper joys.