Usually people go to church when they need support of their faith in God, they want to pray for their own and the health of their relatives, to perform the ritual of baptism, to marry, ask for advice and just be closer to the Almighty. The Orthodox religion, unlike Islam, does not impose strict restrictions on women in visiting the church of the Lord, but recommends nevertheless to refrain from visiting the church during menstruation. Therefore, the planning of Orthodox rituals by Christians should take place taking into account the days of the cycle of women.
Is it possible and why you can not go to church during menstruation? - the answers to these questions lie in the origins and traditions of the Orthodox faith and are associated with the physical "impurity" of the woman during this period.
Why can not a woman go to church when she has menstruation?
The Old Testament prohibits church attendance in the following cases: leprosy, purulent discharge, spermatozoa, the time for the maternity (40 days of giving birth to a boy and 80 days if she gives birth to a girl, Lev 12), female bleeding (monthly and pathological), touching a decomposing body corpse). This is due to the fact that these manifestations are indirectly related to sin, although they are not sinful in themselves.
But, since the moral purity of believers is important for religion, the lists of prohibitions in the drafting of the New Testament were revised and left only 2 restrictions for visiting the temple:
- for women after childbirth (up to 40 days, during postpartum discharges);
- for women during monthly discharge.
The reasons to consider why in these periods a woman can be "unclean" is somewhat.
First, the reason is purely hygienic. After all, the very phenomenon of such secretions is associated with leakage of blood from the genital tract. So it was always, and in times of lack of reliable hygiene means from leaking. A temple in turn can not be a place of bloodshed. If you adhere to this explanation, today, using tampons or gaskets, you can prevent the occurrence of such an incident, and visit the church.
Secondly, the reason for "uncleanness" is explained by the fact that these discharges of a woman are associated with the rejection of the endometrium due to delivery (which indirectly implies the commencement of the original sin of the child born), or purification in connection with the death of the egg and its release along with blood.
Is it possible to go to church with menstruation?
Depending on the opinion of the abbot of a particular church on the cause of the ban, a decision is made in the question "Can I go to the temple during the period?". There are those clergymen who do not see anything wrong in visiting a woman during the critical days of a church, and there are some who are categorically against such a phenomenon.
In fact, appearing in the period of postpartum or monthly discharge, the woman will not commit any sin. After all, for God, first of all, the inner purity of man, his thoughts and actions, is important.
Can I go to church during my period?
To date, almost all priests go to the decision of this issue to go to church and pray to a woman with blood extractions, but it is worth refraining from participating in religious rituals (confession, communion, chrismation, baptism, etc.) and touching to the shrines.