Great post for questions and answers + Postal calendar

Why is the first Monday of Lent called Clean?

Orthodox Christians from February 15 begin spiritual preparation for the meeting of the great holiday of the Bright Resurrection: 48 days before Easter, the Great Lent lasts.

Unlike the Western tradition, when Catholics entered the post, sprinkling their heads with ashes, and repent of their sins, lying in road dust, the Slavs on the first day of fasting went to the bathhouse, put on clean clothes and cleaned the house. On this day, according to strict monastic regulations, they refused food, only drinking with water.

What do we refuse in the days of Lent?

According to the church regulations, during the Great Lent it is forbidden to eat food of animal origin - meat, milk, eggs, fish. In addition, from Monday to Friday, if these days do not have a holiday, not used and vegetable oil. The first day of fasting - Clean Monday (February 15) - and the penultimate - Great Heel (Good Friday, which falls on April 2 in 2010) - it is recommended to hold without food. On the second day of the fast, dry eating is recommended: bread, raw vegetables and fruits - once a day, in the evening.

Many focus on the gastronomic side of fasting, perceiving it as a diet and a way to remove slag from the body. Much more important is the spiritual side. The church admits and milder forms of fasting, it is important that a person is purified not only by the body, but also by the soul. In the days of Lent we should limit ourselves to entertainment, focusing on good thoughts, prayers and merciful deeds.

What products are allowed during a fast

During the Lent you can eat: vegetables (carrots, beets, eggplants, zucchini, peppers, all kinds of cabbage), potatoes, greens, mushrooms, soy products, fruits, dried fruits, nuts, candied fruits, seeds, greens, honey, Kvass, juices, sweet and mineral waters, jams, pickles and marinades, dishes from cereals, legumes, beans, peas, lentils, corn, pasta, bread and lean pancakes (without eggs and milk), caramel, lean gingerbreads, biscuits , Oatmeal cookies and crackers, seafood (shrimp, squid, mussels, etc.).

In days of fasting, you must limit yourself to these in pleasures, including food. If you want to cook shrimp, squid or oyster as a delicacy, it is better to abstain from such dishes. If on the appointed (fish) days you eat seafood to gain strength for the accomplishment of good deeds, then such a menu is not forbidden. After all, fasting is not for the stomach, but for the soul. The main thing - what's in your mind.

Fish is allowed only two times - on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (April 7) and on Palm Sunday (March 28). Caviar is allowed to Lazarev on Saturday (March 27), and on other Saturdays and Sundays fasting, the Great Quarter (Holy Thursday, this year it falls on April 1) and on the days of some particularly honored saints (for example, the forty Sevastian martyrs - March 22, St Gregory Dvoslov - March 25) is allowed to add vegetable oil to the dishes.

How to cook lean dishes?

On days when dry fasting is prescribed, it is necessary to prepare salads from raw vegetables, sauerkraut and pickles, which are not filled with butter, but with various salad dressings on acetic base or lemon juice. You can also add nuts and raisins. Fruit salads can be filled with honey.

In the remaining days of fasting, vegetable food can be cooked or stewed, steamed or grilled. You can cook and vegetable soups, adding cereals - rice, pearl barley. A very important component of the fasting table is porridge welded on the water.

Great post excludes any abuse - spices, spicy, salty, sour, sweet, fried foods. Therefore, it is better to cook in a double boiler, fry vegetables or potato pancakes on a grill or Teflon griddle, but it's better to forget about the deep fryer during the fasting period.

Is it possible to exercise during a fast?

A very urgent issue for a modern person who would not have come to the head of our ancestors. Church on this occasion says: you can. After all, active exercises and a healthy lifestyle today is also a kind of post. Being engaged in fitness, you impose certain restrictions on yourself.

Is it possible to visit beauty salons in the post?

To maintain the beauty of the body is also necessary, as well as spiritual. You can visit the hairdresser and cut your hair to keep a neat appearance. But from other cosmetic procedures still refuse, so that idle thoughts do not interfere with spiritual purification.

What if I need to eat a delicious product for medical reasons?

If for the diagnosis of a disease the doctor suggests that you first eat an inconspicuous product (for example, an egg), you should not abandon the examination because of fasting. Treat this food as a necessary medicine.

Do I have to abstain from sex?

Performing marital duties is not prohibited in the days of fasting. But the Church reminds that loving spouses should find time for prayers.

To whom do the confessors permit the soft form of fasting?

In fasting, it is important to observe moderation, evenness, in order to avoid excessive overeating and hunger. Fasting must be strictly individual, because the strengths of all are different.

The church facilitates the burdens of fasting for pregnant women, patients, the elderly and people engaged in hard labor. Fasting needs to be measured with strength. Those who for the first time decided to stick to fasting, it is better to maintain its soft form, refraining from meat food and allowing in the diet simple dishes of sour-milk products, eggs and fish. And also give up alcohol.

Do I need to fast a child?

If you want to raise your children in Orthodox traditions, then they should, like the grown-up members of the family, refrain from tasty and pleasant. But this does not mean that young children should be put on bread and water.

Strict lean discipline can alienate a child from faith, a simple refusal of meat will entail a formal attitude towards the post. It is important to teach him to dominate his desires. Fasting for a child is a voluntary refusal of what you most want: sweets, ice cream, cakes and other sweets. Give the baby dairy products, replace yoghurts and glazed curds with plain yogurt and low-fat cottage cheese, instead of carbonated drinks, offer juices or fruit drinks.

Fasting for a child is also a rejection of the usual entertainment: television and computer toys. This time is better spent on reading or cognitive games with the family.

Great post 2017 calendar by day

Poster calendar 2017

Periods		Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
The Great Lent From 26 February to 16 April		xerophagy	Hot without oil	xerophagy	Hot without oil	xerophagy	Hot with oil	Hot with oil
Spring meat-eater				a fish		a fish
Petrov Post From June 12 to July 11		Hot without oil	a fish	xerophagy	a fish	xerophagy	a fish	a fish
Summer meat-eater				xerophagy		xerophagy
Assumption fast From 14 to 27 August		xerophagy	Hot without oil	xerophagy	Hot without oil	xerophagy	Hot with oil	Hot with oil
Autumnal meat-eater				xerophagy		xerophagy
Christmas post from November 28, 2017 to January 6, 2018	Until December 19	Hot without oil	a fish	xerophagy	a fish	xerophagy	a fish	a fish
	20 December - 1 January	Hot without oil	Hot with oil	xerophagy	Hot with oil	xerophagy	a fish	a fish
	2-6 January	xerophagy	Hot without oil	xerophagy	Hot without oil	xerophagy	Hot with oil	Hot with oil
Winter meat-eater				a fish		a fish

10 main products in the days of Lent

In the days of Lent the question of how to eat right at this time, in order to maintain health and vivacity, remains relevant. What foods are most likely to be on your table during fasting days?

1. Kashi

Cooked on the water porridge can, along with vegetable soups to become the main dishes of the fasting table. Not only can you get enough porridges, they are also useful. Oatmeal porridge is rich in vitamin E, calcium and phosphorus, buckwheat replenishes our body's stores with iron, vitamins (especially B and P), various trace elements. Barley and pearl barley regulate metabolism, have expectorant, enveloping, anti-inflammatory and restorative properties, and rice and millet remove salt from the body.

2. Home pickles and preparations

Since the earliest days the housewives have put on the table daily homework: salted cucumbers, sauerkraut, marinades, everything that has been cooked since the summer. The only possible danger of eating these dishes is a large amount of salt and vinegar in many marinades, so they should be used with caution by those who have stomach problems.

3. Fresh fruit

The source of vitamins and energy is fresh fruit. In winter and spring, they are not so many, but even in Lent you can afford to eat apples daily, and periodically enjoy yourself with more exotic fruits - oranges, tangerines, kiwi, bananas, grapes, pears. In addition, that the fruit is delicious, they are also very useful. Fresh fruits improve the work of the stomach, remove from the body fats, carcinogens, allergens, reduce high blood cholesterol, and in addition, reduce the risk of malignant tumors.

4. Potatoes

The Belarusian table without potatoes is difficult to imagine. And as applied to the post, this should not be done. From ordinary potatoes, you can come up with so many dishes that every day of fasting (except those in which you must follow the rule of raw food) you can please yourself with a new one.

5. Juices

Many vitamins, along with fresh fruits, contain juices. And, contrary to the generally accepted opinion, pasteurized juices are almost as useful as freshly squeezed juices. However, people with a gastrointestinal tract should use juices with caution. If you have a juicer at home, you can make juices from almost any fruit, vegetable and berries.

6. Dried fruits and nuts

Sweetheads can satisfy their hunger for delicacies with nuts and dried fruits. Raisins, dried apricots, prunes, nuts will give a pleasant taste to many lean dishes, and as separate dishes will serve as an indispensable dessert. The benefits of dried fruits can not be said again. Such valuable trace elements as calcium, iron, magnesium, as well as fiber and pectin are present in the dried fruits in full, it is a real concentrate of nutrients. For example, eating five prunes a day, figs, dates or dried apricots a day, you will forget about problems with the intestines.

7. Greens

Fresh and dried herbs can improve the taste of any lean dish. Add to this those vitamins that are contained in greenery and which the body lacks so much in March, and do not forget to buy an "extra" bunch of parsley.

8. Vegetables

Cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, carrots - these vegetables can be eaten raw and they are a real storehouse of living vitamins. The most useful, according to doctors, are dark green and yellow-red vegetables. Zucchini, beets and other boiled vegetables will perfectly fit into your menu as side dishes, second courses or salads (for example, vinaigrette).

9. Bread

Bread of rough grinding (not baking) will saturate an organism accustomed to abundance. True, it is better to choose dietary bread. Sometimes coarse bread can be difficult to distinguish, since the presence of sesame seeds and the dark color of the bread itself is not required to testify to its "rudeness". The best way to determine the grinding of bread by eye is to look at its slice. It is believed that the more inclusions in it, differing in color and texture from the main test, the more coarse was grinding. It is worth noting that rye bread is not recommended for people with high acidity, as it promotes the appearance of heartburn. In the case of frequent heartburn, it is best to choose bread from a batterless dough, such as lavash or dietary unleavened bread.

10. Mushrooms

Probably the main source of vegetable proteins, along with legumes, are mushrooms. They contain many proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, mineral salts. There are enzymes and vitamin C in the mushrooms, as well as salts of potassium, magnesium, iron, and the content of phosphorus fungi can be aligned to fish products.