The Christmas fasts begin. In the Orthodox world, they last 40 days - from today until Christmas. Meat foods, milk, butter, cheese, eggs are excluded from the table. Fish is allowed on St. Nicholas Day.
But fasting is not only physical, but also spiritual abstinence, humility in words and deeds, a time for prayer and forgiveness.
"Fasting is not a diet, but abstinence. To observe God's commandments more strictly, to make us be better, to be more merciful, to seek God and the kingdom of God, to leave material things in the background. We do not fast to get rid of various kilograms or diseases, but we fast to prepare ourselves more appropriately for the upcoming holiday of the Nativity of Christ, "said Metropolitan Grigoriy of Vratsa to bTV.
"There are no sinless people. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one who is sinless, also fasted in the desert to begin his work of salvation in the entire human race," he also said.