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Anyone can offer prayer to the Lord, including women. But there is much disagreement about whether you can pray during your period. The discussion of this issue dates back to the Old Testament.
What is prayer
Prayer is a call to the Almighty, in mental or verbal expression, in which the person praying asks for help with advice or guidance on the true path. A prayer message carries a special energy charge, which makes it different from a regular message. The peculiarity of prayer is its sincerity. It comes from the soul and does not contain any material background.
Prayers that are memorized and spoken without inner awareness lack the proper power and become like a beautiful poem.
The Power of Prayer
With the help of prayer, a person tries to overcome his weaknesses and receive strength from God to fight sinful thoughts and deeds. Prayer sometimes does miracles, healing people, making them stronger. Sincere faith in prayer increases its power and capabilities, the main thing is to say it with your soul and heart.
Prayer was recognized by the Lord Jesus Christ and the holy apostles as the main thing in human life. At all times, church teachers and Holy Fathers considered turning to God as the basis of everything holy and pious.
A Christian who respects and loves his God cannot do without turning to him through prayer. If the desire to turn to a Higher Power cools, this means that a person is possessed by a dark force that leads him astray.
Is it possible to pray to a Muslim or Orthodox woman during menstruation?
The modern church is not alien to the opinion that a woman should avoid visiting holy places while she is menstruating. However, this question does not have any doctrinal basis.
Orthodox women, as a rule, refuse to go to church with the onset of menstruation, but no one forbids them to read the prayer book at home. It is believed that prayer helps cleanse the body and thoughts.
The onset of menstruation is often a reason to refuse to go to church
A Muslim woman can also calmly pray during her period at home, especially since talking with Allah does not require a special place, period or condition. However, it is forbidden to say prayers during Lent, which requires reading them every day for a whole month. Menstruating girls stop praying and resume the sacred ritual only after the cycle ends.
Who is better to pray during menstruation in Orthodoxy?
It is allowed to read prayers regardless of the condition - in case of serious illness, hopelessness, joy or menstruation, even if during menstruation there is no strength to pray. Prayer will help you cope with illness and gain confidence in life. Some women pray to get their periods if they are late, unless they are pregnant. For this, the Mother of God, Mother of God Mary, comes to the rescue. Although girls during menstruation are allowed to be present in the temple, it is still better not to leave the house and pray in front of the home icons of Christ the Savior, the Immaculate Virgin.
The girl is allowed to turn to the prayer book, the Bible, and books about the lives of saints. Women are allowed to turn to God on any day, regardless of their condition. The main thing is a pure soul and strong faith.
Orthodoxy holds conflicting views on this matter. Many priests prohibit girls from visiting the Holy Place and receiving communion on the days of discharge; they are also prohibited from touching icons. If a girl with discharge wants to come and pray, she is not advised to go deeper into the room, although in the New Testament this prohibition is unfounded. Jesus calls the temple not a building, but a human soul. Hence the conclusion - a true Christian who follows church rules is allowed to decide for herself where to pray, and menstruation has nothing to do with it.
On critical days, it is forbidden to turn to prayers that require the performance of a special ritual. Otherwise, there are no restrictions on prayers on menstruation days. God – he hears everyone, no matter what time or place. In the 3rd century, Saint Clement of Rome said that no internal biological processes of the human body defile the body and cannot separate it from the Holy Spirit. Saint Clement advises girls not to speak empty words, but to remember the Creator and pray at any time.
Are women with discharge allowed to turn to the Creator and pray - the answer is unequivocal - “yes”. No one can be deprived of communicating with the Almighty, and biological condition is not an obstacle to this.
What does the Old Testament say?
The Old Testament mentions that women are strictly forbidden to pray during their periods. This is explained simply: a girl with menstruation is an unclean creature, she is incapable of observing basic hygiene rules. In the old days, ladies did not wear underwear and with menstrual flow they could stain the floor of the holy place. In this regard, they were not allowed into churches on such days. But today such an explanation is not at all relevant. The modern market can boast a wide selection of various hygiene products that can reliably protect.
Many clergy adhere to the belief that the menstrual cycle represents the removal of a dead egg from the female body. This is equivalent to killing an unborn baby.
Girls with menstruation are not recommended to go to an Orthodox church.
According to some, menstruation refers to the sin of Adam and Eve, which resulted in their being deprived of the possibility of eternal life. Therefore, girls should refrain from going to temples and saying prayers on the days when they begin menstruation.
How to pray correctly at home
Some women believe that you cannot pray even at home during your period, but this is nothing more than a mistake. Any sincere prayer will be heard by God. At home, you can pray at a variety of times, both during the day and at night. Menstruation is not an obstacle to such prayer at all. Therefore, home prayer is very useful, not only when a person faces any troubles or illnesses, but also when everything is fine with him. The Lord loves it when people respect him and try to tell him everything. Therefore, menstruation is not an exception and not a sin at all, but simply a cleansing of the female body, provided by the Lord.
What is stated in the Commandments of God
The Commandments of God vividly describe a woman’s ability to pray during her period. Such a state is not classified as a sin, but is an ordinary biological process created by the Lord himself. Therefore, there is nothing terrible in the fact that a woman turns to God through prayers on such days. She is in no way able to influence this natural process of cleansing her body. The most important thing is that the girl does this with a pure soul and unshakable thoughts.
Therefore, no one has the right to prohibit representatives of the fair sex during menstruation from offering prayers at home or in church, if there is an urgent need for this.
Society's Beliefs
People do not turn to the Lord in prayer as often as they would like. Modern society cannot prohibit or allow prayer, including for women during their critical days. A person reads a prayer out of his need, seeking a way to the Lord and asking for blessings or forgiveness.
Nowadays, the worldly people rely on themselves, not taking into account the fact that prayer not only eases the soul, but also illuminates the path to new solutions to life situations. No one can prohibit a woman from reading prayer at home during her period.
Prayer cannot be sinful, and a woman cannot independently cancel her critical days in order to perform it. If you want, be sure to pray, and it doesn’t matter what day it is, time of day, etc. God hears everyone.
What is the public's opinion?
Women who rarely go to church are not always aware whether it is possible to pray when they are menstruating. The public offers different interpretations on this topic. The main one is this: it is necessary to take into account the fact that in order to turn to God it does not matter at all what kind of bodily shell a person has.
You can pray at home at any time
His pure thoughts coupled with complete sincerity and openness are of paramount importance. Only in this case does the Lord hear the appeals to him and respond to them. The main thing is that a woman has faith, and it doesn’t matter whether she’s having her period at that moment or not.
Thanks to reliable hygiene products, representatives of the fairer sex are able to go to church without any obstacles and turn to God there. And in order to pray during menstruation at home, there are no obstacles at all.
No one has the right to prohibit people from believing in God. However, much is determined by the point of view of the girl herself. Many of them are afraid to go to church while on their period, classifying themselves as unclean and trying once again to abstain from sins.
Law and regulations
The Old Testament tells about Moses, with whose help the Lord led the Israelite people out of Egyptian slavery. God chose to communicate with Moses and through him gave laws that helped the Jewish people to be with the Creator.
Anyone who sinned had to offer a sacrifice (an animal) to atone for their sin. And in order to come into the presence of God, a person had to be clean - this was the law of God. Otherwise, one who breaks the Lord's law would fall dead in His presence.
These decrees also included a command about discharges (discharges) from the physical body.
One of these discharges was menstruation (Leviticus 12:1-8). A woman who gave birth to a male or female child was unclean and had to be cleansed of her blood for some time.
If a woman conceives and gives birth to a male child, she will be unclean for seven days; as in the days of her suffering by purification, she will be unclean; on the eighth day his foreskin will be circumcised; and she must sit thirty-three days, cleansing herself from her blood; She must not touch anything sacred and must not come to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed. (Lev.12:2-4)
Scripture also speaks of male and female discharges (Leviticus 15:1-33). After the time of purification, she or he must offer a sin offering. Only after this the woman and man will be clean and can come to the Sanctuary.
If a woman has a flow of blood flowing from her body, then she must sit for seven days during her purification, and whoever touches her will be unclean until the evening... If a woman bleeds for many days not during her purification, or if it has an outflow longer than its usual purification, then during the entire time of the outflow of its uncleanness, just as during the continuation of its cleansing, it is unclean. (Lev.15:19,25)
So, if a person wanted to pray to God, come with a request or receive healing, he had to be clean by bringing a sin offering to the priest in the tabernacle (the place where the presence of God was located).
What the priests say
Priests say the following about prayer during menstruation: a person should pray daily, because at such moments he should receive a blessing for the coming day and give thanks for everything that has happened. Menstruation cannot influence these events in any way. Representatives of the fairer sex can turn to God with their problems, express gratitude to him, and ask for something. No one has the power to prohibit a person from saving his soul if he needs it.
Appeal to God should always be sincere
Prayers during the menstrual period
In ancient times, the church’s view of menstruation in women was twofold, but most priests were inclined to believe that it was still allowed to visit the temple during this period, since it was considered completely biological and intended by God for the further successful birth of a woman.
Historical information knows cases when some women were brought to Jesus Christ and they kissed the hem of his clothes and his hands, and during this period these female representatives were menstruating. Therefore, menstruation is not a sin at all, but a natural process of cleansing the female body, provided for by the Creator himself.
So why do such prejudices arise today, and many priests consider a woman during her period to be a sinner? In some temples, a woman during menstruation is not even allowed to enter the holy house, which is completely incomprehensible and falls into the category of prejudice.
If we consider all the commandments of the Lord, then prayer is salvation for the soul and it must be done when a person feels the need for it. Therefore, menstruation is absolutely no exception.
In the case when a woman feels very bad, the prayer can be read without leaving home. The most important thing is a sincere appeal to God. To do this, it is necessary to read a prayer before the Holy Face, and if a person unshakably believes, then according to his faith he will be rewarded. God hears everyone who turns to him.
However, today the period of menstruation is considered by some proponents of prohibitions to be dirty and such that a woman is not only prohibited from attending church, but also from being visible to people when leaving the house. However, this can be considered nothing more than a prejudice, since the entire civilized world has long recognized that menstruation is not a sin and during this period you can attend church and pray. If a woman needs to talk to her Creator, then she can do this at any time, the main thing is to do it with pure thoughts and an open soul.
