The Church asks nothing that is harmful to health
— Mr Zurab, everyone understands that fasting is necessary for spiritual purification, but people hold different views about its effect on health. What do you think of this as a doctor?
— Man, unlike the animals, has been given an immortal soul, which, like the body, needs training, nourishment and development. That is precisely what fasting is meant for. A person must develop his will-power from childhood. Otherwise human qualities will not take shape in him. An animal depends only on reflexes and instincts, and so its every action is impulsive; but a person should live consciously and with purpose, and, unlike an animal, feel responsible for every step he takes.
Through fasting we learn to restrain ourselves from the passions. At such a time we suppress, by our own will, the pleasant emotions caused by satisfying our vital needs. These vital needs include nourishment and reproduction. It is precisely these that a person must be able to govern. If a person gives himself up constantly to the pleasure of eating, he becomes a slave of gluttony and greed, and this is followed by a host of serious pathologies: the metabolism is disturbed, and excess weight (obesity), diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, stroke and heart attack develop; and all this greatly weakens a person, ages him prematurely and shortens his life.
As for sexual incontinence, besides exhausting and weakening the body, it lowers fertility and spreads sexually transmitted infections, which seriously undermine health and even threaten life.
So through fasting a person governs and regulates his vital needs, and at the same time prolongs his life.
— From what age may one fast?
— The holy Church approaches this question individually. The spiritual father assesses the child's age, health and character, and accordingly gives a blessing to fast first on Wednesdays and Fridays, and then to keep all the fasts. Mostly this happens from the age of eight.
— How can fasting and illness be reconciled?
— The spiritual father should certainly understand such questions and know every member of his flock well. During pregnancy or breast-feeding, and also with anaemia and certain chronic illnesses, when a special diet is necessary, a person is given a blessing to take the food that is best for his health. Fasting is first of all a spiritual state, not a diet. And a person, even though he eats the non-fasting food the spiritual father has allowed him (meat or fish, for example), is still fasting spiritually, and fulfils the prayers and rules given to him during the fast.
— One often hears that fasting exhausts the body and deprives it of necessary substances, which creates a risk of illness...
— When the atheist regime held sway in the country, they assured us that church life and keeping the fasts were harmful to health, so that no one would want to take them up. This is a mistaken view. Only someone who does not understand the essence of fasting says such things. Fasting is a particular spiritual state, which a person attains through constant abstinence, prayer and spiritual vigilance. Abstaining from animal food, too, was established first of all for this very purpose.
What may and may not be eaten during a fast is, generally speaking, decided by the Church individually. In Georgia fruit and vegetables can be had at any time of year, but there are places where plant foods are very scarce, and so, to keep the diet of the faithful adequate, the Church gives a blessing for the fast to be kept differently. But among us people have traditionally fasted according to the rule. Georgian genes are used to it. The two-thousand-year tradition of Christianity has shown us that fasting does not harm health — on the contrary. True, we do not take animal food, and in this respect we lack proteins and amino acids, but this deficit can easily be made up with plant proteins. For example, legumes (soya, beans, chickpeas), peanuts, walnuts and hazelnuts contain amino acids, trace elements and vitamins in abundance, which fully satisfy a person's need for protein foods.
As for bread, it is a unique food blessed by God for man, containing practically all the proteins our body needs. Bread is the only food we eat several times a day all our lives and never tire of. It is not by chance that the Lord called bread His Body. So the quality of bread matters greatly. Today we eat more bread than we used to need, because it is made from poor-quality wheat, is deficient in protein, is depleted and saturated with all kinds of additives. The traditional Georgian varieties of wheat were distinguished by their rich protein content. That is why bread used to be so nourishing.
We must also touch on animal fats. They contain large amounts of cholesterol, which clogs the blood vessels and reduces their elasticity, creating the danger of atherosclerosis and a tendency to vascular disease. But cholesterol is necessary to the body. Many needful substances are synthesized from it — hormones, bile acids and certain vitamins, for example. Accordingly, for five days a week we take animal products and so cholesterol, and on two days — Wednesday and Friday — we give ourselves a rest from it. Besides this, in all four seasons of the year we keep the great fasts, thanks to which the body rests from cholesterol, and this has a good effect on health. It says a great deal that the blood plasma of a well-fed, overeating person is cloudy, because it holds a great deal of fat, while that of a fasting person is clear.
For a Christian fasting is as ordinary a thing as falling asleep and waking up. There is nothing special or worth stressing about it. Our Church asks nothing impossible, still less anything harmful to health. Twenty centuries of experience have shown us that fasting is necessary for a long life. I say nothing of the fact that it is needed for the salvation of the soul.
