Orthodox Church of Ukraine<\/a> on Facebook.<\/p>\n\u201cRestrictions on food here become a tool that helps people become more humble, to focus on God and our relationship with Him, without being distracted by worldly pleasures. But still it is auxiliary. Rev. John Damaskin noted that \u2018if fasting was only about food, it\u2019s cows that would be saint.\u2019 But we, the people, first of all have to focus our efforts on spiritual purification and repentance, nurturing kindness, mercy, and love,\u201d the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said.<\/p>\n
It is recalled that a 40-day Christmas fast began on November 28, which will last until the good feast of Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet us find strength in faith, grow spiritually, and become kinder at this time \u2013 to celebrate the Nativity of the Son of God with renewed and pure souls. And may God help everyone change for the better,\u201d the Church statement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The word “fasting” is usually associated primarily with dietary restrictions, the exclusion of certain foods, and many perceive it as a kind of “religious diet” timed to certain dates in the church calendar. Now that the revival of the Ukrainian Church has taken place, we must remember the true meaning of fasting, a period when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"telegram_tosend":false,"telegram_tosend_message":"","telegram_tosend_target":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5151,5149],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-73111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blogs-en","8":"category-opinions"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/df.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/pist.jpg?fit=720%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}