It’s said that any extended fast, including Great Lent, is a joy, a springtime for the soul, because it’s an opportunity to work on yourself, to try to change something for the better. It’s a stepping stone for every Christian. And there’s more to it than the change in Church services and our diet. There’s an element that’s delicate, difficult, and somewhat sensitive, but which can’t be brushed aside: marital relations.
Should a husband and wife abstain during the fast, what rules are there on this matter, and what mistakes do people often make in this area? Archpriest Pavel Gumerov, author of books and articles on child-rearing and family relationships, answers these questions. Fr. Pavel serves at the Church of the Sts. Peter and Fevronia of Murom in the Marino District of Moscow.
Photo: hram-triispo.ru
—There are a variety of situations. What should you do if one member of the family is an active believer and the other is just coming to faith? Is it acceptable to break the fast for the sake of familial peace?
—Let’s take a situation: The wife is a Christian—after all, women usually come to Christ earlier, and the husband is a half-believer—he’s baptized, but comes to church only to get holy water on Theophany, to get his palm leaves and kulichi blessed, and that’s it. And the wife forces him to completely fast from intimate relations. This is unacceptable. This will lead first to conflict then to a pre-divorce state then to divorce. It can lead to this—I’m not saying it necessarily, one hundred percent will. It also depends on his temperament (it may be that he doesn’t particularly need it—that happens too). But as a rule, he’ll be displeased, at the least.
Marriage is like an organism. Every case is different. There are many variables—the age of the spouses themselves, their age difference, and their different temperaments. Imagine a husband is from the east and the wife is from northern latitudes. Naturally, he’s more passionate and hot-blooded. Or she’s very young and the husband is much older. It’ll probably be easier for one to keep the fast than the other.
Why didn’t the Holy Fathers prescribe specific rules? Many marriages could break down, because people have different measures. Some people are ready to have such relations only for the sake of procreation, while others can’t endure this fasting. We choose the lesser of two evils because we understand that sin can vary in its severity. It’s one thing that we we’re invited to a birthday party during Great Lent and we have some fish and other seafood, but it’s quite another if we fall into fornication. No one’s going to deprive us of Communion for five or more years for having some fish, but there’s a very strict penance for the second transgression. For example, in the time of St. Basil the Great, fornication meant a seven-year penance. And of course, masturbation, which a husband or wife may fall into—marital infidelity—is a most grievous sin. And one spouse can push the other toward such a sin through their categorical rigidity and lack of wisdom. Breaking the fast as a concession to the weaker spouse is done not out of lust, but out of love, though this must still be confessed, of course.
But unfortunately, I know people who don’t consider this a sin. But how is it not a sin? It’s breaking the fast. We can have all sorts of justifications, valid reasons, and situations, but still. We’re always living half-and-half with sin, constantly walking a tightrope.
But on the other hand, we need to understand the benefits we get from fasting. Fasting is primarily for our own benefit—it’s a powerful tool for growth, a small offering we can make to God. But we have to think about everything we do—we have to have balance in all things.
—Can the idea of “for the sake of familial peace” be used to cover up other issues?
—There have to be some boundaries. If a husband starts pressuring his wife into things that border on perversion—things that might be considered normal in secular society—for us, this is unacceptable. Marital relations are one thing, but “excesses” from adult films are another. So it’s crucial that spouses know how to talk to each other and share their feelings, desires, and thoughts. Being able to communicate is the foundation of good family relations. If you just give in to your spouse and agree to go along with everything, it will end badly. And knowing how to conduct yourself so that you’re respected and treated with honor is also important.
I always say: One of the most effective ways to resolve any family conflict is compromise. What might this look like in practice? Let’s look at a specific situation. A husband says he wants to have relations because he’s going on a business trip, otherwise it’ll be too hard; or, on the contrary, that he just got back from a long business trip and now it’s the fast… The wife says: “I love and respect you. Okay, I agree.” But the next Sunday she wants to commune, to prepare, to pray. She goes to her husband ahead of time and explains to him: “Yes, I understand that you’re not ready to fast with me yet, but you need to understand me too. I’m going to receive Holy Communion. It’s very important for me.” I believe you have to be strict in such matters. If you’ve decided to commune, then breaking the fast before Communion is unacceptable—it’s a great sin. One of the canons that’s quite clear and strict is that we don’t have marital relations before Communion and on the day of Communion. If it happens, you have to put off communing until another time. In all other cases, you have to meet them halfway, but without losing yourself. Otherwise, they’ll soon start walking all over you.
No one will respect someone who debases himself, who lacks inner dignity and self-respect. After all, holy people had this inner dignity—they didn’t let other people cross certain lines. And we shouldn’t allow anyone, even relatives and loved ones, to say anything blasphemous or to mock our faith and holy things. You have to get through to your husband: “I love you, and that’s why I compromise on some things, allow certain things—but these topics are off-limits.” But again, don’t forget: if you don’t honor your husband and yield to him, then he won’t respect your principles or your faith either. So first and foremost, meet him halfway yourself—or meet her halfway yourself if it’s the wife who isn’t ready to fast yet.
That’s how you’ll win over your other half, because you can’t force someone to fast—you can’t impose fasting on someone.
But you have to gradually lead your husband or wife to this point. Moreover, it’s the husband’s job to educate his wife. You can say: “Come on, let’s try. For example, the Apostles’ Fast is easy this year, it’s short. You’ll see for yourself how good things will be for us after that.” You have to find the right approach.
—Is it worse to break the dietary fast or the marital fast?
—I think that breaking the dietary fast is a more serious sin than breaking the marital fast. I’m not including cases where the fast is relaxed due to illness or infirmity. After all, in marital fasting we’re connected to other people, and there are many different nuances here. Married life is a very complex, delicate mechanism. You can’t treat everyone the same.
This once again explains why there’s no unity of theological thought on the matter. We know that fasting is voluntary, a choice of free personal will. You want to fast, so fast; if you don’t, no one should force you. But in these relations, it can end up that we’re forcing someone else to keep the fast.
If we’re talking about dietary fasting, the wife can cook a pot of pasta and serve it to her husband with meat sauce while she eats it just with tomato sauce—that’s fine. No one’s forcing the husband to eat plain pasta, and no one’s forcing the wife to eat meat. Everything’s great here! But when it comes to marital fasting, we want to fast ourselves and we’re also forcing our spouse. In other words, we’re compelling them to abstain against their will. That’s wrong.
It’s like cooking pasta and forcing someone who isn’t fasting to eat it—otherwise I won’t cook anything else because it’s a fast. But for him the word “fasting” is still meaningless; he doesn’t understand what it’s about at all. So you have to concede. To put it differently, it’s disrespect for someone else’s free will, which even the Lord doesn’t violate, doesn’t force. But if you’ve reached some kind of consensus, a compromise, then that’s another matter.
—You have a lot of priestly experience speaking with parishioners. Could you give some examples of typical mistakes?
—Let’s say there’s a mixed, half-Christian family. When a woman tells me in Confession that she rejects her husband because of the fast, I tell her clearly: “You absolutely did the wrong thing. You can expect something bad to eventually happen if you keep doing this.” So for the sake of preserving peace in the family, you can take on some greater ascetic labors during the fast, but don’t refuse your husband in this matter.
There’s a family I know where the husband is much older than the wife, and intimate relations are extremely rare for them, even on non-fasting days. And the woman’s worried: “He’s already elderly,” she says, “but I’m full of vitality—what should we do?” I talked with her and discovered the issue wasn’t just about intimacy. The relationship had cooled and was difficult even before the bedroom. They don’t have any peace or harmony, and if that’s missing, there’s unlikely to be harmony in the physical sphere either. If there’s love and understanding, the intimate relationship will work itself out too.
I have a friend who’s very religious, who’s been going to church for many years, who recently got married. And his wife confessed to me that they broke the marital fast. The husband didn’t repent of it in Confession. I carefully started asking him if something like that happened (breaking the fast). Of course, I didn’t say his wife had told me. And he said: “Father, I don’t even consider it a sin!” A real-life case. Perhaps he had read some articles somewhere by proponents of “free martial love” during the fasts.
I told him: “That’s wrong. You’re a churchgoer, and so is your wife, and you don’t consider it a sin?” I told him why it’s a sin and why he has to repent of it. Of course, I didn’t give him some severe penance. But the main thing is not to lower the bar in your spiritual life. If something happens, if you fell—repent. But if we constantly allow ourselves things and look for justifications, we can go too far.
Let me compare it with this situation: Great Lent is beginning, and people approach the priest saying: “Father, relax the fast!” And they even ask on Forgiveness Sunday. Lent hasn’t even begun yet and they’re already complaining: “I have health problems; I don’t have the strength; work is hard; I can’t handle it.” Priests pretty much always respond: “Let’s at least try to fast for the first week. You need fasting. God will give you strength, and if necessary, we can lessen our fasting.” A man who refuses fasting before it’s even begun isn’t suited for the spiritual life. Fasting is a school of piety. What kind of Christians are we if we can’t and won’t abstain from anything?
—In your experience, what percentage of parishioners abstain all forty-eight days of Lent and Holy Week?
—I don’t have any specific statistics, but I would say it’s quite high. We’re talking about churched people, parishioners, who don’t just go to church once a year. There are young couples, their blood runs hot, and they periodically break the fast. But they repent.
No matter how much people try to read articles on this topic, look online for some loopholes, some canons that would allow them not to fast, in reality, they know quite well that the marital fast exists. Everyone has a conscience, everyone understands, for example, what “civil marriage” is and what real marriage is. Everyone has clothing he dresses up in to play a role, to pretend to be what he wants to be, but there’s something inside that tells him whether he’s doing the right thing or not.
Churched people, my parishioners, understand everything perfectly well—if they’ve sinned, if they’ve stumbled, they need to repent; they try to correct themselves. Our whole life is like this: We’re going along, and then temptation strikes.
Our parishioners know about marital fasting from the lectures and talks we hold regularly. I talk about it a lot in my books. We’ve studied it in depth. So I don’t see any major problem here.
