Your body matters because God made it. We’re not souls trapped in flesh. We’re embodied beings, created as a unity of body and soul, and both parts need care.
But here’s the thing: the body isn’t an end in itself. It’s a gift, a tool, a temple. We care for it so we can serve God and neighbor, not so we can look good at the beach or hit a new PR on our deadlift. The difference matters.
The Body Needs Discipline, Not Destruction
Orthodox Christianity has always practiced asceticism. That word scares people. They picture emaciated hermits in caves, punishing themselves. But asceticism isn’t about hating the body. It’s about training it.
St. John Chrysostom said the fast should be kept “not by the mouth alone but also by the eye, the ear, the feet, the hands and all the members of the body.” He understood something we forget: the body can be disciplined to obey the spirit, or it can run wild and drag the spirit down with it. When you make your body do what it needs instead of what it wants, you become its master. That’s freedom.
Fr. Sergei Bulgakov put it starkly: “We kill the flesh in order to acquire a body.” He meant we fight against the body’s sinful impulses, its laziness, its demand for constant comfort and pleasure. We’re not destroying the body. We’re purifying it, restoring it to what it was meant to be.
Exercise Fits, But It’s Not the Point
So can you work out? Sure. Can you run, lift weights, play basketball at the church gym? Of course. Athletes have been Orthodox Christians since the beginning. St. Paul used athletic training as a metaphor for spiritual discipline. The Greek word askesis meant athletic training before it meant spiritual asceticism.
But your workout schedule bows to the Church’s fasting calendar, not the other way around. If you’re doing a strict fast and you can’t maintain your usual training intensity, that’s fine. Champions have competed on Lenten diets. It takes planning. But if you have to choose between keeping a fast and hitting your macros for your bulk, you keep the fast.
One Orthodox priest said it plainly: “The health benefits of sports are very important, but only for a few years or a few decades. The spiritual benefits last for eternity. Everything should be put in its proper place: eternal things first, temporal, second.”
That’s not anti-body. It’s just honest about priorities.
Practical Body Care in Southeast Texas
Living here, you know the body needs attention. It’s hot. You sweat through your shirt walking to your truck. If you work a plant job, you’re on your feet for twelve-hour shifts. If you’re offshore, you’re climbing stairs and hauling equipment in conditions that’ll wear you down fast.
Taking care of yourself isn’t vanity. Getting enough sleep, eating reasonably, moving your body, these things help you show up for your family, your work, your parish. An Orthodox Christian who neglects basic health and then can’t serve others isn’t being spiritual. He’s being foolish.
But there’s a line. When body care becomes body obsession, when the gym replaces the church, when you’re more concerned about your physique than your prayer life, you’ve crossed it. And you’ll know. Your spiritual father will probably tell you.
Fasting Trains the Body
The Church gives us fasting as a gift. It’s not punishment. It’s training. When you fast, you’re teaching your body that it doesn’t get everything it wants the moment it wants it. You’re practicing self-control. You’re making space for prayer. You’re joining your small discipline to the Church’s ancient rhythm.
Some people can do strict fasts, one meal a day, no oil, no wine, just bread and vegetables and fruit. Others need to start gentler. A spiritual father helps you figure out what’s appropriate for your health, your work, your stage of life. A diabetic fasts differently than a teenager. Someone working night shifts in a refinery fasts differently than a retiree.
The point isn’t to destroy your health. It’s to bring your body under the spirit’s direction.
The Body Will Be Resurrected
Here’s what we believe that changes everything: your body isn’t disposable. Christ rose from the dead in a body. We will too. The body you have now, in some transformed and glorified way, will be yours forever.
So we don’t trash it. We don’t worship it either. We care for it as a gift we’ll give back to God, hopefully in better spiritual shape than we received it.
Take care of yourself. Exercise if it helps you. Eat well. Sleep. But don’t let body care crowd out prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and worship. Those are the disciplines that matter forever. Your biceps won’t make it to the resurrection, but you will, body and soul together, if God wills it, standing before the throne.
