Is It a Sin to Remove the Signs of Aging?

Q: Are modern medical methods of body and face correction considered a sin? I would like to fix the signs of aging on my face and body, but something stops me. I feel that this desire comes out of pride.

A: The Lord in his earthly life performed many miracles: healing of lepers and the blind, raising of the dead, expulsion of demons, but he never made anyone younger. Why not? Maybe because it is impossible to make the entire person, both his body and his mind, young again. Or rather, it doesn’t make sense. The accumulated wisdom of years cannot evaporate, even if we make the body young. You’ll get a mismatch between the outside and the inside. By pretending to be young, we deceive the people around us and thus fall into sin. When we make the body younger, we are isolated from our friends and society: our peers will not accept us, and the young will not understand us. Nor will we ourselves be comfortable communicating with people who do not have the kind of life experience we have. That is why the Lord did not make anyone young, knowing that it is a dead-end that makes people suffer.

You should be able to age beautifully, sustaining your body from withering quickly with a healthy diet, fasting, exercise, sports.

The Lord often points out in the Gospel that the golden mean is important. It is one thing to use creams or massages that do not disturb the natural functioning of the body, while radical interventions: operations, injections, implantation of foreign substances, are quite different. It was the norm for women of all times, even the Old Testament times, to do a little hair-dyeing, tinting eyelashes and lips. However, interference in the natural course of events is an attempt to argue with the Lord.

People who do not hide their age and do not dye their gray hair earn great respect. It is very unpleasant to see people who have experienced a midlife crisis and are trying to deceive everyone by posing as a younger person. Love yourself and take care of yourself.

Translated by The Catalogue of Good Deeds
Source: https://pravlife.org/ru/content/greh-li-ubirat-priznaki-stareniya

Avatar photo

About the author


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Know everything about Orthodoxy? We can tell you a bit more!

Subscribe for our weekly newsletter not to miss the most interesting articles on our blog.

Spelling error report

The following text will be sent to our editors: