What do you think about people who are in their periods praying, giving offerings and/or approaching the altar? I read that you weren’t allowed to enter the temples in ancient greece if you were menstruating so I have that doubt
So, of the hundreds of inscribed temple regulations we have from ancient Greece, not a single one bars menstruating women from participating in ancient Greek religious life.
There are four exceptions to this rule, though calling them "exceptions" is admittedly very generous.
To begin, all four inscriptions come from late antiquity and they all belong to temples of Near Eastern import. Of note is the fact that not one of these four temples belongs to a Greek god. This suggests that certain Near Eastern traditions did exclude menstruating women from participating in religious life, but the same cannot be said about Greek women. Why is that, though?
The four inscriptions (which were written in ancient Greek) give us some clues. For starters, the word "menstruation" is not explicitly used in temple inscriptions found on the Greek mainland; it is instead referred to as a "female matter." This skirting around any direct mention of menstruation is representative of the near-complete segregation of the sexes in ancient Greece.
To put it simply, Greek men did not discuss "female matters," or the female body, for that matter. Doing so was considered extremely taboo. So taboo that physicians—by and large—did not treat female patients, meaning most women died of illness. Addressing menstruation in direct terms would mean that it was no longer out of sight and out of mind, and the Greeks likely wanted to keep it that way.
The issue is made doubly complex when you realize that we don't actually know how ancient Greek women managed their periods. Experts like Dr. Helen King—a classicist who specializes in menstruation in ancient Greece—theorize that women of means maybe wore linen cloth to catch their menses. Poor women (who couldn't afford such expenditures) likely remained in their homes to bleed freely.
What does any of this information tell modern-day worshippers? Well, it suggests that we simply don't know enough to be able to say one way or the other whether or not menstruating Greek women were excluded from religious life.
It most certainly tells us that menses management is way different now than it was back then. And unlike our religious predecessors, we now have personal hygiene products we can use to ensure we don't bleed out at the altar lol 😆
In general, I don't think it makes sense to pretend like modern worshippers can't menstruate and worship at the same time. There certainly isn't enough ancient evidence to suggest that was the standard, so why make it the standard now? This is definitely one of those things where I'm like "do what feels most appropriate to you."
I don't menstruate anymore, but if I did, I'd probably still worship. Alternatively, if I was on my period and feeling mentally unclean/generally gross, I wouldn't (unless I was approaching the gods for some relief).
I know people who take breaks from their religious duties while menstruating, and I know others who don't make any changes to their routines at all. It all depends on your personal comfort level. Just like how everyone's period is different, everyone's worship is different! And that's OK ((: