Some Christian churches advise women not to receive communion during their menstrual period. This is not because menstruation is considered sinful but for more intense preparation to approach Christ and due to the physical difficulties faced by women. Some Church Fathers defended the exclusion of women from ministry based on a notion of uncleanness. Others held that purity laws should be discarded as part of the Old Covenant. The 4th-century text Apostolic Constitutions says:

"For neither lawful mixture, nor child-bearing, nor the menstrual purgation, nor nocturnal pollution, can defile the nature of a man, or separate the Holy Spirit from him. Nothing but impiety and unlawful practice can do that."

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