Meatless week - Carnival Eve

Meat-fowl week is included in a series of preparatory events preceding the Great Post, which in turn is the gateway to the main Orthodox and the most ancient Christian holiday of Easter, personifying the greatest event - the resurrection of the dead Jesus Christ.

The entire preparatory period before Easter

The significance of the great holiday is emphasized by the previous Great Lent, during which a man is morally and physically prepared for this event.

Preceding the same Great Lent preparatory weeks (three of them) and the Week (four of them). At once it is necessary to make a reservation that, in the translation from the Old Slavonic language, the week is a week in the present understanding, and the Week is Sunday. The word is supposed to come from the verb "not to do," which means a ban on work and dedication to God. All in modern terms, the preparatory cycle before Easter is 70 days. It begins with Sunday (Week of the publican and the Pharisee) and ends with the Great Saturday, which marks the end of Holy Week - last week. The great post in church usage has one more name - the Holy Quadruple. It is preceded, as noted above, three weeks, during which a strictly defined order of services is carried out.

Four Sundays - four milestones

Actually, not all the days of these weeks, but only Sundays, which are given the names - about the tax collector and the Pharisee, the prodigal son, the meat week and the syrope, are important. Last Sunday coincides with the ancient, pagan and very beloved holiday - Carnival, immediately after which, on Monday, Lent begins. The essence of these preparations is the preparation of a gradual transition to severe abstinence. By itself this order is very ancient and has been known since the IV century.

The meaty week, continuing the spiritual repentance of a person, begins to prepare it physically. It is the last day when you can eat meat. This day is called more week about the Last Judgment, because all 6 preceding this Sunday in the liturgy are read pages from the Gospel, dedicated to the Day of Judgment.

The beginning of a hunt for meat

What does the meat week mean? This is the day after which the "holiday" of meat ceases, so it was necessary to eat enough. It was believed that on that day it was decided to eat 12 times and to eat meat 12 times. This is Sunday, the end of the lean week, which begins on Monday, after Sunday (Sunday) about the prodigal son. Still this week is called in the people motley or pockmarked. This is because in two of its six days (Wednesday and Friday) are already "glowing at meat", that is, fasting. Thus, it differs from the previous week, when meat is eaten every day, and from the subsequent cheese week, when it is not eaten at all.

Universal Parent Saturday

The meaty week ends the week, which has one more name - the people call it a memorial. On meat Saturday, which is also called the universal parental, it was customary to go to the cemetery, remember the deceased father and mother (in Byelorussia, the memorial days were on Thursday and Friday). There are several more traditions associated with this period. These days winter weddings stopped . In support of this, there are many proverbs. One of them - "At Pestroy marry - with a mischief to become related". In addition, it was during the meat week that people went to their neighbors and invited them to their place to celebrate the carnival. On the eve in some regions, it was decided to carefully clean the house, prepare a festive table, that is, wait for guests.

Traditions and customs associated with this week

What is a meat week? This, on the one hand, is the eve of Cheese Week, and on the other - Sunday, after which there are exactly 56 days before the onset of Easter. To its shadow side there is some ambiguity and instability, unreliability associated with the names "motley" and "pockmarked." Therefore, there are bans on certain actions and actions these days. The people always had a lot of signs and traditions associated with any holiday. Sometimes they were peculiar. So, in some gubernias, even on the meaty Saturday, they started to celebrate the "Little Maslenka". Bake the first pancakes, leave some of them dead relatives. The children had their own customs on this day, for example, collecting old bast shoes, their "chants" throughout the village, with the help of which they called for spring.

It follows that the meat-and-meat week, the week following it, like the two previous ones, is not only a preparatory period for the Great Lent, but also a time for celebrations, festivities and related folk beliefs, customs and customs, which, in turn, Dozens of proverbs and sayings are composed.