The festival of the Myrrh-Bearers: history, traditions and script of the Orthodox holiday

It so happened that many Christian Orthodox holidays were imposed on the more ancient pagan. It was done so that the people would get used to a new religion better and faster, adapt to the changed requirements and conditions of life. An example of such celebrations is the history of myrrh-bearers.

Date of celebration

The holiday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women is an event in Christianity. It does not have a specific date - it depends on the number of Easter falls on this or that year. Celebration is celebrated on the third post-Easter Sunday, on the 15th day after the Bright Day of Christ. If Easter is early, the holiday of myrrh-bearers falls at the end of March or the first half of April. At late it notes the Church at the end of April or in May. Not only Sunday itself is considered festive, but the whole week after it. Among people believing these days it is customary to congratulate mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, daughters, spouses. After all, the holiday of myrrh-bearers is considered a woman's triumph in Christianity.

Two Marys

Before us came the names of those in the person of whom the Orthodox Church honors the female half of humanity. These are two Marys - one known to all Magdalene, a former sinner repenting in her debauchery and accepting the covenants of Christ as the main and necessary for life. The second is Kleopova. According to various sources, she was either the sister of the mother of Christ, or the wife of the brother of St. Joseph the Betrothed - the husband of the mother of Jesus. The third biblical texts speak of her as the parent of the relatives of the Son of God-James, Josiah, Simon, and Judas. There is also a celebration of the Myrrhbearers in memory of John, a faithful disciple of Christ. She walked with other listeners of Him in Galilee and secretly buried the head of John the Baptist, when Herod destroyed it.

The Mother of the Apostles and the Sisters of Lazarus

Salomiya also deserved the high honor of church memory. She is the mother of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, James and John. Her first after the Magdalene Christ appeared at his resurrection. In the various Gospels, the sisters of Martha and Mary come from Bethany, and their Savior honored with his presence and preaching. But they believed in Him after the resurrection of Christ by their brother Lazarus. And, of course, Susanna, spoken of by the Evangelist Luke, she served the Son of God "from her possessions." Thanks to these personalities, the pious and righteous Christian women have long since been congratulated on the holiday of the Myrrh-bearers.

About event

Many who do not know the history of the holiday may wonder: why are the wives named Myrrh-bearers? How to understand this expression? The answers are found in the Bible, in the New Testament. These are the inhabitants of the places where Jesus walked and preached. They welcomed Christ with joy and hospitality in their homes, accepted Him as their personal savior, served Him and followed Him. When Jesus was crucified, these women witnessed His sufferings on Calvary. And the next morning after the execution, when the bodies of the crucified were removed from the crosses and buried, they came to Jesus' tomb to anoint His body with peace, as required by Jewish customs. Hence the name of the celebration. Congratulations on the holiday of the Myrrh-bearers are also associated with the joyful news about the resurrection of Christ, which these women brought to other people. After all, Jesus appeared to them after the death on the cross. They were the first to learn the truth about the salvation and immortality of the soul from the meek angel who pointed out to them an open, empty crypt.

Spiritual and moral ties

Myrrh-bearers were revered in Russia especially. This is due to the element of piety in Russian culture and spirituality. Morality and morality, strict standards and requirements of Orthodoxy entered the flesh and blood of the people, especially the female part of it. Simple peasant women, pillar noblewomen, representatives of merchant class and philistine class tried to lead a righteous and honest life, in fear of God. Good deeds, donations to the needy, the distribution of charity to the poor and charitable deeds for the suffering - all this was done by them with a special spiritual uplift and a desire to please the Lord. What is still characteristic of Russian Orthodoxy, so this is an extremely chaste attitude to the mystery of marriage. Fidelity to this word, the oath before the altar (that is, the covenants that Christ bequeathed) in the old days was a distinctive feature of a Russian woman. These ideals live in the people and now. Myrrh-bearers were distinguished by meekness, humility, patience, forgiveness. Therefore, they became a role model. And the Russian land gave Christianity many saints and righteous, blessed and martyrs who, for the glory of Christ, did good. Mother Matrona, Xenia of Petersburg, Fevronia of Murom, Abbess Catherine and many others are venerated among the people as intercessors, helpers, comforters, healers, true followers of the work of Christ.

Orthodox International Women's Day

Orthodox holiday of myrrh-bearers is not in vain considered international. He is joyfully celebrated in many countries of the world. And this is not surprising. After all, a woman gives birth to a new life, brings to the world the ideas of good and love, is the guardian of the home, the support of her husband and children. In fact, who are myrrh-bearers? Ordinary mothers, sisters, spouses, only living according to the commandments of God. The most vivid and significant embodiment of the sacrificial feminine principle, love and forgiveness is undoubtedly the Mother of God. But other holy righteous men also deserve the universal respect and glorification. That is why the beautiful half of humanity has two solemn events. This is the 8th of March and the feast of holy myrrh-bearers.

Ancient Slavonic roots

As already mentioned, many Christian dates were combined in religious practice and popular consciousness with earlier rituals and rituals of paganism. Priests do not always agree with such a statement, but ethnographic research proves the validity of such conjectures. It concerns Christmas Christmas, Ivano-Kupala night gatherings and many other magical days. So it happened with the holiday of myrrh-bearers. In Slavs, it coincided with the end of the youth festivities on Radunitsa. Often on the third post-Easter Sunday in many localities of present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, a rite of initiation or kumleniya was performed.

Women's festivals

The action was associated with the ancient village magic, the fortune-teller and the then still new Christian symbols. For the rite, a "Trinity tree" was chosen - a young birch in a forest clearing or a large branch of a maple tree, which was brought into the hut. The tree was decorated with ribbons, wreaths of wild flowers. In the wreaths hung knots with dyed eggs and / or crosses. Women and girls gathered around the birches and "crammed": they kissed each other crosswise and exchanged crosses and krashenki through the wreaths. There were donuts and monistas, earrings and beads, scarves and ribbons. The essence of the holiday in this was: to make the women of the village or the villages become more friendly. In addition, around the birches danced roundelays, sang songs and be sure to be treated. Unmarried girls have been guessing at a "friend of the heart", and family ones - about their future life. The main dish was scrambled eggs, which was called "babya". In general, when the holiday of the myrrh-bearer was advancing, it was also said about him: "Babi".

Other names of the holiday and its connection with Christianity

This day in the people had a lot of names. The main definition in them pointed specifically to the feminine principle. He was so cliched: "Woman's Eggs", "Woman's Bratchina", "Woman's Week", "Kumitnym" or "Zavivalnym" Sunday (from "curling" birches - interlacing its branches in the form of arches and braiding braids). That is interesting: practically in one Russian province there was no uniform regulation of carrying out of celebrations. In Pskov or Smolensk, Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod, as well as in others, "Indian Sunday", or the holiday of myrrh-bearers, was celebrated in its own way. The script is different. The only thing that united them - on the eve of the day women went to their homes, collected bread, pastries, eggs, other products for a common feast. On a festive day, unmarried girls, their elder relatives, first went to church to defend the mass. After they ordered a general prayer service for the entire female part of the village. We paid for it not with money, but with eggs, which also included the ritual of the Myrrh-bearing week. And by the evening there was actually a celebration: with dances and songs and other attributes of the holiday. And then the feast followed. In the regions where flax was grown, for a rich harvest, often fried eggs were eaten under a special plot.

Funeral motives

Among the days of the Myrrh-Bearing Week, time was necessarily allocated for the commemoration of the dead. For these purposes, in each parish there was a general sorokoust - secular, for the deceased members of the church. On Parent Saturday, on the Myrrh-bearing Sunday, cemeteries were visited in many settlements and krashenki were left on the graves. In this tradition, too, echoes of echoes of pagan cults, in particular, the cult of ancestors. Played its role in the emergence of the holiday and the deification of nature, the change of seasons, as well as the onset of agricultural pores.

"Myrrh-Bearing" Days Today

Orthodox women's holiday is celebrated today in all Christian parishes of Russia and abroad. In Sunday schools under the churches, the teachers prepare a concert for their mothers, grandmothers and sisters with the children. In songs, poems, play scenes on scenes from the Holy Scripture, they glorify not only the biblical heroines, saints, but also all women - successors of the human race, the embodiment of peace, good, love. If there are workshops at Sunday schools, mentors and students prepare small gifts for the guests. These are, as a rule, frames and shelves for icons, wooden painted or with burnt eggs patterns, bags for prosphotons and other beautiful and useful items, as well as thematic drawings, applications. Organized with a soul, such holidays leave a deep mark on the heart and have a huge educational and moral significance.

Temple celebrations

In all Orthodox churches, churches and cathedrals, solemn divine services are held these days. Everywhere pilgrims come to places of faith to feel their community with the whole Church of Christ. Lay people attend services no less jealously than Orthodox believers. Within the walls of God's houses, in pious examples of clerics, in the wisdom of the Holy Scripture, they seek and find support that helps us survive in our hard times and give hope for the future. After the Divine Liturgy, the pastors turn to the parishioners with the Person of the Word - a heartfelt sermon, in which they congratulate all women on a bright, joyful holiday.

The church respectfully and reverently applies not only to the feat of biblical wives. The holy fathers pay special attention to the glorified and little known, modest toilers of the Faith in their Word. Everyone who works on the spiritual field, the Christian field, performing a daily, sometimes unnoticed feat to the glory of God, is addressed with words of gratitude, wishes of the Lord's grace, health and peace - in souls, in families, between people. In their sermons, pastors emphasize that without women's participation, without the support of women, and their painstaking work for the benefit of the Church, Christianity would not have become so widespread. In Russia, for example, in the epoch of atheism, it was women who remained the stronghold of faith and unbending courage. Therefore, although they are called the weaker sex, their mission in Orthodoxy is considerable. This is something that parishioners should always remember and remain the personification of spiritual purity, chastity, the bearers of eternal orthodox moral values. Women must fight for peace, and the example of the Myrrhbearing Women inspires them on this thorny path.