The favorite holiday of Orthodox Christians is Trinity. They prepare for it in advance and celebrate it for three days. Trinity is a great celebration, marked by the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and the Mother of God, proof of the trinity of God. Trinity is also the day when the Christian Church was “born”. Preparations for the holiday begin on Friday, and now you need to find out what you can and cannot do on this day.
Trinity is the 50th day from the date of the Holy Resurrection of Christ. Before the introduction of Christianity at this time, the Slavs celebrated the beginning of summer, commemorated their ancestors, and honored the cult of greenery. The holiday began to be celebrated on Friday. Trinity Sunday in 2021 falls on June 20, which means you can prepare for it as early as the 18th.
What you can and cannot do on Friday before Trinity
On the Friday before Trinity, the Grandfathers always celebrated. This is the name of ceremonial meals, funeral ones. At the dinner table, in the circle of relatives and close people, the deceased are honored, as on Parents' Saturday. Grandfathers are not only the name of a meal. It is still customary to use this word to refer to deceased ancestors and the days on which they are commemorated.
On the Friday before Trinity, a strict fast is observed. Prepare 3, 7 or 9 dishes. The ritual treat of this day is eve (kolivo): boiled whole wheat, rye or barley grains and diluted honey are used to prepare it. In addition, there should be fish, dumplings with lean mushroom borscht, and oatmeal jelly on the table. You need to place a bowl and a towel at the front door. Place a tablecloth and spoons on the table. Forks and knives are not allowed.
You can start the funeral meal after sunset. A lit memorial candle is placed in the center of the table and a funeral prayer is read. Then the hostess puts a spoonful of all the dishes on a clean plate and leaves it on the threshold of the house, inviting the grandfathers.
There is no talking during the funeral meal. Only occasionally can someone briefly recount a good deed of the deceased. It is believed that on Friday before Trinity, only children can see the souls of the dead.
Orthodox Life
Andrey Muzolf, a teacher at the Kyiv Theological Seminary, reveals the secret nature of church prohibitions.
– Andrey, many people think that there are a lot of prohibitions in the Church, and for today they look a little strange, they even scare some people away. For example, a woman should not be in a temple without a headscarf, should not enter in trousers... Are all these prohibitions of a canonical nature?
– The main rule that should guide every person coming to church was expressed by the holy Apostle Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Everything must be decent and orderly” (1 Cor. 14:40). “Decent and orderly” - this means so that my behavior does not serve as a temptation for another person.
Regarding the prohibitions, especially those relating to women visiting the temple without a headscarf or wearing trousers, it should be clarified that a headscarf on a woman’s head does not make her prayer more sincere or of better quality. Since ancient times, only married women were required to wear a headdress to church, so the scarf on a woman’s head previously served as a modern wedding ring. The holy Apostle Paul also speaks about this, calling the veil on a woman’s head a sign of her husband’s power over her (see 1 Cor. 11:10). Therefore, the absence of such a veil on the head of a married woman in ancient times was perceived as a kind of freethinking, so to speak, an act of disobedience.
The same is true with trousers. In ancient times, not only women, but also men did not wear trousers to church, because in the East, where the development of Christianity originates, trousers were not men’s clothing at all: they were worn only by foreigners - barbarians, and therefore the attitude towards them was initially negative in general in a Christian environment, since trousers were considered barbaric, and therefore non-Christian clothing. However, over time, the barbarians adopted Christianity, and the negative attitude towards their clothing gradually disappeared.
Consequently, it was not the clothes that mattered, but the wearer. After all, for God the main thing is not what is on us, but what is in us, what happens in our heart. And therefore, if a woman decides to go to the temple in decent trousers, what’s wrong with that?
So we are unlikely to find dogmatic instructions for women to stand in church exclusively in scarves and skirts in the theological literature.
– Can a woman wear makeup when going to church?
– When answering this question, you should be guided by the motives themselves: why does a woman wear makeup when going to church? The original purpose of cosmetics has always been the desire to attract attention to a person. In a temple, such motives are unnecessary: we come to the temple not to appear to someone better or more beautiful than we really are. We come to the temple first of all to God, and He always sees us as we are, and therefore any cosmetics in the temple are simply not needed.
But it’s still worth pointing out that there is nothing sinful as such in cosmetics. If a woman puts on makeup only because she is used to it, only because she occupies a certain position in a society for which cosmetics are something ordinary and not at all ordinary, her actions do not carry anything reprehensible. Cosmetics are sinful only when, using them, we want to have some influence on others, when we want to seduce someone and thereby, voluntarily or unwittingly, push the person to sin. And tempting one's neighbor is one of the greatest sins.
– Where do church prohibitions come from anyway? Who has the authority to prohibit Church members from doing anything?
– The main thing in the Church is not what it prohibits, but what it gives to a person. And she gives him nothing less than God Himself. According to the words of the Holy Apostle Paul, in the Church there are no prohibitions at all, but only instructions and advice. Thus, the apostle writes: “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is profitable” (1 Cor. 6:12). Continuing the thought of the Supreme Apostle, Blessed Augustine expresses the main principle of Christianity: “Love God and do what you want.”
These words do not at all give us a reason to reject Divine commandments or ethical standards. Just the opposite. If we love God, then we will try not to offend Him with our disobedience, we will strive to live in such a way that people, seeing our good deeds, glorify God (see Matt. 5:16).
In addition, we must distinguish between the prohibitions that the Church itself actually puts forward, since certain actions can threaten the spiritual life of a person and those around him, from those prohibitions that arise in the church or near-church environment and have nothing to do with the teachings of the Church. The latter include those prohibitions that we have already mentioned above.
Only the church hierarchy can prohibit anything in the Church. Within the parish, this principle is the priest, and not at all this or that grandmother with “experience in working with a candlestick.”
– Don’t you think that total bans are intrusive and ineffective? People will still continue to do their own thing. Isn’t it more correct to talk about sin rather than strictly prohibit it?
– You are right: prohibiting a person from doing anything is ineffective. At the same time, he needs to be explained why this cannot be done. A person must understand that sin is not some theory with which priests in the Church scare people. Everyone should realize that sin, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, is, first of all, the wound that we inflict on ourselves. And the Monk John Cassian the Roman says that sin makes us not so much guilty as unhappy, since it takes us further and further away from God.
If something harms the spiritual health of a person or of society as a whole, the Church is simply obliged to say so. The Church is called to be a light in this world, leading man to God, and the Creator is not at all some tyrant seeking to demonstrate His absolute power over man in any way, but a Father who always loves us, sincerely awaiting our return to Him.
And therefore it is very unfortunate that in our society there is such an opinion that the Church is a certain set of prohibitions and commandments alone, the violation of which dooms a person to eternal torment. It is a pity when many say that the Church only does what it tries to deprive modern man of the joys of this life. This is not true at all. The Church is precisely the proclamation of joy, but the joy is not temporary, but eternal, because the main task of the Church is not to prohibit a person from doing anything, but to give him a chance to unite with God. And there is nothing higher than this in the world and cannot be.
Interviewed by Natalya Goroshkova
What do you do on Saturday before Trinity?
Saturday on the eve of Trinity is called parental Saturday. This is the day when deceased relatives and friends are remembered. First of all, on Friday evening they submit memorial notes, and on Saturday morning they go to church for a service and read funeral prayers. During the service, the priest remembers all the deceased, including through memorial notes.
On the Saturday before Trinity, it is allowed to commemorate unbaptized people, suicides, victims of maniacs who died during an accident or disaster. In the church you need to light a candle for the repose, and after the service go to the cemetery, clean the grave, decorate it with greenery. The dead must be remembered at home.
Trinity: the history of the holiday
The religious celebration in honor of the Holy Trinity is dedicated to the Descent of the Holy Spirit. According to the Gospel tradition, on the 50th day after Easter, the apostles visited the Zion Upper Room in Jerusalem, as Jesus commanded them to do on the eve of the Ascension. While in the upper room, they heard a loud noise, as if a storm had begun.
Bright, flickering tongues of blessed fire appeared in the air - they swept over the heads of the apostles and landed on them. After this, the messengers suddenly felt an extraordinary power; they suddenly spoke in languages that they did not know before. So the apostles got the opportunity to preach Christianity in all corners of the planet.
It is believed that it was this event that separated the teachings of Christ from its Jewish roots and elevated it to the rank of a world religion. The Apostle Peter is considered the founder of the Christian Church.
What not to do on Trinity Sunday
Trinity is a very big holiday, so it has many prohibitions. You cannot plan for this day:
- home cleaning;
- ironing;
- washing;
- needlework;
- gardening and gardening work;
- clarifying relationships with loved ones;
- washing head;
- cutting hair and nails;
- swimming in ponds;
- weddings and weddings;
- christening;
- remembrance of the dead;
- hard physical labor;
- camping in the woods;
- planting and replanting plants;
- repairs and construction;
- travel and other trips;
- celebrating personal occasions.
Traditions
On Trinity Saturday, the living and the dead seem to celebrate together the salvation of the human race by God the Son. To bring the moment of the general Resurrection closer, the living pray for their departed loved ones. Even in Rus', believers visited churches on this sacred day, and also went to cemeteries, where they arranged graves. It was customary to decorate resting places with birch branches and flowers. The tradition has been preserved to this day - now on holiday, tombstones are buried in fresh or artificial flowers, and there are candles and lamps around them.
There is a custom that has taken root in the country, which the church does not approve of. This is an impromptu wake right in the cemetery. Visitors leave glasses of alcohol, as well as candies and other delicacies on the graves. Moreover, it is not forbidden to eat these sweets, but only within the churchyard.
But after visiting the cemetery, the church does not prohibit organizing a memorial meal. Once upon a time, at such gatherings, community members gathered together and went into nature. Since ancient times, it was customary to bake pancakes for wakes, as well as prepare egg dishes, kutya, cook jelly and beer. At the same time, strong alcoholic drinks were not encouraged. On this great Christian holiday it was allowed to eat meat.
Fortune telling for the betrothed
On Trinity, our Slavic ancestors performed fortune telling for marriage. The most common was fortune telling on a birch tree. A few days before the holiday, girls wove braids from thin branches right on the tree. If the braid does not come undone, then marriage is expected soon. Otherwise, you won’t have to prepare for the matchmakers’ meeting for at least another year.
Also, girls in Rus' told fortunes using wreaths that were woven from the first wildflowers. The creations were put on the head and “shaken” into the water. Where the wreath goes, the groom will appear from there. A wreath swirling near the shore dooms its owner to a long maidenhood, and if it unravels or drowns, she will face disaster.
Previously, residents of St. Petersburg became interested in how to clean monuments in a cemetery without harming them. The restorers showed how to do this easily and safely. NEVSKIE NEWS wrote about this.
Eat rabbit and ham
True Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims, must abstain from eating the meat of these animals and others: “Only these you shall not eat from those that chew the cud and have cloven hooves: a camel, because it chews the cud, but its hooves are not cloven, it is unclean for you ;...and a hare, because it chews the cud, but its hooves are not cloven, it is unclean for you; and a pig, because its hooves are cloven and there is a deep cut in its hooves, but it does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you; Do not eat their meat and do not touch their corpses; they are unclean to you.” Leviticus 11:3-8)
"Wet" evil spirits
Even in pre-Christian times, the time from the beginning of June was called Rusalia. According to the beliefs of our Slavic ancestors, during this period all evil spirits crawl out of the water to the surface, scare people and bring illness to livestock. And the mermaids remaining in the reservoirs with their singing lure early divers and drag them to the bottom.
To drive away the “wet” evil spirits, people made fires on the banks of reservoirs. All this action was accompanied by shouts and spells.
Bible what not to do
6. Tearing clothes
Leviticus 10:6 reads:
Moses said to Aron and Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not uncover your heads and do not tear your clothes, lest you die and bring wrath upon the whole congregation.”
Jeans with torn knees, shirts with scuffs, and T-shirts with holes are the main trends of our time.
This means that when choosing such clothes to follow modern fashion, most of us are simply sinning.
Marrying “unclean”
If you don’t want to get married, but just live or date a person, and then suddenly decide to get married, perhaps to another person, then you will violate the Biblical law: “If what is said is true, and the virginity of the girl is not found, Then let the damsel be brought to the door of her father's house, and the inhabitants of her city stone her to death, for she has committed a shameful act among Israel by committing fornication in her father's house; and [so] destroy evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:21-22)
What can you do today June 18
On the Day of Dorothy of Tyre, you can and should:
1. Visit the temple, light candles for health and peace.
2. Pray to Saint Dorotheus for prosperity in life and deeds, for strengthening of faith. Young girls can ask for a meeting with a good husband and a happy family life.
3. Do good deeds, help others and give alms.
Also try to complete all tasks started on June 18 by the end of the day. If this is a repair or some other long set of activities, then it is advisable to postpone their start to another day.
Helping your husband when he gets into trouble
Women's fights are different from men's - women use their nails to scratch out eyeballs, get caught in hair, etc. If such a situation occurs in life that you have to fight in front of your beloved, and she comes to the rescue - keep her at a distance from the man's organ of his rival, for the Bible says: “When men fight among themselves, and the wife of one comes up to take her husband away from the hands of him who is beating him, and stretching out her hand, grabs him by the shameful part: Then cut off her hand: let no eye spare her is yours". (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Prohibitions
Despite the fact that the funeral custom with alcohol at the ready is popular among people, the church categorically prohibits getting carried away with “feasts” in cemeteries. And in general, it’s better not to think about alcohol at this time. Popular superstitions say that on these holidays you should not get into the water, and you should avoid bodies of water. It’s better not to poke your nose into the forest, so as not to fall into the arms of the evil spirits that have made their way onto land.
Moreover, according to beliefs in Ancient Rus', water danger lurks at home these days. Washing, wet cleaning and even bathing children are strictly prohibited. Also, believers are strictly forbidden to cut their hair and do handicrafts.
