Feast of the Myrrh-bearing Women: history, traditions and scenario of the Orthodox holiday

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

It so happened that many Christian Orthodox holidays were superimposed on more ancient pagan ones. This was done in order for the people to get used to the new religion better and faster, to adapt to the changed requirements and conditions of life. An example of such celebrations is the story of the myrrh-bearing women.

Celebration date

The feast of the myrrh-bearing women is a special event in Christianity. He does not have a specific date - it depends on what date Easter falls in a particular year. The celebration is celebrated on the third post-Easter Sunday, on the 15th day after the Bright Day of Christ. If Easter is early, then the feast of the myrrh-bearing women falls at the end of March or the first half of April. When it is late, the Church celebrates it at the end of April or in May. Not only Sunday itself is considered festive, but the whole week after it. Among believers these days it is customary to congratulate mothers, sisters,grandmothers, aunts, daughters, spouse. After all, the feast of the myrrh-bearing women is considered in Christianity to be a women's celebration.

Two Marys

The names of those in whose person the Orthodox Church honors the female half of humanity have come down to us. These are two Marys - one is the well-known Magdalene, a former sinner who repented of her debauchery and accepted the precepts 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 mother of the relatives of the Son of God - Jacob, Josiah, Simon, Judas. The feast of the myrrh-bearing women is also celebrated in memory of John, a faithful disciple of Christ. She walked with His other listeners in Galilee and secretly buried the head of John the Baptist when Herod killed him.

Mother of the Apostles and Sisters of Lazarus

Salome also deserved the high honor of church memory. She is the mother of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, James and John. Christ was the first to appear to her after Magdalene at his resurrection. In various Gospels, the sisters Martha and Mary, originally from Bethany, are also mentioned - the Savior honored them with his presence and sermons. But they believed in Him after their brother Lazarus was resurrected by Christ. And, of course, Susanna, about whom the Evangelist Luke speaks, she served the Son of God "from her possessions." Thanks to these personalities, from time immemorial to this day, congratulations on the feast of the Myrrh-Bearing Women have been accepted by the pious and righteousChristian women.

About event

Many who do not know the history of the holiday may wonder: why are wives called myrrh-bearers? How to understand this expression? We find the answers in the Bible, in the New Testament. These are the inhabitants of the places where Jesus walked and preached. They welcomed Christ into their homes with joy and hospitality, accepted Him as their personal savior, served Him and followed Him. When Jesus was crucified, these women were witnesses of His suffering 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 the tomb of Jesus to anoint His body with myrrh, as required by Jewish customs. Hence the name of the celebration. Congratulations on the feast of the myrrh-bearing women are also associated with the joyful news of the resurrection of Christ, which these women brought to other people. After all, it was to them that Jesus appeared after the death of the cross. They were the first to learn the truth about the salvation and immortality of the soul from a meek angel who pointed them to an open empty tomb.

Spiritual and moral ties

Myrrh-bearing women were especially revered in Russia. This is due to the element of piety in Russian culture and spirituality. Morality and morality, strict norms and requirements of Orthodoxy have entered the flesh and blood of the people, especially the female part of it. Simple peasant women, columnar noblewomen, representatives of the merchant and petty-bourgeois classes tried to lead a righteous and honest life, in the fear of God. Good deeds, donations to the needy, distribution of alms to the poor and merciful deeds for the suffering - all thisperformed by them with a special spiritual uplift and a desire to please the Lord. What is also characteristic of Russian Orthodoxy is an extremely chaste attitude towards the sacrament of marriage. Loy alty to this word, to the oath before the altar (that is, to those covenants that Christ bequeathed) in the old days was a hallmark of a Russian woman. These ideals live among the people to this day. Myrrh-bearing women were distinguished by meekness, humility, patience, and forgiveness. That is why they became role models. And the Russian land gave Christianity many saints and righteous women, blessed and martyrs, who did good for the glory of Christ. Mother Matrona, Xenia of Petersburg, Fevronia of Murom, Abbess Catherine and many others are revered by the people as intercessors, helpers, comforters, healers, true followers of the cause of Christ.

Orthodox International Women's Day

The Orthodox feast of the myrrh-bearing women is not in vain considered international. It 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 ideas of goodness and love into the world, is the keeper of the hearth, a support for her husband and children. In fact, who are the myrrh-bearing women? Ordinary mothers, sisters, spouses, only living according to the commandments of God. The most striking and significant personification of the sacrificial feminine, love and forgiveness is, of course, the Mother of God. But other holy righteous women also deserve universal reverence and glorification. That is why the beautiful half of humanity has two solemn events. It's 8March and the Feast of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women.

Old Slavic roots

As already mentioned, many Christian significant dates have been combined in religious practice and popular consciousness with earlier rites and rituals of paganism. Priests do not always agree with such a statement, however, ethnographic research proves the validity of such guesses. This applies to Christmas holidays, Ivano-Kupala night gatherings and many other magical days. So it happened with the feast of the myrrh-bearing women. Among the Slavs, it coincided with the end of youth festivities on Radunitsa. Often it was on the third post-Easter Sunday in many places of present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus that the rite of initiation, or kumleniya, was performed.

Women's festivities

The action was connected with ancient village magic, divination and then new Christian symbols. For the ceremony, a “Trinity tree” was chosen - a young birch in a forest clearing or a large maple branch, which was brought into the hut. The tree was decorated with ribbons, wreaths of wild flowers. The wreaths hung knots with colored eggs and/or crosses. Women and girls gathered around the birch tree and “kumilis”: they kissed each other crosswise and exchanged crosses and krashenka through wreaths. Rings and a monista, earrings and beads, scarves and ribbons were given. The essence of the holiday was this: for the women of the village or the village to become more friendly. In addition, round dances were danced around the birch, they sang songs and were sure to eat. Unmarried girls guessed at the "friend of the heart", and family girls - about their future life. The main dish was scrambled eggs, which was called "woman's". In general, when the feast of the myrrh-bearing wife came, they also said about it: “baby”.

Other names of the holiday and its connection with Christianity

This day among the people had many names. The main definition in them pointed precisely to the feminine principle. They called him like this: “Indian Yaish”, “Indian Brother”, “Indian Week”, “Kumite” or “Curling” Sunday (from the “curling” of birches - the interweaving of its branches in the form of an arch and braiding braids). What is interesting: in almost no Russian province there was a single regulation for holding celebrations. In Pskov or Smolensk, Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod, as well as in others, “Indian Sunday”, or the feast of myrrh-bearing women, was celebrated in their own way. The scenario is different everywhere. The only thing that united them was that the day before the women went from house to house, collecting bread, pastries, eggs, and other products for a common feast. On a holiday, unmarried girls, their older relatives, first went to church to defend mass. After that, they ordered a common prayer service for the entire female part of the village. They paid for it not with money, but with eggs, which was also part of the ritual of the myrrh-bearing week. And in the evening, the actual festivities began: 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, scrambled eggs were often eaten under a special conspiracy.

Memorial motives

Among the daysDuring the Myrrh-Bearing Week, time was always set aside for commemoration of the dead. For these purposes, in each parish, a common magpie was served - secular, for the deceased members of the church. On Parents' Saturday, before the Myrrh-bearing Sunday, cemeteries were visited in many settlements and dyes were left on the graves. In this tradition, echoes of pagan cults, in particular the cult of ancestors, are also clearly audible. The deification of nature, the change of seasons, as well as the onset of the agricultural season also played a role in the emergence of the holiday.

"Mironositsky" days today

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

Temple celebrations

In all Orthodox churches, churches and cathedrals solemn services are held these days. From everywhere they come toplaces of faith for pilgrims to feel their communion with the entire Church of Christ. Laity attend services no less zealously than Orthodox believers. In the walls of the houses of God, in the pious examples of clergy, in the wisdom of the Holy Scriptures, they seek and find support that helps to survive in our difficult times and gives hope for the future. After the Divine Liturgies, the pastors address the parishioners with a special Word - a heartfelt sermon in which they congratulate all women on a bright, joyful holiday.

The Church treats with respect and reverence not only the feat of biblical wives. The holy fathers pay special attention in their Word to the glorified and little-known, humble workers of the Faith. Everyone who works in the spiritual field, the Christian field, performing a daily, sometimes imperceptible feat for the glory of God, is addressed with words of gratitude, wishes of the grace of the Lord, he alth and peace - in souls, in families, between people. In their sermons, the pastors emphasize that without women's participation, without the support of women, their painstaking work for the benefit of the Church, Christianity would not have become so widespread. In Russia, for example, in the era of godlessness, 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 significant. Parishioners should always remember this and remain the personification of spiritual purity, chastity, bearers of eternal Orthodox moral values. Women must fight for peace, and the example of the myrrh-bearing women inspires them to do sothorny path.