Green Christmas time when do they celebrate?

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Green Christmas time is a rather significant Slavic holiday period. There is also another name - Semik. In various parts of the Russian lands, the traditions of this holiday have been observed since ancient times.

Description

The next after this period is the feast of Trinity. Green Christmas time is, in essence, the week before it. Sometimes the celebration is celebrated from Tuesday or Thursday until the end of the seventh week from Easter. In addition, there are a number of activities aimed at glorifying the transition between spring and summer. These are, for example, Ascension and Midlife.

Green Christmas time is a period of time, which in ancient times was also called Mermaid Week. The holiday was considered girlish, as, in fact, the Trinity itself. According to traditions, young girls could join the company of older friends, become interested in the opposite sex, conduct fortune-telling for their betrothed, and also come to gatherings held in autumn and winter.

Distinguishing Features

Features that the Green Christmas holiday has are in a subtle analogy between the beauty of a young girl and nature blooming from the rays of warmth. After all, summer is a time of fertility, rich harvests and the triumph of natural beauty. During this period, ears of oats grow andrye, from which stocks were made for the cold season.

Green Christmas time can be called a fairly large-scale event in people's lives. Mermaid Week is dedicated to deceased loved ones and relatives. The emphasis is on the endlessly revolving wheel of life. Green Christmas time is the moment when the Slavs thought about the boundless power of nature.

At the end of the solemn period, they arranged a detour through the territory of the settlement. During this cavalcade, the villagers saddled their horses and walked along their native streets. They also devoted time to games such as Kralitsa.

Church attitude

For the first time, literary references to this tradition appeared on the pages of the Laurentian chronicle, which is dated 1068. The text of this document contains reproaches directed towards the pagans, who turned to the "devil" to prevent drought.

Of course, the spirits with which the ancient Slavs tried to make contact seemed unclean only to Christian priests. They considered such rituals heresy, because Green Christmas time is a custom that has remained in the habits of people along with old beliefs. No matter how they called this event, "playing with demons" as well. People believed that these days mermaids leave the water and are on land, next to a person, sometimes a certain contact can occur.

Precautions

In order to prevent troubles that were considered likely at Green Christmas time, bans were imposed on difficult work, solitary walks in the forest with cattle orlight, rinsing clothes and tailoring. Of course, the rivers were the most dangerous area, so swimming had to be avoided.

The time of greatest danger was considered midnight and noon. People believed that there was a risk of becoming a victim of mermaids and forever disappearing into the abyss of water at their will. In order not only to avoid such a fate, but also to benefit from communication with the river inhabitants, it was necessary to appease them properly. Therefore, after midnight, they organized festivities and singing, which the church authorities looked at without much approval. For example, in 1551, such rituals were condemned by the Stoglav Cathedral.

Period

Centuries followed one after another, and Semik became more and more identified with the Trinity. There is no stable and unchanging date when Green Christmas time is celebrated. What date Semik passes must be determined differently every year. The starting point is Easter, in the seventh week after which this holiday is held on Thursday or Sunday. In 2016, Semik fell on June 16.

So its name is quite logical, in itself suggesting the moment of implementation. Due to the proximity in time to the Trinity, one can speak of a strong mixture of pagan and Christian customs and their complete unification in the 19th century. In Russia, the pagan holiday was celebrated on the same day as the Christian one, that is, on Sunday. Semik is no longer celebrated on the same scale as many years earlier. They remember him, adhere to the main ideas, observe some rituals, even if they are not always fully aware of them.true meaning. In any case, this event preaches only bright and pure ideas.

Commemoration of the Dead

Important features that characterize Green Christmas time are fortune-telling, as well as commemoration of the so-called mortgaged dead, by which they mean people who have passed away due to unnatural death. Such farewells were carried out on Thursday.

At this time, the souls of these people could again find themselves in the world of the living, turn to Mavka in order to continue their existence. The church was against their commemoration. Also, the funeral process was different from the usual. It was believed that their bodies were rejected by the earth, and the spirit could not rest. Eternal wanderings and the inability to find a haven forced them to contact living people, and not always in harmless ways.

Many of them enter the service of evil forces or are themselves like demons. So Semik was the only period when people could properly commemorate such souls, somehow facilitating their existence.

Natural Symbol

Interesting traditions are associated with the trinity tree, which is a rather important symbol. The girls wove beautiful birch branches into their hair and made wreaths. Branches decorated the rooms in the house and the yard. They can also be seen in the church. This tradition is typical for both Siberia and the Volga region, and many other regions.

They traveled out of the village, to the field or into the forest, found a young birch, which was called semik, bush or pillar in differentvariations. Its branches were broken. Upon returning to her native settlement, she decorated places for games, used her during the conduct of round dances. People also came to the river and left twigs to float on its waves.

For the Tobolsk province, the custom of dressing a tree in a girl's dress was characteristic. Then he was carried around the houses, as if they were brought to visit, even symbolic treats and seeing off were carried out, ending with drowning in river waters. There were rituals in which a growing tree was used, it was curled and developed. Many people still know about them. The curling, which was most often carried out by girls, was carried out during Semik, while the reverse process was carried out at the time of the onset of the Trinity, as well as Spirits day.

The magical properties of birch

Despite the fact that in the territories inhabited by the Slavs, there are a lot of varieties of trees, it was the birch that won people's love. While still young and fresh, she was considered the owner of magical energy aimed at ensuring fertility.

Getting a good harvest has always been a topic of concern for people. To make him really rich, the Slavs tried to appease higher powers. Analyzing the customs of the peoples of Western Europe, one can see that they attached similar importance to the Maypole.

Such ideas are characteristic of totemism, which, as we see, even in the 21st century is firmly seated in traditions that have been entrenched over the centuries. In Russia, maple has also always been of no small importance, withwho performed many rituals. In this regard, you can find such names as Klechny Monday and Saturday.

Rite of maturation

A lot can be heard about cumlenia, which is an initiation held during the spring-summer cycle of holidays among the Slavs of the southern and western regions. In addition, this is a special kind of youth union.

In the east and the European part of Russia, this term is also found and is quite famous. Adult girls took part in the ceremony, forming pairs or groups of four. It also happened that the whole company immediately made friends, using the same wreath for everyone.

It was woven from branches. The process was accompanied by singing songs, driving round dances. Under the birches they brought food, which they later ate. Fried eggs were a must.

While the wreaths were being curled, cumming was carried out. The rite consisted of tying branches into a circle, on which a cross was put on. Through it, the girls kissed each other in turn and exchanged things. It could be a ring or a scarf. After that, they were considered godfathers to each other.

Thus, the onset of puberty of young girls was noted. They were accepted into the society of older friends. Pummeling was carried out in the middle of the festive complex, which began with rituals associated with decorating and bringing a decorated Trinity tree into the houses. It ended with a common girl's meal. Sometimes young men join them. In addition, fortune-telling was carried out with the help of wreaths, a wreath was removed from a birch,previously worn by her.

Although the holiday has been around for many centuries, both ordinary citizens and creative associations still pay attention to it. They perform traditional Russian songs dedicated to old customs, create entire concert programs on this topic, for example, groups such as the Babkina Theater. Green Christmas time is a tradition deeply rooted in people's hearts.