Orthodox Christians celebrate today the Week of the Apostle Thomas, or Antipascha, in Russia also called the Red Hill. Perhaps, in this holiday, church foundations and folk traditions are combined most bizarrely. How to separate Christian from folklore.
An unusual day
On this day in Russian villages it was customary to go out into the field and make the first furrow. Christ is resurrected, which means that life is renewed. So the peasants reasoned. And after Bright Week (the week following Easter), they began to sow.
Since everything depended on the land, on the harvest, sowing began with special rituals. For example, they threw into the first furrow the shell of eggs consecrated for Easter. Or they organized an impromptu religious procession through the surrounding fields - with icons, prayers and agricultural implements. Such is the synthesis of folk and church thinking.
And in the Orthodox calendar this day is called unusual - Antipascha. Hence the stereotype that is well established among unchurched people that this is a holiday of almost denial of the very fact of Christ's resurrection.
Part of the bias is based, paradoxically, in the gospel story. Its main character is the Apostle Thomas, popularly nicknamed the unbeliever.
On the first day of the resurrection, the Savior appeared to the disciples, who were "in great fear" in the upper room of Zion, dejected by His execution. At first they thought it was a ghost, but Christ "showed them His hands and feet and His ribs" - and the disciples "rejoiced to see the Lord."
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However, Thomas was not among the apostles for some reason. When other disciples told him that the Savior had risen from the dead, he considered it all fiction. And he presented them with an ultimatum: "If I do not see His wounds from the nails on my hands, and I do not put my finger in the wounds from the nails, and I do not put my hand in His ribs, I will not believe."
“After eight days, His disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came when the doors were closed, stood in their midst and said: Peace be with you! Then he says to Thomas: Bring your finger here and see my hands; give your hand and put it in my ribs; and don't be an unbeliever, but a believer. Thomas answered and said to him: My Lord and my God! - Evangelist John testifies.
Apostle Thomas.
In fact, Antipascha, like the Gospel event itself, remembered on this day, is not at all opposed to Easter. Many people just misunderstand the name.
“The Greek prefix“anti-”does not necessarily mean the opposite. In this case, the name suggests that this holiday is paired with Easter - that is, “congenial” to it,”explains the well-known church publicist Hieromonk Macarius (Markish).
According to him, Thomas himself, surprising as it may seem, is not reproached by Christ for doubts. Although there were episodes in the Gospel when, during his earthly life, He called the disciples little faith.
“Thus, the risen Savior appeared a second time - to convince Thomas. And this apostle is no worse than others. On the contrary, the Gospel episode, which is recalled on the first Sunday after Easter, shows that He loved him,”the priest emphasizes.
Three titles
Why is this holiday called not only Antipascha and St. Thomas's week (the word "week" in the church calendar means a Sunday dedicated to God, not deeds), but also Red Hill?
According to one of the versions - because of the folk tradition, to roll colored eggs down the hill that day. They put a wooden platform, put an egg on top - and it rolled. This symbolized the stone rolled away by the Angel from the tomb of the Savior during his resurrection.
The eggs themselves were painted only red 150 years ago. An ancient tradition is connected with this. One of the closest disciples of Christ, Mary Magdalene, preaching in Rome, got an audience with the Emperor Tiberius. When they met, she handed the emperor a simple white chicken egg and announced the resurrection of the Savior. In response, the ruler exclaimed that there could be no resurrection, just as it could not be that this egg suddenly turned red. And the egg turned red.
And the "slide" in Russia was the actual platform from which the eggs rolled. And he symbolized Mount Golgotha, where Christ was crucified.
* Children rolling Easter eggs *. Artist Nikolay Koshelev.
However, there is a version that the popular name of the holiday originates not from Christian tradition, but from pagan tradition. Before the Baptism of Rus, the Slavs celebrated Yarila Veshny in about mid-April - the day when all the snow and ice left over from winter began to melt rapidly.
Celebrated on the hill, whose peak was the first to get rid of the snow. Such a slide was called "red". According to one interpretation, it meant "beautiful", in another - "heated by the sun."
Day of "family happiness"
One way or another, this day from time immemorial has been one of the happiest of the year in Russia. In addition to rolling eggs, a lot of fun and rituals are associated with it - from the invocation of spring to "vernal smotrins", in which only girls participated. They chose the guy they liked, and then "called out" for themselves marital happiness with him. The words uttered by them, too, bizarrely combined popular conspiracies with Orthodox prayers:
“I close it with that golden key, a good fellow for many years, for long springs, forever eternal with a secret unbreakable spell. Amen!"
And those who have already found their other half got married on Krasnaya Gorka. Now this tradition is considered as a purely folk tradition, but it arose due to the peculiarities of the church charter.
“The sacrament of a wedding is not performed on continuous (non-fasting) weeks and on days of fasting. So, in churches they cease to marry, starting with Meat Week, and do not marry during the whole of Great Lent and on Bright Week. Fomino Sunday is the first day in nine weeks when this sacrament is allowed to be performed,”explains Father Macarius.
After Krasnaya Gorka, they are crowned on any day except Wednesday, Friday and the Feast of the Ascension, up to the day of the Holy Trinity (in 2020 - June 7). And then - again a break, for a solid week and Petrov fast, which lasts until July 12.
This year, however, everything is different. Due to the coronavirus epidemic and mass self-isolation, churches in more than half of Russia's regions are closed to parishioners. Therefore, the Russian Orthodox Church advised to postpone the wedding.
No extremes
It was on Krasnaya Gorka in Russia that they tried to get married for another reason. After the holiday, sowing begins - not before the festivities. And there, and May is not far off, but there is a popular belief: "Whoever gets married in May will suffer all his life."
However, the Church calls for a clear distinction between the prescriptions of the charter and popular superstitions. According to the canons, nothing prevents you from performing the sacrament of marriage in the days of May.
“If we talk in general about this holiday and its traditions, then there is a scale - from the statutory church requirements and ending with all kinds of superstitions and nonsense. And in this scale you need to see what to stick to: Christ, the Church and her dogmas,”emphasizes Father Macarius.
Customs by themselves, he adds, are just an addition. It is quite possible to observe them, the Church does not prohibit the same rolling of eggs. But if something overshadows faith - for example, when people turn to various conspiracies, spells and "invocations" - then it is better to refuse it.
“Customs can easily develop into all sorts of silly superstitions. Extremes should be avoided,”the hieromonk advises.