Epiphany Christmas Eve January 18 - the eve of the feast of the Epiphany (Epiphany), in 2019 falls on Friday. It has its own well-established traditions and characteristics. What is Epiphany Christmas Eve, when is it installed and how is it celebrated, when and where you can dip.
Christmas and the Baptism of the Lord used to be celebrated on the same day, which was preceded by special preparation. Later, the events of the celebration of the events of Christmas and Epiphany began to be separated from each other for the time of Christmastide, so there were two Christmas Eves - before Christmas and before Epiphany.
Epiphany Eve Feast
Epiphany Eve is so named because of the tradition of eating "sochivo" - a special lean dish made of cereals and dried fruits, flavored with honey. Epiphany Christmas Eve is always a fast day. Moreover, until the time of the consecration of water, approximately until midday, it is not customary to eat at all. After that, they eat first juicy and later lean food, vegetable oil is allowed. From the day of Epiphany Christmas Eve, the usual sequence of fasting days in the week begins, since there was no fast on Wednesdays and Fridays during the Christmas time.
Features of the divine service on Epiphany Christmas Eve
In the Church, this day is called the Eve of the Epiphany or the Eve of the Epiphany. The worship of this day refers to those that are performed only a few times a year. Services like this take place only on Christmas Eve, Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday. A special feature is that at Vespers they read paremias - excerpts from Old Testament books.
Promotional video:
On the eve of the Baptism of the Lord, on Christmas Eve, there are no riotous celebrations, but we must try to attend a service in the church that day. All services of this cycle, which begins with Christmas Eve and ends with the Baptism of the Lord, are special and very beautiful.
First Great Blessing of Water
On the morning of January 18, after the Liturgy on Christmas Eve, the Great Blessing of Water takes place for the first time. On Christmas Eve and on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the water is consecrated in one, the Great Rite, and the water is exactly the same - the great Agiasma. In many places, water is blessed not only in fonts and prepared containers, but also in open water sources. Already on Epiphany Christmas Eve, you can come to the temple for Holy water. You need to know that the water collected on Christmas Eve and on the feast of the Epiphany itself is absolutely the same. Therefore, it is not necessary to go to the temple for water for two days, it is enough to collect water once.
Folk traditions of Epiphany Christmas Eve
It is believed that on this day all the water is mysteriously consecrated, therefore, according to ancient tradition, on the night of January 18-19, Orthodox Christians begin to plunge into Jordan - special ice-holes cut in the shape of a cross. But they plunge not only in consecrated springs, but in any open springs, and even simply douse themselves with plain tap water, since the very nature of water is considered sanctified.
They try to submerge or dive three times, headlong, proclaiming before this "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" and crossing themselves. The believers had a special attitude towards the border of January 18 and 19 - it was at midnight that they tried to be at the source, they believed that it was at this moment that Christ plunged into it and disturbed the water. During this "indignation" they tried to take more water with one scoop.
Since olden times, the Epiphany water in Russia was sprinkled on residential houses and all outbuildings - barns, cellars and beekeepers. At the same time, it was customary to draw crosses on the doors with chalk. In some places, the Latin letters GMB (Gaspar, Melchior, Belshazzar) were written on the doors.
