Exaltation of the cross of the Lord fast day. What is celebrated at the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord? History and traditions of the holiday - This day is considered fast & nbsp

Priest Andrey Chizhenko is answering.

On September 27, according to the new style, the Orthodox Church celebrates the great twelveth feast of the Exaltation of the Honorable and Of the Life-giving Cross Of the Lord.

This is the only one of the twelve holidays that is not directly related to the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Mother of God, since the acquisition and erection of the Cross of the Lord took place much later - already in the first half of the 4th century after the Nativity of Christ. But this holiday is one of the twelve feasts, since it, like the other eleven, is part of the Savior's Redemptive Feat. This holiday solely and indirectly glorifies the Main Instrument of our salvation - the Honest and Life-giving Cross of the Lord. Therefore, on September 27, a one-day strict fast is also laid, because we remember the Passion of Christ, and this anamnesis-remembrance brings the holiday closer to the days of Great Lent.

Yes, on this day we remember the Cross of Christ. However, the Lord calls us to take up our cross and follow it, spiritually ascend the cross, go through our personal Calvary to the resurrection. He seems to call every Christian to mysteriously and amazingly unite with His Cross and receive from Him healing from sins.

Let's remember the Holy Scriptures. The words of Christ Himself: "... whoever wants to follow Me, deny yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me" (Mark 8:34).
The Holy Chief Apostle Paul: “So we were buried with Him by baptism into death, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too should walk in a renewed life. For if we are united to Him in the likeness of His death, we must also be united in the likeness of the resurrection ”(Rom. 6: 4-5). And again: “But those who are Christ's crucified the flesh with passions and lusts. If we live in the spirit, we must also walk in the spirit ”(Gal. 5: 24-26).

So where does our cross begin? Where should we pick it up?

In Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, Prince Myshkin tells Aglaya Ivolgina that there is the main mind and not the main one, that is, there is a heavenly mind and an earthly mind. Spiritual mind and flesh mind.

Therefore, our first and foremost cross begins in a change of consciousness. The first cross begins in the mind. We must change the structure of our thoughts, subject them to the commandments of God. The teacher of the Church, St. Basil the Great, in his interpretation of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans (the above passage (Rom. 6: 4-5) writes: “First, it is necessary that the order of the previous life be suppressed ... (it speaks of the Sacrament of Baptism), there is the beginning of a new life. "

This change of consciousness is, in particular, the essence of repentance. Salvation is impossible without this cross. Why? Because the sin of our fallen human nature long ago turned into a kind of metastasis, a cancerous tumor that struck almost every part of our being - from soul to body. With little faith and a pagan, this sin has become, as it were, another nature, a person's personality, this notorious "ego" about which some modern schools of psychology tell us so much. Fulfilling the whims of the "ego", consisting of decades of sintered, compressed into an enormous thickness of an alloy of passions and sins, a person thinks that he is acting according to his desires. But this is far from the case. Because he is the image and likeness of God, heaped up with a heap of sinful rubbish. And his happiness lies in cleansing, in the healing of this image and likeness of God from sin. And if he continues to heap the dirt of passions on the icon of his soul, he will receive only dissatisfaction, anxiety and torment. Because man was created by God in such a way as to move eternally towards Him and in this eternal vertical ascending upward movement to acquire the bliss of communion with God, becoming the temple of the Living God, the abode of the Holy Spirit.

But for this, you first need to raise the cross, climb on it like on an operating table, and crucify on it your second nature, which has grown together with a living soul, crucify your "ego" - your flesh with passions and lusts.

This is where the first step towards God begins. This is where the salvation of the soul begins. This is what I would like to talk about on the great twelveth feast of the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord. May the Cross of the Lord be erected in the temples of our hearts, enlightening and revitalizing our inner being, voluntarily devoted to the fatherly hand of God.

Glory, Lord, to Thy Honest Cross!

Priest Andrey Chizhenko

World Exaltation of the Honest and Life-giving Cross of the Lord- one of the master's (from the Slavic " two ten"- twelve), that is, the largest, set in memory of how the Equal-to-the-Apostles queen Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, found the cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. This event, according to church tradition, took place in 326 in Jerusalem near Mount Golgotha ​​- the place of the crucifixion of Christ. Holiday Exaltation of the Holy Cross is intransitive, always marked September 27(September 14 old style). It has one forefeast day (26 September) and seven days after the feast (28 September to 4 October). Giving a holiday - The 4th of October... In addition, the Feast of the Exaltation is preceded by Saturday and the Week (Sunday), called Saturday and the Week before the Exaltation.

Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. History and event of the holiday

Day Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord- one of the oldest Orthodox holidays... It is performed in memory of two events from the history of the Lord's Cross: in memory of its acquisition in the 4th century and in memory of its return from the Persians in the 7th century. The Holy Cross of the Lord, shortly after the Savior was removed from it, was buried in the ground by the Jews along with the crosses of two robbers. This place was later built up with a pagan temple. The discovery of the Cross took place in 325 or 326. According to IV century church historians, the mother of the emperor Constantine Equal to the Apostles Helena, went to Jerosalim to find places associated with the events of the earthly life of Christ, as well as the Holy Cross. According to legend, Saint Helen tried to find out the place where the Cross was buried from the Hierosalim Jews. She was shown the place where the pagan temple of Venus was located. The building was destroyed and excavations began. Finally, they found three crosses, a tablet with the inscription “ Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews"And nails. To find out on which of the three crosses the Lord was crucified, they were attached one by one to a seriously ill woman. When she was healed after touching one of the crosses, all those gathered glorified God, who pointed to the greatest shrine of the true Cross of the Lord, which was raised by the bishop for all to see. Tradition also speaks of the miracle of the resurrection of a dead man who was carried to burial by touching the Cross.

St. Constantine and Elena. Theophanes of Crete. Fresco. Meteora (Nikolay Anapafsa). 1527 g.

When reverent worship of the Cross and kissing it began, due to the crowds, many could not only kiss the holy Cross, but even see it, therefore the Patriarch of Jerosalim Macarius showed the acquired Cross to the people. To do this, he stood on a dais and raised (" erected") Cross. People worshiped the Cross and prayed: “ Lord have mercy! The discovery of the Cross took place about, therefore, the initial celebration of the Cross was performed on the second day of Easter. After finding the Holy Cross, Emperor Constantine began building temples on Calvary. A large basilica was built directly near Calvary and the cave of the Holy Sepulcher Martyrium and rotunda Resurrection(Holy Sepulcher). Consecration took place on September 13, 335. Interestingly, the consecration of the temple also influenced the date of the holiday. The bishops who were present at these celebrations decided to celebrate the discovery and erection of the Lord's Cross on September 14, and not on May 3, as it was in previous years. So, from the biography of the saint John Chrysostom it can be seen that in his time in Constantinople the celebration of the erection of the Cross took place on September 14th. In 614, under the Persian king Khozroe, the Persians took possession of Jerusalem and, together with other treasures of the temple, stole the holy Cross of the Lord. The shrine remained in the hands of the pagans for 14 years, and only in 628, under the Greek emperor Heraclius, The cross was returned to Jerusalem. Celebration since the 7th century Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord became especially solemn.

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Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. Divine service

This holiday is both solemn and sad, it reminds not only of the greatness and triumph of the Lord's victory over death, but also of His suffering on the Cross. The main feature of the service on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is taking out the Cross from the altar at the end of the evening service for reverent worship... After the great doxology, the priest places the Cross on his head in the presentation of lamps, censing of incense and singing “ Holy god"Carries it out of the altar through the northern doors. Then, at the end of the singing, he proclaims: “ Forgive wisdom". The singers sing: “ Save, Lord, Your people". The priest places the holy Cross on a prepared lectern in the middle of the church and makes incense in front of it. After this, there is the worship of the Cross while singing by the clergy:

We worship Thy Cross, O Lord, and we glorify Thy Holy Resurrection.

The vesting of the clergy on the holiday Exaltation of the Cross sometimes dark, mourning, and women wear dark scarves. In memory of the Lord's sufferings on the cross, a fast is established on this day - food is supplied only with vegetable oil... The stichera of the holiday reveal the teaching about the meaning of Christ's suffering. The suffering of Jesus Christ killed the one who killed us, i.e. the devil, and revived the people who had been killed by sin; the poison of the ancient serpent was washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. The poems and the canon of the Exaltation were composed by famous creators of church chants - Theophan, Kozma other. They showed the connection of the New Testament events with the Old Testament events, indicating the types of the Cross of the Lord. So, in one of the stichera on the lithium, we hear:

P roњbrazu1z krt tv0y xrte, patriarch i3ya1kov, vnykwm the blessing of the gift, create on the heads of the premenen.

The stichera, which are sung during the worship of the Cross at the end of the evening service, are filled with a high spiritual mood:

When you come, faith, bow to the life-giving tree, but let us extend the words of your heart, and lift us up to the first bliss. When you come, people, glorious chyu6to see1dzsche krtA si1le bow1msz. D Nes vLka tvari, and 3 Ds slave, on which it is nailed, and 3 in8 ribs are pierced. bitterness and 3 not eats, the sweetness of cRk0vnaz. … And3 is heard with the thigh hand, and with the lower hand of the creation of the chl. There are no more non-touching creatures, I do touch. and 3 are afraid of the strt, freedom z mz t strtє1st.

In the paremias for the holiday Exaltation contains the following thoughts: the first couple (Ex. XV, 22-27; XVI, 1) tells how Moses, during the wandering of the Jews in the wilderness, healed a spring in which there was bitter water by putting a tree in it. This tree, which sweetened the bitter water, typified the power of the Cross of the Lord. In the second pair (Proverbs III, 11-18), a person is pleased who cares about acquiring the tree of wisdom, which is “ tree of life"For those who acquire it, our wisdom and our tree of life is the Cross of Christ. The third pair (Isaiah LX, 11-16) contains Isaiah's prophecy about the majesty and glory of the city of the Lord, holy Jerusalem, which the Lord will clothe with majesty forever and joy throughout generations and generations.

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The canon depicts the power of the Cross, revealed in the Old Testament prototypes of the cross (Moses, who raised his hands in a cross during the battle and thus prayed for victory; the tree that delighted the waters of Merrah, etc.), and in New Testament miracles - through the Cross of the Lord itself. The Apostle says (I Cor., I, 18-24) that the Cross, ie the suffering of Jesus Christ, represent God's power and God's Wisdom. The Gospel (John XIX, 6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35) contains the history of the suffering of Christ the Savior.

Troparion and kontakion for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Troparion to the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. Church Slavonic text:

With the help of 22 people, give yours, and 3 blessings2 your dignity, give victory to the power of the Russians to resist, and save 3 yours to save people.

Russian text:

Save, Lord, your people and bless us, Your property, giving our country victory over the resistance, enemies of His kingdom, and preserving our people by the power of Your Cross.

Kondak holiday. Church Slavonic text:

In the meaning of your life, the same name for your living u2. generous yours give hrte b9e. cheer up2 with the power of your countryYour, victories yesS є4th for the comparison, in order to and3replace yours, to the world of invincible victory.

Russian text:

Ascended to the Cross voluntarily, to the people of your name, grant Thy mercies, O Christ God; rejoice our country with the power of Thy, giving it victories over enemies, may it have help from You, the weapon of peace, an invincible victory.

Rite of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

In Russia rite of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross It has been known since the 13th century and is an integral part of the divine service on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. It has a long history. The earliest record of this order is preserved in the so-called Jerosalim cannon, dating from the time of its origin to 634-644 years. In different monuments we find variety in the descriptions of this rite: some describe how the rite is performed during the service of the Patriarch with a host of clergy, others - only a priest with a deacon. Saint Cyprian of Moscow in his letter from 1395 to the Novgorod clergy, he wrote that on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, the Cross should be erected in every church, even if there is even only one priest. In the old printed Moscow Typicon of 1641, an indication appeared that the Cross is erected only in cathedral churches and monasteries, and in ordinary parish churches for the Exaltation of the Cross there is only worship of the Cross, according to the rite of the Week of the Cross. This custom has survived to this day: rite of the Exaltation of the Cross occurs only in cathedral churches where the metropolitan or bishop serves.

The bishop, taking the Cross and standing to the east (to the altar), begins the first erection - raising the Cross up. In front of the Cross, at some distance, the deacon stands, holding a candle in his left hand, and a censer in his right, and proclaims: “ Have mercy on us, God". The singers sing a hundred times: “ Lord have mercy". At the beginning of the singing " Lord have mercy"The bishop overshadows the Cross three times to the east and, while singing the first half of the centurion, slowly bows his head with the Cross as much lower as he can," an inch off the ground". When singing the second half of the hundred, he slowly rises. When singing for the 97th time " Lord have mercy The bishop straightens up and, standing erect, again crosses to the east three times. The bishop makes the second erection, turning to the west, the third to the south, the fourth to the north, and the fifth to the east again. Singers at this time also sing: “ Lord have mercy! ". Then the worship of the Cross begins, during which the singers sing the usual stichera.

Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. Icons

In Byzantine art, the iconography of the holiday is based on Exaltation of the Holy Cross initially, it was not a real historical episode of the acquisition of the Cross that was laid, but the image of the rite of the Exaltation of the Cross, which was performed annually in the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Therefore, the Cross on icons was often depicted as an altarpiece. The first such images date back to the end of the 9th - beginning of the 11th century. This iconographic version was also used by Russian icon painters.

Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord

The most common plot icons of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross developed in Russian icon painting in the 15th – 16th centuries. The Cross of Christ is already depicted as monumental. In the center, on a high stepped dais, stands the Patriarch with the Cross raised above his head. Deacons support him under his arms. Sometimes the Cross is decorated with sprigs of plants. A large one-domed temple can be seen behind. Often in the foreground were depicted kneeling worshipers and a large number of people who came to worship the shrine. The figures of Tsar Constantine and Queen Helena are on either side of the Patriarch, with outstretched hands in prayer, or to the right.

Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. Folk traditions and beliefs in Russia

There is a holiday in Russia Exaltation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross of the Lord combined church and folk traditions... Since ancient times, there was a custom on the day of the Exaltation to erect chapels and small churches, as well as erect crosses on temples under construction. On the Feast of the Exaltation, they also put up roadside vow crosses in gratitude for getting rid of misfortune and pestilence. On this day, icons were also raised to go around the fields, with a prayer for the future harvest.

September 27 was also called third Osenins or Stavrov day... It was the final day of Indian summer, the third and last meeting of autumn. In Russia, the Exaltation was also called In motion or Displacement- words denoting movement, change of state. It was believed, for example, that on this day the bread from the field to the threshing floor "moved", since by the middle of September the harvesting of grain usually ended and threshing began. They also said that the Exaltation " pulls the zipun, pulls on the fur coat", Or that on the Exaltation" a caftan with a fur coat moved and a hat pulled down».

The Feast of the Exaltation was Lenten... It was believed that “ whoever fasts on the Exaltation, seven sins will be forgiven". Most often, on this day, they ate cabbage and dishes from it. " On the Exaltation at the good fellow's cabbage by the porch" or " Dare, woman, about cabbage - Exaltation has come", - said the people. Throughout Russia, the peasants believed that the day of the Exaltation was one of those on which no important and significant business should be started, since everything that was started on this day would either end in complete failure, or would be unsuccessful and useless.

However, judging by some popular beliefs, the peasants did not know at all what the true meaning and significance was. church holiday Exaltation of the honest and life-giving cross of the Lord. The people firmly believed that on the day of the Exaltation, under no circumstances should one go to the forest, since the evil spirits can beat, or even just send the peasant to the next world. According to the peasants, on the day of the Exaltation, all reptiles "move", that is, they crawl into one place, underground, to their mother, where they spend the whole winter, right up to the first spring thunder. On the feast of the Exaltation, the peasants carefully locked the gates, doors and gates for the whole day, for fear that the bastards would crawl into their yard by mistake and hide there under the manure, in straw and plank beds. However, the peasants believed that from September 27, that is, from the Exaltation, snakes did not bite, since every reptile that stung a person at that time would be severely punished: all autumn, until the first snow and even in the snow, it would crawl in vain, not finding places for themselves until the frosts kill her, or the man's pitchfork is pierced.

Temples in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Churches in honor of the Exaltation of the Honorable Cross have long been built in Russia. So, according to the evidence of the Suponevskaya Chronicle around 1283, the cathedral Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the city of Romanov-Borisoglebsk (present-day Tutaev) on the left bank of the river, " opposite the Borisoglebskaya settlement". According to legend, the first builder of the Kremlin was the Uglich prince, Roman Vladimirovich Saint(1261-1285). The Detinets has undergone many attacks in its history. The last siege of the Romanov Kremlin took place during the events of the 1612 war. One third of the townspeople died in battles and from epidemics, but the spirit of the people remained alive. In Soviet times, the building of the temple housed a local history museum, later - a warehouse. In 1992 the cathedral was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and since 2000 it has been a functioning temple.

Holy Cross Cathedral, Tutaev (Romanov-Borisoglebsk)

In 1640, at the beginning of a deep ravine on the left bank of the Moskva River, the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross was laid. A stone temple on the site of a wooden one was under construction for 18 years. The main throne was consecrated in 1658. Over the course of two centuries, the temple was constantly rebuilt; it acquired its present appearance in 1894-1895. In 1918, the temple began to be plundered. The authorities removed more than 400 poods of silver utensils from here. In 1930, the temple was closed, the dome and the bell tower were broken, and a dormitory was made in the premises of the temple. The mural was painted over, and when it began to show through the whitewash, it was knocked down. But 70% of the painting survived. By the end of 2000, after the return of the church to the Russian Orthodox Church and a long restoration, the building again assumed its former architectural appearance.

Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on Chistye Vrazhka. Moscow

Temple of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the city of Kolomna at the Pyatnitsky gates of the Kolomna Kremlin arose in the 15th century. In 1764, a two-tiered stone church with a bell tower was erected on the site of a wooden building. In 1832-1837. the church was radically rebuilt at the expense of the sisters Sharapovs... In the 1980s. the premises were used as a workshop and warehouse of the Kolomna Museum of Local Lore. In 1994 the temple was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Temple of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Kolomna Kremlin

In the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a monastery was consecrated in the town of Belyov, Tula region. The Women's Exaltation of the Cross Monastery was built in 1625. "According to a petition from about 1625, given to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich by a certain old lady Martha Palitsina, it was allowed for her to build a nunnery with a church in the name of the Honest and Life-giving Cross on the settlement." From the very beginning, there was only one church in the Belevskaya monastery - a wooden one, in the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This is evidenced by the inscriptions on the Gospel and the vessels that were donated to the monastery during the construction of the temple. There were also twelve wooden cells. At the very beginning of its existence, the monastery was very poor in means and, despite the material support of the tsar, felt the need even for candles, incense, church wine. By 1680, 38 sisters and abbess lived in the monastery, who received the royal salary. Having existed for one hundred and forty years after its foundation, the Holy Cross Convent was abolished in 1764. But the desolation of the monastery did not last long. In 1768, it was decided to renew the Holy Cross Convent. At the very beginning of the 19th century, in 1801, during a severe fire that raged in Belev, the buildings of the monastery were badly damaged. In 1869, the monastery church was re-erected, already made of stone, and had 5 side-chapels. On the first floor: in the center - in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, on the right - in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Three-handed", on the left - in the name of St. Nicholas. On the second floor: on the left - in the name of Andrew, Christ for the sake of the holy fool, on the right - in honor of the Tikhvin Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. At the beginning of the 20th century, the monastery was abolished and was in desolation for a long time. In the 1980s. In the 20th century, restoration work began, but ended quickly.

Exaltation of the Cross Belevsky Monastery

In the name of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, the temple of the Vvedensky Tolgsky Monastery in the village was consecrated. Tolga, Yaroslavl region. At present, the warm church in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is the earliest surviving stone building of the monastery. In 1838, the church underwent alterations: the windows were hewn, the vaults were raised, the internal pillars were removed, the upper sections of the temple were decorated with wall letters. In 1892, the Church of the Exaltation was painted entirely with oil paints.

Temple in the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of the Vvedensky Tolgsky monastery in the village. Tolga of the Yaroslavl region

In the name of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, a temple was consecrated in the village. Kurgomen, Vinogradovsky District, Arkhangelsk Region. The church was built in 1623. The Church of the Exaltation is interesting as one of the earliest wooden hip-roofed churches of the "octagon on a quadruple" type with two sidewalks (from the west and east) and a refectory. The church had a beautifully proportioned porch. The detached nine-pillar bell tower was built in 1605 and was one of the oldest buildings of this kind. The Church of the Exaltation of the Cross burned in 1919.

Temple of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the village. Kurgomen, Vinogradovsky District, Arkhangelsk Region. 1623 g.

In the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a temple was consecrated in the city of Starokonstantinov, Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine. The construction dates back to about 1570 and about 1570. Nearby there is a huge watchtower (XVI-XVII centuries). It adjoins the ruins of the Exaltation of the Cross Church and the Orthodox male monastery of the same name. Once the tower was part of the system of city fortifications. In 1852, a warm church was built in its first tier. And in Soviet times, local militiamen used this first tier as a shooting range.

Ruins of a temple in the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and a tower in the city of Starokonstantinov, Khmelnytsky region, Ukraine

In the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a temple was consecrated in the city of Drohobych, Lviv region of Ukraine. The church was built in 1613 and is considered an example of wooden architecture of the Ukrainian Renaissance. The temple was built at the expense of the owners of the salt industry in Drohobych and is located not far from the buildings of the old salt factory. Throughout its history, the church has experienced several fires, many alterations and reconstructions. At first it was a three-topped one-topped one, and later it was rebuilt into a two-topped church and was used for defensive purposes. A wooden bell tower was erected next to this temple in 1661, thus the church together with the bell tower forms a harmonious architectural ensemble.

Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Drohobych, Lviv region of Ukraine

In the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a temple was consecrated in the city of Lutsk, Volyn region of Ukraine. The temple was erected in 1619-1622 and had a pronounced defensive character. This is one of the earliest examples of the transformation of wooden architecture into stone, in particular, the traditional type of wooden three-frame three-domed temple. The three-part axial composition of the temple was emphasized by three domes. The porch looked like a defensive tower with a staircase leading to the vault. In 1803 the church was destroyed by fire. In 1888, a chapel was built on the site of the temple, and by 1890 the entire church was rebuilt, including the surviving ancient apse with a preserved 17th century reinforcing frieze with keeled niches.

Temple in the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the city of Lutsk, Volyn region of Ukraine

In the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a temple was consecrated in the city of Ternopil, Ternopil region of Ukraine. The temple was erected in 1570 or 1627. The first official mention of the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was found in the charter of Prince Constantine of Ostrog from 1570. Initially, the church did not have a high tower; on a stone slab installed above the entrance, the exact date of completion of the construction of this three-tiered belfry is carved - July 28, 1627. At the beginning of the 18th century, during the oppression of Orthodoxy on the territory of the Commonwealth, the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was closed and for quite a long time was used as a warehouse. And only in 1760 the revival of the church began. Later, a brick bell tower with a low decorative spire was built in the churchyard. In 1831, during a huge fire in the city, the roof of the temple completely burned down, but it was quickly restored. In the first half of the XX century, during the wars, the church was significantly destroyed and only in 1954-1959. overhauled.

Temple of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Ternopil, Ternopil region of Ukraine

Holy Cross Monastery in Moscow

Holy Cross Monastery in the annals it was first mentioned in 1547. It was located in Moscow, in the White City, on Vozdvizhenka Street (the street between Mokhovaya and Arbat Gate Square). Original name - Monastery of the Exaltation of the Holy Life-giving Cross of the Lord, on the Island.

Orthodox church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of the Exaltation of the Monastery. 1882 year

During the invasion of Napoleon, the monastery was plundered by the invaders. In 1814 it was abolished, and cathedral temple turned into a parish church. The Church of the Exaltation of the Cross was closed after 1929, and in 1934 it was demolished. A Metrostroy mine was built on the site of the church.

Old Believer churches in honor of the Feast of the Exaltation Odessa region (Ukraine). Sverdlovsk region.
Chapel of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Nevyansk

Also today is the patronal holiday for the Moscow Preobrazhenskaya community (Fedoseevsky consent). Like the Rogozhskaya community, the Preobrazhenskaya community arose in 1771 in connection with the plague epidemic, when a cemetery was founded behind the Kamer-Kollezhsky shaft and the permission of Catherine II was obtained to build churches. The merchant played a special role here Ilya Kovylin, who organized an almshouse and sponsored large-scale construction. And since Kovylin was a Fedoseevite, the Preobrazhenskaya community became the center of this denomination.

Holy Cross Church of Fedoseevsky Consent at the Transfiguration Cemetery

At the beginning of the 19th century, the community was divided into two parts - a male and a female courtyard. Each half was separated by a crenellated stone wall with hipped-roof towers. In fact, two monasteries appeared here. In 1811, in the women's courtyard, a church was built in the name of the Exaltation of the Honest Cross, in which the Fedoseevites pray to this day. This temple does not have an altar apse, since the Liturgy among the Old Believers of the Bezpopov consent is not currently being served.

Father Alexander Men about the Exaltation

Save, Lord, Thy people, bless Thy inheritance, giving victories to resisting and preserving Thy residence with Thy cross.

If the Nativity of the Mother of God is the threshold of the mystery of the Incarnation, then the Cross announces to us the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, he also stands at the beginning of the church year.

The sign of the cross from deep pre-Christian antiquity has been a symbol of the Divine and eternal life in many religions. But after Calvary, the abstract hieroglyph became a real sign of salvation.

With a speed incomprehensible to the pagans, the news of the "madness of the Cross" swept through the world; the Jews demanded signs, the Greeks - proofs, but in response they heard: "We preach Christ Crucified ...".

“We worship Thy Cross, Master,” the Church sings; - and we glorify Your holy Resurrection ... ”.

Through suffering to joy, through death to victory, through sacrificial dedication to fulfilling the Father's will - this is the path of the Redeemer of the world, such is the path of all who follow Him. "Whoever wants to follow Me, let him take up his cross and come for Me." It is not just hardship and suffering; by themselves, they may not be a "cross". “Taking up your cross” means “rejecting yourself”, conquering self-love, learning to live for others, learning courage, patience, and total devotion to Christ.

The hymns of the holiday speak of the Cross, which rises above the world as "the beauty of the Church", as "the faithful affirmation." He is a sign of God's love for man, a messenger of the coming transformation of nature. "Let the oak trees rejoice, having been sanctified to their nature, from Him, from the very beginning, they will be planted" (the canon of the Exaltation).

Already in the II century, Christians began to cross themselves with the sign of the cross. Even earlier, the first images of the cross appeared in the Church. These images predate the Crucifixes, the earliest of which are from around the 6th century.

Of all the types of Crucifixes, perhaps the most magnificent is the one that arose in Byzantium. Christ is depicted as "betraying the spirit." Head bowed, eyes closed. But the most wonderful thing is the hands. They are not lifeless. They are open like an embrace. There is peace and forgiveness in all the guise of the Crucified One. Already, as it were, a presentiment of victory over death ...

Holiday kontakion:

Ascended to the cross by the will, grant your generosity to your new habitation, Christ God, make us glad with your power, giving us victories for comparison, an aid to those who have you, the weapon of peace, an invincible victory.

The origin of the holiday is associated with the triumph of Christianity under Constantine the Great (IV century), who erected the Church of the Resurrection on the site of Golgotha ​​and the Holy Sepulcher. This place attracted Christian pilgrims from the first years of the Church's existence, but at the beginning of the 2nd century, Emperor Hadrian, hostile to both Judaism and Christianity, decided to destroy all traces of both religions that he disliked. He completely rebuilt Jerusalem, calling it Elijah, tore down the Hill of Calvary, covered the cave of St. Sepulcher and built a temple of Venus there.

When Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, he ordered to demolish the temple and begin excavations at the holy place. “They were filming layer by layer,” writes a contemporary of events, Eusebius, “suddenly in the depths of the earth, beyond any hope, there was an empty space, and then - an honest and all-holy sign of the salvific Resurrection”. It was the cave of the Holy Sepulcher. The emperor provided Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem with the means to build a temple over the cave.

After some time, Constantine's elderly mother, Helena, visited Palestine. Eusebius has no reports that she managed to find the true Cross of Christ. But in the second half of the 4th century, this relic was already honored in Jerusalem. St. Cyril testifies that parts of the Cross were sent throughout the empire. According to St. John Chrysostom, the sign by which they learned that it was the Cross of the Lord, was the inscription on it. At the beginning of the 5th century, Rufinus already definitely associated the find with the name of St. Helena, and the historian Sozomen, around 440, wrote down a legend about how the queen looked for the Cross and found it buried in the ground near Calvary. To verify its authenticity, a dead man was put on the shrine, and he came to life. After that, the patriarch "raised" the Cross over the praying crowd. The lack of information from Eusebius gave historians a reason to consider Sozomen's story a legend. But the fact that the Cross was actually found is not incredible. According to Jewish custom, the instruments of execution were placed in a mass grave along with the bodies of the crucified. Therefore, the Cross of Christ could be buried next to the robbers.

Be that as it may, veneration of the Cross has great general Christian significance. In honor of this shrine, the Feast of the Exaltation was established.

On the eve of it, during the All-night Vigil (after the Great Doxology), the priest brings the image of the Cross to the middle of the church. In cathedral churches there is a custom to "erect" it to the four cardinal directions while singing "Lord, have mercy."

Fasting was established on the day of the Exaltation.

The first commandment, God-given to humanity - about fasting. It was necessary for us in paradise, before the Fall, and it became all the more necessary after the expulsion from paradise. We must fast to fulfill God's commandment.

The book of the prophet Joel says: But even now the Lord says: turn to Me with all your heart in fasting, weeping and sobbing ... appoint a fast(Joel 2, 12-15).

God commands here that sinful people should fast if they want to receive His mercy. In the book of Tobit, the Angel Raphael says Tobias: A good deed is prayer with fasting and charity and justice ... It is better to do charity than to collect gold(Comrade 12: 8).

In the book of Judith it is written that Joachim, the great priest of the Lord, went around all the people of Israel and said that the Lord would hear their prayers if they abide in fasting and prayer.

In the book of the holy prophet Jonah, it is said that the king of Nineveh, having heard Ionino's prophecy about the destruction of the city, put on sackcloth and forbade the whole city to eat, so that not only people would fast, but that the cattle would not be given food for three days.

King David mentions in the psalms how he fasted himself: dressed in sackcloth, I wasted my soul with fasting(Ps. 34, 13); and in another psalm: My knees are exhausted from fasting(Psalm 108, 24). This is how the king fasted so that God would be merciful to him!

The Savior Himself fasted forty days and forty nights, leaving us an example, so that we follow in His footsteps(1 Pet. 2:21), so that we, according to our strength, keep the fast on the Holy Forty Day.

It is written in the Gospel of Matthew that Christ, having driven out a demon from a certain youth, said to the apostles: this kind is expelled only by prayer and fasting(Matthew 17:21).

The holy apostles also fasted, as it is said in Acts: As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said: Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then, after fasting and praying and laying their hands on them, they sent them away.(Acts 13: 2-3).

The Holy Apostle Paul in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, exhorting the faithful to all to show themselves as servants of God, mentions fasting between other godly deeds: in vigils, in posts(2 Cor. 6: 5), and then, recalling his exploits, he says: in labor and exhaustion, often in vigil, in hunger and thirst, often in fasting(2 Cor. 11:27).

“It is necessary for a Christian to fast,” writes the holy righteous John of Kronstadt, “in order to clarify the mind and excite and develop feelings, and move the will to good action. gluttony and drunkenness and everyday worries(Luke 21, 34), and through this we fall away from the Source of life - God and fall into corruption and vanity, perverting and defiling the image of God in ourselves. Gluttony and voluptuousness pin us to the ground and cut off, so to speak, the wings of the soul. And look what a high flight all the fasting and abstaining had! They soared like eagles in the sky; they, earthly ones, lived in mind and heart in heaven and heard unspeakable verbs there, and there they learned Divine wisdom. And how a person humiliates himself with gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness! He perverts his nature, created in the image of God, and becomes like dumb cattle, and even becomes worse than him. Oh, woe to us from our addictions, from our lawless habits! They prevent us from loving God and our neighbors and fulfilling the commandments of God; they root in us a criminal selfishness of the flesh, of which the end is eternal destruction. It is therefore necessary for a Christian to fast, because with the incarnation of the Son of God, human nature is spiritualized, deified, and we hasten to the Kingdom of Heaven, which not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit(Rom. 14:17); Food for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both(1 Cor. 6:13). Eating and drinking, that is, having an addiction to sensual pleasures, is characteristic only of paganism, which, not knowing spiritual, heavenly pleasures, supplies all life in the pleasure of the womb, in abundance of eating and drinking. That is why the Lord often denounces this pernicious passion in the Gospel ... Whoever rejects fasts forgets why the first people fell into sin (from intemperance) and what weapon against sin and the tempter the Savior pointed out to us when he was tempted in the wilderness (fasting forty days and nights) , he does not know or does not want to know that man falls away from God precisely through intemperance, as was the case with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and with Noah's contemporaries - for all sin in people occurs from intemperance; whoever rejects fasts, he takes away from himself and from others the weapon against the multi-passionate to his flesh and against the devil, who are strong against us, especially through our intemperance, he is not a warrior of Christ, for he throws down his weapon and voluntarily surrenders himself into captivity to his voluptuous and sin-loving flesh; he is finally blind and does not see the relationship between the causes and consequences of deeds. "

Thus, fasting serves for us a necessary means to our sanctification and union with God, a means to living participation in the life, suffering, death and glory of the God-man and His saints.

For a long time, Christians voluntarily deprived themselves of conveniences, pleasures, life comfort, contrasting this with fasting, bows, prayer vigils, standing, walking in holy places, pilgrimage to shrines. This has always been considered the best and living testimony of our Orthodox faith.

Some believe that in the current dire situation in Russia, when salaries are not paid for months, when many do not have money even for the cheapest food, fasting is not a topic of conversation. Let us recall the words of the Optina elders:

"If they do not want to fast voluntarily, they will fast involuntarily ..."

How to Fast for Children, Sick and Elderly People

Our book contains the rules of strict fasting specified in the Church Rule. But fasting is not a straitjacket. Elderly, sick people, children (up to 14 years old), as well as pregnant women are exempt from strict fasting. However, you should consult with the priest about the measures of indulgence.

Since ancient times, fasting rules have been binding primarily on healthy members of the Church. Children, the sick and the elderly, who cannot keep a perfect fast according to the Rule, are not deprived of the motherly mercy of the Church, acting in the loving spirit of its Master and Lord. Thus, the Church's Charter on keeping fasting in the first week of the Forty Day says: "Do not eat on Monday, nor do you eat on Tuesday. Those who are in power may fast to their heels. Tuesday. The old do likeness. "

In Canon 69, Sts. The apostles on the preservation of the Forty-days in general are decreed: "Whoever does not fast for fourty days, let him erupt, unless because of illness: the weak is forgiven for eating according to the power of eating oil and wine."

“Regarding fasting when there is no health,” writes St. Theophan the Recluse, “patience with illness and complacency during it replace fasting.

Weakening of fasting The Fathers of the Church advise to reward with inner feelings of contrition and the desire of the Lord.

How to spend your fasting time

The saints were in unceasing deeds of fasting and prayer, they constantly stood in spiritual guard behind themselves. But the Church only temporarily puts us, her feeble members, on this guard.

Just as a warrior, when he is on duty, does not eat or drink, vigilantly observing his fast, so on the days of the fasts appointed by the Church, we must give up excesses in food, drink and, in general, the pleasures of the flesh, vigilantly observing ourselves, guarding and cleansing ourselves from sin.

The Church Rite clearly depicts both the time of consumption and the quality of the lean food. Everything is strictly calculated in order to weaken in us the passionate movements of the flesh, excited by the abundant and sweet nourishment of the body; but so as not to completely relax our bodily nature, but, on the contrary, to make it easy, strong and capable of obeying the movements of the spirit and cheerfully fulfilling its demands. The time for daily eating on fast days, according to ancient custom, is set later than usual, mostly in the evening.

The Church's charter teaches what should be abstained from during fasting: "All piously fasting must strictly observe the regulations on the quality of food, that is, abstain in fasting from some brushes [that is, food, food], not as from bad things (so be it not) , but as from obscene fasting and forbidden to the Church. Brashna, which should be abstained from during fasting, are: meat, cheese, butter, milk, eggs, and sometimes fish, depending on the difference between holy fasts. "

There are five degrees of severity in fasting:

Complete abstinence from food;

Xerophagy;

Hot food without oil;

Hot food with oil (vegetable);

Tasting fish.

On the day of eating fish, hot food with vegetable oil is also allowed. V Orthodox calendars vegetable oil is commonly called oil. To observe on certain days a more strict degree of fasting than specified, you need to take a blessing from a priest.

True fasting is not an end, but a means - to humble your flesh and be cleansed from sins. A bodily fast without a spiritual fast does nothing for the salvation of the soul. Without prayer and repentance, without abstaining from passions and vices, eradicating evil deeds, forgiving offenses, abstaining from married life, excluding entertainment and entertainment, watching television, fasting becomes just a diet.

"Fasting, brethren, bodily, fasting and spiritually, let us resolve all union of unrighteousness," the Holy Church commands.

“During bodily fasting,” writes St. Basil the Great, “the womb fasts from food and drink; during spiritual fasting, the soul refrains from evil thoughts, deeds and words. A real fasting person abstains from anger, rage, anger and revenge. , foul language, idle talk, slander, condemnation, flattery, lies and all slanderous speech. In a word, a real fasting person is one who removes himself from all evil ... ".

“Body fasting alone cannot be sufficient for the perfection of the heart and purity of the body, if the fast of the soul is not combined with it,” writes the Monk John Cassian the Roman. “For the soul also has its own harmful food. Falls into voluptuousness. Backbiting is harmful food for the soul, and, moreover, pleasant. Anger is also its food, although it is not at all easy, for it often feeds it with unpleasant and poisonous food. Envy is the food of the soul, which corrupts it with poisonous juices, torments it, poor Vanity is its food, which delights the soul for a while, then devastates, deprives of all virtue, leaves it sterile, so that it not only destroys merit, but also incurs great punishment. , filling it with harmful juices, and then leaving it without heavenly Bread ... So, refraining from these passions during fasting as far as we have strength, we will have a useful bodily fast. flesh, combined with contrition of the spirit, will make a pleasant sacrifice to God and a worthy abode of holiness in the secrecy of a pure, beautified spirit. But if (hypocritically) fasting only bodily, we are entangled with the disastrous vices of the soul, then the exhaustion of the flesh will not do us any benefit in the desecration of the most precious part, that is, the soul, which could have been the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. For it is not so much the flesh as the pure heart that is the temple of God and the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, fasting according to the external person, together we must refrain from harmful food and according to the internal, which the holy apostle especially urges to keep clean for God in order to be worthy to receive the Guest - Christ. "

The essence of fasting is expressed in the following ecclesiastical chant: "Fasting from brushes, my soul, and not cleansing from passions, we are in vain consoled by non-eating: for if fasting does not bring you correction, then God will hate it as false, and will become like evil demons, never to eat. "

“This is the law of fasting,” writes St. Theophan the Recluse, “to abide in God with mind and heart with a detachment from everything, cutting off every pleasure for oneself, not only in the bodily, but also in the spiritual, doing everything for the glory of God and the good of others, carrying willingly and fasting labors and privations with love, in food, sleep, rest, in the comforts of mutual communication. "

What are the posts established by the Church

Some of the Orthodox fasts constantly occur on the same months and dates, others - on different dates, so Orthodox fasts are divided into temporary and non-transitory. Fasts can also be multi-day or one-day.

Long-term fasts, corresponding to the four seasons and established by the Church before the great holidays, four times a year call us to spiritual renewal for the glory of God, just as nature itself is renewed four times a year for the glory of God. Fasts spiritually prepare us to participate in the holy joy of the coming holidays.

The church has established two long-term transitory fasts - Velikiy and Petrov, the date of which is set depending on the date of Holy Resurrection (Easter), and two long-lasting fasts - Assumption (or Theotokos) - from August 1 to 14 (old style) - and Rozhdestvensky (or Filippov ) post - from November 15 to December 24 (old style).

One-day fasts established by the Church - fasting on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - September 14 (old style), fasting on the day of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist - August 29 (old style), fasting on the eve of the Epiphany - January 5 (old style) style).

In addition, Wednesday and Friday fasting is kept throughout the year.

How to fast on Wednesday and Friday

Fasting, kept by the Orthodox Church on Wednesday, is established in remembrance of the betrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ by Judas to suffering and death, and on Friday - in remembrance of His suffering and death.

St. Athanasius the Great said:

"By allowing food on Wednesday and Friday to eat, this man crucifies the Lord." "Those who do not fast on Wednesday and Friday sin a lot," said Venerable Seraphim Sarovskiy.

Fasting on Wednesday and Friday is just as important in the Orthodox Church as other fasts. She strictly commands us to observe these days of fasting and condemns those who willfully violate it. According to the 69th Apostolic Canon, "If anyone is a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or subdeacon, or reader, or singer, does not fast on Holy Forty before Easter, or on Wednesday, or on Friday, except for an obstacle from bodily weakness: let him be cast out . If the same is a layman: let him be excommunicated. "

But although the fast on Wednesday and Friday is compared to the fast of the Lent, it is less strict in Lent. Most of the Wednesday and Friday days of the year (if they do not fall on the days of large fasting), boiled vegetable food with oil is allowed.

In summer and autumn meat-eaters (periods between Petrov and Dormition posts and between Dormition and Christmas posts), Wednesday and Friday are the days of strict fasting. In winter and spring meat-eaters (from Christmas to Lent and from Easter to Trinity), the Charter allows fish on Wednesday and Friday. Fish on Wednesdays and Fridays is allowed, and when these days fall on the holidays of the Meeting of the Lord, the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Nativity of the Virgin, the Entry of the Virgin into the Temple, the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Nativity of John the Baptist, the Apostles Peter and Paul, the Apostle John the Theologian. If the holidays of the Nativity of Christ and the Epiphany of the Lord fall on Wednesday and Friday, then the fast on these days is canceled. On the evening (eve, Christmas Eve) of the Nativity of Christ (usually the day of strict fasting), which happened on Saturday or Sunday, vegetable food with vegetable oil is allowed.

Continuous weeks (a week is called a week - days from Monday to Sunday) mean the absence of fasting on Wednesday and Friday.

The Church established as an indulgence before a many-day fast or as a rest after it the following continuous weeks:

2. Publican and Pharisee - two weeks before Great Lent.

3. Cheese (Shrovetide) - the week before Lent (the whole week is allowed for eggs, fish and milk, but without meat).

4. Easter (Light) - the week after Easter.

5. Trinity - a week after Trinity (the week before Peter's Lent).

How to fast on the eve of the Epiphany

This one-day fast is called the same as the eve of the feast of the Nativity of Christ - Christmas Eve, or nomad. The pious expectation of consecrated water prompts the keeping of fasting on the eve of the Epiphany, before eating which Orthodox Christians, acting in accordance with the ancient sacred tradition and the Charter of the Church that approved this tradition, do not eat food, "until they are sanctified with water droplets and communion, that is, drinking."

On Christmas Eve, on the eve of the feast of Epiphany, when it is supposed to fast before eating holy water, the meal is prescribed, as on Christmas Eve, once, after the Divine Liturgy. At the meal, by the rule of the Church, it is decreed to eat with oil. "But cheese and those like it, and fish, are not daring to eat."

According to the Church Charter, on the days of Christmas Eves - Christmas and Epiphany - Orthodox Christians are prescribed to eat soy - a mixture of wheat grains, poppy seeds, walnut kernels, honey.

How to spend Shrovetide days

The last preparatory week for the Holy Forty-day is called cheese, and in common parlance - Shrovetide. This week, meat products are no longer consumed, but dairy, cheese food is prescribed. Preparing us for the feat of Great Lent, condescending to our weakness and flesh, the Church has established a cheese week, "so that we, led to strict abstinence from meat and abundance, do not grieve, but little by little slipping from pleasant dishes, take the reins of fasting."

On Wednesday and Friday of Cheese Week, the Church prescribes fasting until the evening, as in Great Lent, although in the evening you can eat the same food as on other Shrovetide days.

How to fast during Lent

Lent begins seven weeks before the feast of Holy Easter and consists in fact of the Forty Day and Holy Week. The Forty Day is set in remembrance of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth and in honor of the forty-day stay of the Savior Himself in a fasting deed in the wilderness, and Passion Week is dedicated to the remembrance of the last days of earthly life, suffering, death and burial of Jesus Christ.

The Orthodox Church, prescribing to preserve the entire Great Lent, from ancient times has established that the first and Holy Week should be held with special rigor.

In the first two days of the first week, the highest degree of fasting is established - on these days complete abstinence from food is prescribed.

On the other days of the Forty Day, except for Saturdays and Sundays, the Church has established a second degree of abstinence - vegetable food is taken once, without oil, in the evening. On Saturdays and Sundays, the third degree of fasting is permitted, that is, the use of cooked plant foods, with oil, and twice a day.

The last, lightest degree of abstinence, that is, eating fish, is allowed only on the feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos (if it does not fall on Passion Week) and on the day of Palm Sunday. On Lazarev Saturday, fish caviar is allowed.

On Holy Week, fasting of the second degree is prescribed - dry eating, and on Friday and Saturday - complete abstinence from food.

So, fasting on Holy Forty-day, according to the Church's rules, consists in abstaining not only from meat and dairy products, but even from fish and vegetable oil; consists in dry eating (that is, without oil), and during the first week - the first two days are prescribed to be spent without food at all. The Church Fathers severely denounced those who ate exquisite, though lean, food during fasting. “There are such guardians of the Forty-Year,” says Blessed Augustine, “who spend it more whimsically than piously. They seek new pleasures more than curb old flesh. With a rich and expensive selection of different fruits, they want to surpass the variety of the most delicious table. whose meat was cooked, they fear, and do not fear the lust of their belly and throat. "

How to fast on Petrov Lent

Peter's fast was established in honor of the holy apostles and in remembrance of the fact that the holy apostles, after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them, dispersed from Jerusalem to all countries, always being in the deed of fasting and prayer.

The Petrov fast is less strict than the Fast of the Forty-day. During Peter's Lent, the Church Charter prescribes three days every week - on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - to dry up (that is, take vegetable food without oil) at the ninth hour after Vespers.

On the rest of the days - on Tuesday, Thursday - vegetable food with oil is blessed. On Saturdays, Sundays, as well as on the days of the memory of the great saint or on the days of the temple feast, performed during this fast, fish is allowed.

How to fast on the Assumption Lent

The Assumption Fast was established in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos. The Mother of God, preparing to depart for eternal life, constantly fasted and prayed. Likewise, we, the weak and infirm (spiritually and physically), all the more should resort to fasting, turning to the Blessed Virgin for help in every need and prayer.

The Dormition Fast is not as strict as the Great, but more strict than Petrov and the Nativity Fast.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the Dormition Lent, the Church Charter prescribes to eat dry food, on Tuesday and Thursday - you can eat boiled vegetables, but without oil; oil is also permitted on Saturdays and Sundays.

Few people know that before the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, when grapes and apples are consecrated in churches, the Church obliges us to refrain from these fruits until they are blessed. According to legend from St. father, "if someone from the brethren to take down a bunch before the holiday, then let the prohibition for disobedience accept and not taste the bunch during the whole month of August." After these holidays, grapes, apples and other fruits of the new harvest are present at the meal, and especially on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

On the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, according to the Church Charter, fish is allowed at the meal.

How to fast on the day of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist

Reverenting the fasting, suffering and death of the Lord and His saints, the Church established a one-day fast on the day of the Beheading of John the Forerunner and the Baptist of the Lord, a great fasting man who ate acrida and wild honey in the desert.

In the Church's Rite it is written that "on that day it is worthy of us to be sad with lamentation, and not to have gluttony." Fasting on the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist should consist, according to the Charter of the Church, in abstaining not only from meat and dairy foods, but from fish, and, therefore, should consist "in a meal of oil, vegetables, or what God grants from such."

How to fast on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord

The life-giving Cross of the Lord reminds us of the voluntary, saving suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ for us. On this day, the Church, transferring our thoughts to the sad event on Calvary, instilling in us an active participation in the suffering and death of the Lord and Savior crucified for us, established a one-day fast that disposes us to repentance and testifies to our living participation in the sufferings and death of the Lord.

At the meal on the day of the Exaltation of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord, it is supposed to eat vegetables and vegetable oil. "Cheese and eggs and fish will not dare to touch," - is written in the Church Rule.

How to fast on the Nativity Fast

The Nativity Fast is established so that by the day of the Nativity of Christ we have purified ourselves by repentance, prayer and fasting, so that with a pure heart, soul and body we can reverently meet the Son of God who has appeared in the world and so that, in addition to the usual gifts and sacrifices, we can offer Him our pure heart and desire. follow His teachings.

The rules of abstinence prescribed by the Church during the Nativity Fast are just as strict as in St. Peter's Fast. It is clear that meat, butter, milk, eggs, and cheese are prohibited during fasting. In addition, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the Nativity Fast, the charter prohibits fish, wine and oil, and it is allowed to eat without oil (dry eating) only after Vespers. On the other days - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday - it is allowed to eat with vegetable oil. Fish during the Nativity Lent is allowed on Saturdays and Sundays and great holidays, for example, on the Feast of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos, on temple holidays and on the days of the great saints, if these days fall on Tuesday or Thursday. If the holidays fall on Wednesday or Friday, then only wine and oil are allowed to fast. From December 20 to December 24 (old style) the fast is intensified, and on these days, even on Saturday and Sunday, the fish are not blessed. This is especially important to remember, because with the introduction of the new calendar, it is on these days of strict fasting that the celebration of the civil New Year now falls.

The last day of the Nativity Fast is called Christmas Eve, because the Charter on this day is supposed to eat juicy. Eating is sympathetically accepted, apparently, in imitation of the fast of Daniel and three youths, remembered before the feast of the Nativity of Christ, who ate from the seeds of the earth so as not to be defiled from a pagan meal (Dan. 1, 8), and in accordance with the words of the Gospel, pronounced sometimes in eve of the holiday: The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which, although smaller than all seeds, but when it grows up, is larger than all grains and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and take refuge in its branches(Matthew 13, 31-36).

On Christmas Eve, Orthodox Christians maintain the pious custom of not eating anything until the first evening star, reminiscent of the appearance of a star in the east, announcing the birth of Jesus Christ.

How they used to fast in Orthodox Russia

Recipes for many lean dishes have come to us since the time of the Baptism of Rus. Some of the dishes are of Byzantine Greek origin, but now it is impossible to recognize Greek origin in these traditional lean dishes.

V Ancient Rus no cookbooks were recorded, no cookbooks, recipes were passed down from mother to daughter, from house to house, from generation to generation.

There were almost no changes in recipes and cooking technology, and in the fast days of the sixteenth century or even the end of the nineteenth century, they ate almost the same dishes that had been prepared since the time of the holy Prince Vladimir equal to the apostles. Only new vegetables were added: until the end of the seventeenth century, no other vegetables were known in Russia, except for cabbage, garlic, onions, cucumbers, radishes, and beets. The dishes were simple and not varied, although Russian tables were distinguished by a huge number of dishes. But these dishes were similar in almost everything to each other, differing only in small - what greens they sprinkled with, what kind of oil they dressed.

Cabbage soup, soup, pickle were very common.

Pies with porridge fillings were served with hot cabbage soup.

Pies were made yarn, that is, fried in oil, and hearth, baked.

On fast, non-fish days, pies were baked with mushrooms, poppy seeds, peas, juice, turnips, mushrooms, cabbage, raisins, and various berries.

On fast fish days, pies were baked with all sorts of fish, especially with whitefish, smelt, lodogas, with only fish milk or with a viziga, in hemp, poppy seed or nut oil; Finely chopped fish was mixed with porridge or with Saracen millet, which we now call rice.

They also made pancakes, pancakes, brushwood, jelly during fasting.

Pancakes were made from gritty flour, with peanut butter and served with molasses, sugar or honey. Oversized pancakes were called command pancakes, because they were brought to commanding people for commemoration.

Pancakes were made red and white: the first from buckwheat, the second from wheat flour.

Pancakes were not part of Shrovetide, as they are now; the symbol of Shrovetide was cheese pies and brushwood - stretched dough with butter.

They ate oatmeal or buckwheat porridge, millet porridge was rare.

Sturgeon and white fish caviar was a luxury; but pressed, sack, Armenian - irritating and wrinkled, of the lowest grade, was available to the poorest.

The caviar was seasoned with vinegar, pepper and chopped onions.

In addition to raw caviar, they ate caviar boiled in vinegar or poppy milk, and yarn: during the posts, Russians made caviar, or caviar pancakes, beat caviar for a long time, added granular flour, then steamed the dough.

On those fast days, when it was considered a sin to eat fish, they ate sour and boiled fresh cabbage, beets with lean oil and vinegar, pies with peas, with vegetable fillings, buckwheat and oatmeal porridge with vegetable oil, onions, oatmeal jelly, levashniki, pancakes with honey, loaves with mushrooms and millet, boiled and fried mushrooms, various pea dishes: broken peas, grated peas, pressed peas, pea cheese, that is, hard minced peas with lean butter, pea flour noodles, poppy milk cottage cheese, horseradish, radish.

They liked to mix spicy seasonings with all dishes, especially onions, garlic and saffron.

On the Wednesday of the first week of Great Lent in 1667, food was prepared for His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow: "Chet bread, daddy, sweet broth with millet and berries, with pepper and saffron, horseradish, croutons, cold stamped cabbage, cold zobanets peas, cranberry jelly with honey, grated porridge with poppy juice ".

On fast days, in the high society houses of Moscow or St. Petersburg, they served the same boiled cabbage, poured with vegetable oil; ate sour mushroom cabbage soup, as in any of the cities and houses of the Russian Empire.

During fasting in all restaurants, inns, even the best establishments on Nevsky Prospekt, the choice of dishes was no different from those that were eaten in monasteries. In one of the best taverns in St. Petersburg, "Stroganov", during Lent there was, of course, not only meat, but even fish, and visitors were offered mushrooms warmed with onions, shaky cabbage with mushrooms, mushrooms in dough, mushroom dumplings, cold mushrooms with horseradish, milk mushrooms with butter, heated with juice. In addition to mushrooms, the lunch card included crumpled, broken, strained peas, berry jelly, oatmeal, pea, with molasses, well-fed and almond milk. These days they drank tea with raisins and honey, brewed sbiten.

Over the centuries, the Russian Lenten table has hardly changed. Here is how Ivan Shmelev describes the first days of Great Lent at the beginning of the twentieth century in his novel The Summer of the Lord:

"They will cook compote, make potato cutlets with prunes and sear, peas, poppy bread with beautiful curls of sugar poppy, pink bagels," crosses "on the Krestopoklonnaya street ... frozen cranberries with sugar, jellied nuts, candied almonds, soaked peas, bagels and cakes, pitcher raisins, mountain ash marshmallows, lean sugar - lemon, raspberry, with oranges inside, halva ... And fried buckwheat porridge with onions, wash down with kvass! And lean pies with milk mushrooms, and buckwheat pancakes with onions on Saturdays ... and kutia with marmalade on the first Saturday, some kind of "kolivo"! And almond milk with white jelly, and cranberry jelly with vanilla, and ... a great kulebyaka for the Annunciation, with a vizig, with sturgeon! pieces of blue caviar, with pickled cucumbers ... and pickled apples on Sundays, and melted, sweet-sweet Ryazan ... and sinners, with hemp oil, with a crispy crust, with a warm emptiness inside! .. ".

Of course, not all of these dishes can be prepared in our time. But some can be easily prepared in our kitchen, from the available products.

The best recipes for old Russian cuisine of the post

Mushroom caviar

This caviar is prepared from dried or salted mushrooms, as well as from a mixture of them.

Wash and cook the dried mushrooms until tender, chill, finely chop or mince.

Salted mushrooms should be rinsed in cold water and chopped as well.

Fry finely chopped onions in vegetable oil, add mushrooms and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Three minutes before the end of stewing, add crushed garlic, vinegar, pepper, salt.

Put the prepared caviar on a plate with a slide and sprinkle with green onions.

Salted mushrooms - 70 g, dried - 20 g, vegetable oil - 15 g, onions - 10 g, green onions - 20 g, 3% vinegar - 5 g, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

Radish with oil

Grate the washed and peeled radish on a fine grater. Add salt, sugar, finely chopped onions, vegetable oil, vinegar. Stir everything well, let stand for a few minutes. Then put in a salad bowl with a slide, garnish with chopped herbs.

Radish - 100 g, onion - 20 g, vegetable oil - 5 g, salt, sugar, vinegar, herbs to taste.

Salted cucumber caviar

Chop the pickles finely, squeeze the juice from the resulting mass.

Fry finely chopped onions in vegetable oil, add chopped cucumbers and continue to fry over low heat for half an hour, then add tomato puree and fry everything together for another 15-20 minutes. Season the caviar with ground pepper a minute before cooking.

In the same way, you can cook salted tomato caviar.

Pickled cucumbers - 1 kg, onions - 200 g, tomato puree - 50 g, vegetable oil - 40 g, salt and pepper to taste.

Lean Pea Soup

In the evening, pour cold water over the peas and leave to swell and cook the noodles.

For noodles, half a glass of flour must be mixed well with three tablespoons of vegetable oil, add a spoonful of cold water, salt, leave the dough for an hour to swell. Cut thinly rolled and dried dough into strips, dry in the oven.

Cook the swollen peas, without draining, until half cooked, add the fried onions, diced potatoes, noodles, pepper, salt and cook until the potatoes and noodles are done.

Peas - 50 g, potatoes - 100 g, onions - 20 g, water - 300 g, oil for frying onions - 10 g, parsley, salt, pepper to taste.

Russian lean soup

Boil the pearl barley, add fresh cabbage, cut into small squares, diced potatoes and roots, into the broth and cook until fine. In summer, you can add fresh tomatoes, cut into slices, which are laid along with the potatoes.

When serving, sprinkle with parsley or dill. Potatoes, cabbage - 100 g each, onion - 20 g, carrots - 20 g, pearl barley - 20 g, dill, salt to taste.

Rassolnik

Chop the peeled and washed parsley, celery, onion into strips, fry all together in oil.

Cut the skin off the pickles and cook separately in two liters of water. This is pickle broth.

Cut the peeled cucumbers lengthwise into four parts, remove the seeds, finely chop the pulp of the cucumbers.

Simmer the cucumbers in a small saucepan. To do this, put cucumbers in a saucepan, pour in half a glass of broth, cook over low heat until the cucumbers are completely softened.

Cut potatoes into cubes, chop fresh cabbage.

Cook the potatoes in a boiling broth, then place the cabbage, when the cabbage and potatoes are done, add the browned vegetables and stewed cucumbers.

5 minutes before the end of cooking, the pickle should be salted, pepper, bay leaf and other spices to taste.

A minute before readiness, cucumber pickle is poured into the pickle.

200 g fresh cabbage, 3-4 medium potatoes, 1 carrot, 2-3 parsley roots, 1 celery root, 1 onion, 2 medium-sized cucumbers, 2 tablespoons of oil, half a glass of cucumber pickle, 2 liters of water, salt, pepper, bay leaf to taste.

Pickle can be prepared with fresh or dried mushrooms, with cereals (wheat, pearl barley, oatmeal). In this case, these products must be added to the specified recipe.

Festive hodgepodge (on fish days)

Prepare a quart of very strong stock from any fish. Fry finely chopped onions in a saucepan in oil.

Dust the onion gently with flour, stir, fry until the flour turns golden brown. Then pour the fish broth and cucumber pickle into a saucepan, mix well and bring to a boil.

Chop mushrooms, capers, remove pits from olives, add all this to broth, bring to a boil.

Cut the fish into pieces, scald with boiling water, simmer in a pan with butter, tomato puree and peeled cucumbers.

Add fish and cucumbers to a saucepan and cook the hodgepodge over low heat until fish is tender. Add bay leaf and spices three minutes before cooking.

A properly prepared hodgepodge has a light, slightly reddish broth, a pungent taste, the smell of fish and spices.

When serving on the table, put a piece of each type of fish in plates, pour over with broth, add a mug of lemon, dill or parsley, olives.

Pies with fish can be served to the hodgepodge.

100 g fresh salmon, 100 g fresh pike perch, 100 g fresh (or salted) sturgeon, a small can of olives, two teaspoons of tomato puree, 3 white pickled mushrooms, 2 pickled cucumbers, an onion, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, a tablespoon of flour , a quarter of a lemon, a dozen olives, half a glass of cucumber pickle, a tablespoon of capers, black peppercorns, bay leaves, salt to taste, a bunch of dill or parsley, 2 cups of lemon.

Sour daily mushroom cabbage soup

Cook dry mushrooms and roots. Finely chop the mushrooms removed from the broth. Mushrooms and broth are needed for cooking cabbage soup.

Simmer squeezed sauerkraut with a glass of water and two tablespoons of tomato paste over low heat for one and a half to two hours. The cabbage should be very soft.

10 - 15 minutes before the end of stewing the cabbage, add the roots and onions fried in butter, and about five minutes before cooking add the fried flour.

Place the cabbage in a saucepan, add the chopped mushrooms, broth and cook for about forty minutes until tender. You cannot salt cabbage soup from sauerkraut - you can ruin the dish. The longer it boils, the tastier the cabbage soup. Previously, such cabbage soup was put in a hot oven for a day, and at night they were exposed to frost.

In the prepared cabbage soup, add two cloves of garlic, ground with salt.

You can also serve kulebyaka with fried buckwheat porridge with the cabbage soup.

You can add potatoes or cereals to the cabbage soup. To do this, cut three potatoes into cubes, separately steam two tablespoons of pearl barley or millet groats until half cooked. Potatoes and cereals should be placed in boiling mushroom broth twenty minutes earlier than stewed cabbage.

Sauerkraut - 200 g, dried mushrooms - 20 g, carrots - 20 g, tomato puree - 20 g, flour - 10 g, oil - 20 g, bay leaf, pepper, herbs, salt to taste.

Mushroom soup with buckwheat

Boil diced potatoes, add buckwheat, soaked dried mushrooms, fried onions, salt. Cook until tender.

Sprinkle the prepared soup with herbs.

Potatoes - 100 g, buckwheat - 30 g, mushrooms - 10 g, onions - 20 g, oil - 15 g, parsley, salt, pepper to taste.

Lean sauerkraut

Mix chopped sauerkraut with grated onion. Add stale bread, also grated. Stir well, pour with oil, dilute with kvass to the density you need. Add pepper and salt to the finished dish.

Sauerkraut - 30 g, bread - 10 g, onions - 20 g, kvass - 150 g, vegetable oil, pepper, salt to taste.

Potato cutlets with prunes

Make mashed potatoes from 400 grams of boiled potatoes, salt, add half a glass of vegetable oil, half a glass of warm water and enough flour to make a not steep dough.

Let it stand for about twenty minutes so that the flour swells, at this time prepare the prunes - peel it, pour boiling water over it.

Roll out the dough, cut into mugs with a glass, put prunes in the middle of each, form cutlets by pinching the dough in the form of pies, roll each cutlet in bread crumbs and fry in a pan in a large amount of vegetable oil.

Loose buckwheat porridge

Fry a glass of buckwheat in a frying pan until it is lightly browned.

Pour exactly two glasses of water into a saucepan (it is better to use a cauldron with a convex bottom) with a tight lid, add salt and put on fire.

When the water boils, add hot buckwheat into it, cover with a lid. The lid must not be removed until the porridge is completely cooked.

The porridge should be cooked for 15 minutes, first over high, then over medium and at the end - over low heat.

The finished porridge should be seasoned with finely chopped onions fried in butter until golden brown and dried mushrooms, pre-processed.

This porridge can be served as an independent dish, or it can be used as a filling for pies.

Lean Pie Dough

Knead a dough of half a kilogram of flour, two glasses of water and 25-30 g of yeast.

When the dough rises, add salt, sugar, three tablespoons of vegetable oil, another half a kilogram of flour to it and beat the dough until it stops sticking to your hands.

Then put the dough in the same saucepan where the dough was prepared and let it rise again.

After that, the dough is ready for further work.

Buckwheat shangi

Roll out the lean dough cakes, put buckwheat porridge cooked with onions and mushrooms in the middle of each, fold the edges of the cake.

After placing the prepared shangs on a greased dish, bake them in the oven.

The same shangi can be prepared with fried onions, potatoes, crushed garlic and fried onions.

Buckwheat pancakes, "sinners"

In the evening, pour three cups of buckwheat flour with three cups of boiling water, stir well and leave for an hour. If you do not have buckwheat flour, you can make it yourself by grinding buckwheat in a coffee grinder.

When the dough has cooled, dilute it with a glass of boiling water. When the dough is lukewarm, add 25 g of yeast dissolved in half a glass of water.

In the morning, add the rest of the flour, salt dissolved in water to the dough and knead the dough until thick sour cream, put it in a warm place and bake in a pan when the dough rises again.

These pancakes are especially good with onion baked goods.

Pancakes with baked goods (with mushrooms, onions)

Prepare a dough of 300 g flour, a glass of water, 20 g yeast and put it in a warm place.

When the dough comes up, pour in another glass of warm water, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, salt, sugar, the rest of the flour and mix everything thoroughly.

Soak the washed dried mushrooms for three hours, boil until tender, cut into small pieces, fry, add chopped and lightly fried green or onions, cut into rings. After spreading the solders in a frying pan, fill them with dough, fry like ordinary pancakes.

Pies with mushrooms

Dissolve the yeast in one and a half glasses of warm water, add two hundred grams of flour, stir and put the dough in a warm place for 2-3 hours.

Grind 100 grams of vegetable oil with 100 grams of sugar, pour into the dough, mix, add 250 grams of flour, leave for an hour and a half to ferment.

Soak 100 grams of washed dried mushrooms for two hours, boil them until tender and pass through a meat grinder. Fry three finely chopped onions in a skillet in vegetable oil. When the onion turns golden brown, add the finely chopped mushrooms, salt, and fry for a few more minutes.

From the finished dough, form into balls and let them come up. Then roll the balls into tortillas, put the mushroom mass in the middle of each, make pies, let them come up for half an hour on a greased baking sheet, then gently grease the surface of the pies with sweet strong tea and bake in a heated oven for 30-40 minutes.

Place the finished pies in a deep plate and cover with a towel.

Onion

Prepare a lean yeast dough like for a pie. When the dough rises, roll it into thin flat cakes. Chop the onions and fry them until golden brown in vegetable oil.

At the bottom of a stewpan or a greased dish, put a thin tortilla, cover with onions, then again the tortilla and a layer of onions. So you need to lay 6 layers. The top layer should be made of dough.

Bake the onion in a well-preheated oven. Serve hot.

Pies

400 g of flour, 3 tablespoons of oil, 25 - 30 g of yeast, 300 g of pike, 300 g of salmon, 2-3 pinches of ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon of crushed crackers, salt to taste.

Knead the lean dough, let it rise twice. Roll the dough that has risen a second time into a thin sheet and cut out circles from it with a glass or a cup.

Put minced pike meat on each circle, and on it - a thin piece of salmon. You can use minced sea bass, cod, catfish (except for sea fish), pike perch, carp.

Pinch the ends of the patties so that the middle remains open.

Place the pies on a greased baking sheet and let sit for 15 minutes.

Brush each pie with strong sweet tea and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.

Pies should be baked in a well-preheated oven.

The hole in the top of the pie is left so that fish broth can be poured into it during lunch.

Pies are served with fish soup or fish soup.

On days when the fish is not blessed, you can make pies with mushrooms and rice.

For minced meat you will need 200 g of dried mushrooms, 1 head of onion, 2-3 tablespoons of oil, 100 g of rice, salt, ground black pepper.

Pass the boiled mushrooms through the Meat Grinder or chop. Fry finely chopped onions together with mushrooms for 7 minutes. Cool fried mushrooms with onions, mix with boiled crumbly rice, salt, sprinkle with pepper.

Rybnik

500 g of fish fillet, 1 onion, 2-3 potatoes, 2-3 tablespoons of oil, salt, pepper to taste.

Make a lean dough, roll it into two flat cakes.

The cake that will be used for the bottom layer of the cake should be slightly thinner than the top one.

Place the rolled tortilla on a greased baking dish and place a layer of thinly sliced ​​raw potatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper on the tortilla. large pieces of fish fillet, on top - thinly sliced ​​raw onions.

Pour oil over everything and cover with a second flatbread. Connect the edges of the cakes and fold them down.

Place the finished fishmonger in a warm place for twenty minutes; before putting the fishmonger in the oven, pierce on top in several places. Bake in an oven preheated to 200-220 ° C.

Pie with cabbage and fish

Roll the lean dough into the shape of the cake to be.

Lay a layer of cabbage evenly, then a layer of chopped fish on top of it and again a layer of cabbage.

Pinch the edges of the pie and bake the pie in the oven.

Potato fritters

Grate peeled raw potatoes, salt, let the juice appear, then add a little water and enough flour to make a pancake-like dough.

Spoon the finished dough into a hot frying pan greased with vegetable oil and fry on both sides.

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According to the church calendar, believers celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation on September 27. On this day, the Orthodox remember the discovery of the Cross of the Lord. In Russia, on this day, they fasted and prepared cabbage dishes. About other traditions of the Exaltation - in the material "360".

History of the Exaltation

The full name of the holiday is the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord. The Church celebrates the discovery of the Cross on September 27. It happened in the 4th century in Jerusalem. According to legend, the cross was found by the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great - Queen Elena. She ordered to begin excavations. They led to the cave of the Holy Sepulcher, near which there were three crosses. Christ was crucified on one of them. Having touched him, the sick woman was immediately healed.

In Russia, the name of the holiday was reflected in sayings. The day was also called Move or Move. These words reflect a change of state or some kind of movement. “The Shift has come - the caftan with the fur coat has moved,” said the people. This meant that cold weather was approaching, but summer and autumn were in the past.

Traditions September 27

The main festive events took place on September 27 in churches. After returning from the temple, the peasants took up their usual business.

On this day, the peasants fasted. “Whoever fasts on the Exaltation, to him seven sins will be forgiven,” the grown-up children taught. In Russia, they preferred to eat cabbage and dishes from it. “Dare, woman, about the cabbage - the Exaltation has come,” people said. Three days before the holiday, the heads of cabbage had to be removed from the garden. After that, the women harvested cabbage for the winter for several weeks.

Photo source: Pixabay

The work went on merrily and quickly. The peasant women gathered for cabbage evenings. They managed not only to work on blanks, but also to tell each other stories and jokes. In Russia, they believed that if a girl, getting ready for a gathering, reads a special conspiracy seven times, then the guy she liked would love her.

What was forbidden to do on the Exaltation

On this day, September 27, it was impossible to start anything new and important. Otherwise, everything went to pieces. They also advised against going to the forest. The ancestors believed that at this time the bear makes a den for himself, and the goblin examines his kingdom. The snakes were also preparing for the winter. They hid under rotten stumps and lay there motionless. It was believed that if a snake stings someone on Exaltation, then later it will not be able to hide from the frost.

Exaltation weather

Photo source: Pixabay

At the end of September, the first frosts already came. But they weren't scary. “Vozdvizhenskie zazimki does not matter, the Pokrov-Father will say something (the Pokrov holiday is celebrated on October 14 - editor's note),” the people said.

They believed that if the cranes slowly, but fly high and at the same time chirp, the autumn will be warm. It was also considered a good omen to see the rising moon with a reddish hoop. This meant that the weather would be dry and clear. But if the west wind blows for several days, the cold is not far off.

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