In the third week (in church calendar Sunday is called a week) after Easter, our Church glorifies the feat of the holy myrrh-bearing women: Mary Magdalene, Mary Cleopova, Salome, Joanna, Martha and Mary, Susanna and others.
These are the same women who witnessed death on the cross The Savior, who saw how the sun went dark, the earth shook, stones crumbled, and many righteous people rose from the dead when Jesus Christ was crucified and died on the cross. These are the very women whose homes the Divine Teacher visited for their love for Him, who followed Him to Golgotha and did not depart from the cross, despite the malice of the scribes and elders of the Jews, and the brutality of the soldiers. These are the same women who, loving Christ with pure, holy love, decided to go dark to the Holy Sepulcher, overcoming the horror by the grace of God that made the apostles flee in fear, hide behind closed doors, and forget about their student duty.
Weak, fearful women, by a miracle of faith, before our eyes grow into evangelizing wives, giving us an image of courageous and selfless service to God. It was to these women that the Lord first appeared, and then to Peter and the other disciples. Before anyone, before any of the men in the world, they learned about the Resurrection. And having learned, they became the first and strong preachers, began to serve Him already in a new, higher - apostolic calling, they bore the news of the Resurrection of Christ. Well, aren't SUCH women worthy of our memory, admiration and imitation?
Why do all the evangelists pay so much attention to the coming of the myrrh-bearing women to the Holy Sepulcher, and two of them add a story about how Mary Magdalene was chosen to be the first to see the Risen One? After all, Christ did not choose these women and did not call them to follow Him, like the apostles and 70 disciples? They themselves followed Him as their Savior and the Son of God, despite His apparent poverty, simplicity, and the obvious hostility of the high priests towards Him.
Imagine what these women had to experience, standing at the Cross of the Savior and seeing all the shame, horror and, finally, the death of their beloved Teacher?! When the Son of God gave up his spirit, they hurried home to prepare spices and myrrh, while Mary Magdalene and Mary Josiah watched where the body of Jesus was laid in the tomb. They left only after the onset total darkness to come again to the tomb before dawn.
“And now, more disciples – apostles! – remained at a loss, Peter himself wept bitterly over his denial, but the women were already hastening to the tomb of the Teacher. Is fidelity not the highest Christian virtue? When the word "Christians" was not yet used, they were called - "faithful." Liturgy of the Faithful. One of the illustrious ascetic fathers told his monks that in end times there will be saints, and their glory will surpass the glory of all who were before, because then there will be no miracles and signs, but they will remain faithful. How many feats of fidelity have been accomplished by good Christian women over the centuries of the history of the Church!” - writes historian Vladimir Makhnach.
Sin came into the world with a woman. She was the first to be tempted and tempted her husband to fall away from the will of God. But the Savior was born from the Virgin. He had a Mother. To the remark of the iconoclast king Theophilus: “Much evil came into the world from women,” nun Kassia, the future creator of the canon of Great Saturday “By the Wave of the Sea,” replied weightily: “The highest good also came through a woman.”
The path of the myrrh-bearing women was neither mysterious nor complicated, but quite simple and understandable to each of us. These women, so different in life, served and helped their beloved Teacher in everything, took care of His needs, facilitated His way of the Cross, sympathized with all His trials and torments. We remember how Mary, sitting at the feet of the Savior, listened with her whole being to His teaching about eternal life. And another Mary - Magdalene, anointing the Teacher's feet with precious ointment and wiping them with her long, wonderful hair, and how she wept on the way to Golgotha, and then ran at the dawn of the day of resurrection to the tomb of the tortured Jesus. And all of them, frightened by the disappearance of Christ from the tomb, weeping in inexpressible despair and struck by the appearance of the Crucified on the way, when they were in a hurry to announce to the apostles what had happened.
Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov) drew the attention of Soviet women: “They are all the more dear to us and close to our hearts because they were the same ordinary people, like us, with all human weaknesses and shortcomings, but out of boundless love for Christ, they were completely reborn, changed morally, achieved righteousness and justified on themselves every word of the teaching of the Son of God. By this rebirth, the holy myrrh-bearing women irrefutably proved to all the followers of Christ that the same saving rebirth is not only possible for them, but also obligatory on condition of their sincerity, and that it is accomplished by the grace-filled power of the gospel denunciation, admonishment, strengthening, inspiration or inducement to spiritual exploits. and the ascetics acquire the Kingdom of God, which is truth, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
They attained sincerity through their love for Christ, and by perfect repentance they got rid of and were healed of their passions. And forever they will serve the entire Christian world as an example of strong and living love, Christian women's care for a person, an example of repentance!
For many centuries we had an Orthodox folk women's holiday, kind, bright, associated with the most important event in human history, the Resurrection of Christ - the week of holy myrrh-bearing women. Genuine International Women's Day. It is very important to revive it, because the calendar is the most precious asset of our culture. “Through the calendar, the cult influences culture, determines our life, the life of our country,” writes Vladimir Makhnach. - From the order of worship, from liturgical texts - to folk customs to the upbringing of children, to the moral health of society. And we, of course, should preserve everything that is left of our calendar, and gradually restore what is lost, stolen, perverted ... Our state, of course, is secular, but the country is Orthodox. And the state exists to serve the society, the nation.”
In the meantime, let's congratulate all good Orthodox women on the day of the holy myrrh-bearing women. And celebrate. And rejoice. This year, the 3rd week of Easter (that is, the third Sunday) falls on May 7th.
Men are more philosophical
And they doubt with Foma.
And the Myrrhbearers are silent,
Christ's feet sprinkled with tears.
The men are scared of the soldiers
Hiding from the fury of malice,
And Wives boldly with fragrances
A little light hurry to the coffin.
A.A. Solodovnikov
For anyone Orthodox Christian Easter is perhaps the most important religious holiday of the year. There is a simple explanation for this: on the indicated day - and each time it falls out differently, but it certainly happens in the spring - he rose from dead son God, whom the atheists crucified on the cross, betraying humiliation and torment.
It is noteworthy that another Orthodox celebration is closely connected with Easter, which is no longer dedicated to the Creator, but ordinary people, moreover, to women who showed themselves fearlessly and faithfully in relation to Jesus. In 2019, this date falls on May 12. Who were the myrrh-bearing women and why a separate holiday is dedicated to them, read in this article.
History reference
As we know from the Bible, the body of Jesus, who died as a result of his suffering, was anointed with fragrant oils, and this was done by two pious men: Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. They performed this ritual just before the burial. When Christ was already lying in the tomb, several women decided to go into the cave, which served him as a tomb for the time being. The goal of Christian women was similar to that pursued by the representatives of the stronger sex mentioned above: to anoint the body of the Teacher with fragrant oils. Such was the rite among the Jews, and it was carried out according to tradition on the first day after the Sabbath. The women did not change their customs and set off on Sunday. Now it should be clear why they were called myrrh-bearing women.
On the way, the Christian women discussed the important question at that time: “who will roll away the stone from the tomb.” But they did not need to choose a volunteer in their ranks, since the Lord God himself took care of everything before the arrival of the myrrh-bearing women. An angel descended to earth, as a result, an earthquake occurred, and the entrance to the cave turned out to be completely free. When the pious women reached the final destination of their journey, they became witnesses of what happened. They also saw an angel who told them that Christ had risen and was waiting for his disciples in Galilee.
So it is written in the Gospel of Matthew. But according to the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene was the first to come to the tomb of the Lord. The woman wept bitterly, because she believed that the body of the Teacher had been stolen by treacherous atheistic Jews. But then Jesus Christ himself appeared to the mourner and announced that he had risen and asked to inform all the disciples about what had happened, adding: do not touch Me until I have ascended to the Father. Mary Magdalene, overjoyed, hurried to fulfill the Master's command and met another Mary on the way. At that moment, both women saw Jesus, who repeated his request. However, when they heard the good news, the apostles did not believe the Christian women. However, that's another story...
Church tradition, on the other hand, illuminates the events of that day differently: according to this information source, the Mother of God, and not Mary Magdalene, was the first to see Christ risen from the dead. One way or another, but those ministers of the church who established the celebration of the day of remembrance of the myrrh-bearing women, apparently adhered to the truth of the third scenario.
Both church tradition and the Gospel in any case preserved the names of pious women. It:
- Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene;
- Saint Joanna - the wife of Khuza, the steward of Herod;
- righteous Mary and Martha - sisters of Lazarus;
- Mary is the mother of James the Lesser and Josiah;
- Susanna, Solomiya;
- Saint Mary of Cleopova and others.
Interestingly, Mary Magdalene is mentioned in all church sources of information about myrrh-bearing women. The Bible says that Jesus cast out seven demons from this woman during his earthly life.
Joanna, the wife of the steward of King Herod named Chuza, followed Christ when he preached and served Him faithfully.
Martha and Mary were the righteous sisters of Lazarus. These two women believed in Christ before Jesus resurrected their brother, but after the persecution of the Jerusalem church and the expulsion of Lazarus from Jerusalem.
Maria Kleopova was the daughter of the righteous Joseph the Betrothed and was his child from his first marriage. She was in the prime of her early youth when the Virgin Mary became the wife of Joseph.
It must be said that the entire third week after Easter bears the name of righteous women who went to the Holy Sepulcher in order to anoint his body with oils. It's called: the Week of Myrrh-Bearing Women.
Orthodox and folk traditions
The Day of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women today is considered by many believers to be an analogue of International Women's Day - the well-known March 8th. On this holiday in churches, as a rule, parishioners are given flowers, and at home, Christians congratulate their relatives, acquaintances and female colleagues: of course, if they are Orthodox.
In addition, in some churches in Russia on the Day or throughout the week of the holy myrrh-bearing women - everywhere in different ways - the priests serve the worldly magpie for the dead parishioners of the church. There is such a practice. For example, in the village of Sergachskaya Achka, in the Smolensk region. And in another settlement of the sounded region - Aksenovo, Rybnovsky district - on Saturday, on the eve of the holiday, believers visit the graves of relatives and friends, leaving colored eggs on them.
The people also did not bypass this religious date. Since ancient times, the Slavs called the Day of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women the Babi holiday. He also had other names: Kumitnoe, Lalynki, Shapshikha, Margoshenye, Margoski, Kumishnoe, Babia scrambled eggs, Babia bratchina. The week of the myrrh-bearing women, respectively, was called the Babi week.
On this, in all respects, women's holiday in certain areas in Russia, they performed the so-called rite of cumulation. Fried eggs served as ritual food: "woman's" or "maiden's". For example, in one of the districts of the Kostroma region - Chukhlomsky - the hailing of women was played out with the performance of special hail songs. The latter contained in their text an invitation to go out onto the porch with chicken egg in hands, addressed to the local representatives of the beautiful half of humanity. The ceremony was performed at dawn or even before sunrise. And in the Roslavl district of the Smolensk province, women walked outside the outskirts in a friendly crowd, fried eggs on a fire and sang spring songs. By the way, when eating a dish, they said: “God grant that flax is born to us kudelen!”.
On the Day of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women, every Christian woman was supposed to visit the temple, defend mass. At the end of the service, the women ordered a common prayer service all together. They paid for this demand not with money, but, as you probably already guessed, with eggs, in some cases with flax. In the evening, adherents of folk ancient customs arranged a woman's feast.
The Day of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women is a rather bright and very kind, heartfelt holiday. Its presence shows a respectful attitude in the Christian environment towards a woman as such.
It so happens that many Christian Orthodox holidays were superimposed on more ancient pagan ones. This was done in order for the people to get used to the new religion better and faster, to adapt to the changed requirements and conditions of life. An example of such celebrations is the history of myrrh-bearing women.
Date of celebration
The feast of the myrrh-bearing women is a special event in Christianity. He does not have a specific date - it depends on what date Easter falls in a particular year. The celebration is celebrated on the third post-Easter Sunday, on the 15th day after Bright christ day. If Easter is early, then the feast of the myrrh-bearing women falls at the end of March or the first half of April. When it is late, the Church celebrates it at the end of April or in May. Not only Sunday itself is considered festive, but the whole week after it. Among believers these days it is customary to congratulate mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, daughters, spouses. After all, the feast of the myrrh-bearing women is considered in Christianity to be a women's celebration.
Two Marys
We have received the names of those in whose person Orthodox Church honors female half humanity. These are two Marys - one is the well-known Magdalene, a former sinner who repented of her debauchery and accepted the precepts of Christ as the main and necessary for life. The second is Kleopova. By different sources, she was either the sister of the mother of Christ, or the wife of the brother of St. Joseph the Betrothed - the husband of the mother of Jesus. The third biblical texts speak of her as the mother of the relatives of the Son of God - Jacob, Josiah, Simon, Judas. The feast of the myrrh-bearing women is also celebrated in memory of John, a faithful disciple of Christ. She walked with other listeners of Him in Galilee and secretly buried her head when Herod killed him.
Mother of the Apostles and Sisters of Lazarus
Salome also deserved the high honor of church memory. She is the mother of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, James and John. Christ was the first to appear to her after Magdalene at his resurrection. In various Gospels, the sisters Martha and Mary, originally from Bethany, are also mentioned - the Savior honored them with his presence and sermons. But they believed in Him after their brother Lazarus was resurrected by Christ. And, of course, Susanna, about whom the Evangelist Luke speaks, she served the Son of God "from her possessions." Thanks to these personalities, pious and righteous Christian women have been receiving congratulations on the feast of the myrrh-bearing women from time immemorial to this day.
About event
Many who do not know the history of the holiday may wonder: why are wives called myrrh-bearers? How to understand this expression? We find the answers in the Bible, in the New Testament. These are the inhabitants of the places where Jesus walked and preached. They welcomed Christ into their homes with joy and hospitality, accepted Him as their personal savior, served Him and followed Him. When Jesus was crucified, these women were witnesses of His suffering on Calvary. And the next morning after the execution, when the bodies of the crucified were removed from the crosses and buried, they came to the tomb of Jesus to anoint His body with myrrh, as required by Jewish customs. Hence the name of the celebration. Congratulations on the feast of the myrrh-bearing women are also associated with the joyful news of the resurrection of Christ, which these women brought to other people. After all, it was to them that Jesus appeared after the death of the cross. They were the first to learn the truth about the salvation and immortality of the soul from a meek angel who pointed them to an open empty tomb.
Spiritual and moral ties
Myrrh-bearing women were especially revered in Russia. This is due to the element of piety in Russian culture and spirituality. Morality and morality, strict norms and requirements of Orthodoxy have entered the flesh and blood of the people, especially the female part of it. Simple peasant women, columnar noblewomen, representatives of the merchant and petty-bourgeois class tried to lead a righteous and honest life, in the fear of God. Good deeds, donations to the needy, distribution of alms to the poor and merciful deeds for the suffering - all this was done by them with a special spiritual uplift and a desire to please the Lord. What is also characteristic of Russian Orthodoxy is an extremely chaste attitude towards the sacrament of marriage. Loyalty to a given word, an oath before the altar (that is, to those covenants that Christ bequeathed) in the old days was hallmark Russian woman. These ideals live among the people to this day. Myrrh-bearing women were distinguished by meekness, humility, patience, and forgiveness. That is why they became role models. And the Russian land gave Christianity many saints and righteous women, blessed and martyrs, who did good for the glory of Christ. Mother Matrona, Xenia of Petersburg, Fevronia of Murom, Abbess Catherine and many others are revered by the people as intercessors, helpers, comforters, healers, true followers of the cause of Christ.
Orthodox International Women's Day
Myrrh-bearing women are not in vain considered international. It is joyfully celebrated in many countries of the world. And this is not surprising. After all, a woman gives birth new life, brings ideas of goodness and love into the world, is the keeper of the hearth, a support for her husband and children. In fact, who are the myrrh-bearing women? Ordinary mothers, sisters, spouses, only living according to the commandments of God. The most striking and significant personification of the sacrificial feminine, love and forgiveness is, of course, the Mother of God. But other holy righteous women also deserved universal respect and glorification. That is why the beautiful half of humanity has two solemn events. This is March 8 and the feast of the holy myrrh-bearing women.
Old Slavic roots
As already mentioned, many Christian significant dates were combined in religious practice and popular consciousness with earlier rites and rituals of paganism. Priests do not always agree with such a statement, however, ethnographic research proves the validity of such guesses. This applies to Christmas holidays, Ivano-Kupala night gatherings and many other magical days. So it happened with the feast of the myrrh-bearing women. Among the Slavs, it coincided with the end of youth festivities on Radunitsa. Often it was on the third post-Easter Sunday in many places of present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus that the rite of initiation, or kumleniya, was performed.
Indian festivities
The action was associated with the old divination and the then new Christian symbols. For the ceremony, a “Trinity tree” was chosen - a young birch in a forest clearing or a large maple branch, which was brought into the hut. The tree was decorated with ribbons, wreaths of wild flowers. The wreaths hung knots with colored eggs and/or crosses. Women and girls gathered around the birch tree and “kumilis”: they kissed each other crosswise and exchanged crosses and krashenka through wreaths. Rings and a monista, earrings and beads, scarves and ribbons were given. The essence of the holiday was this: for the women of the village or the village to become more friendly. In addition, round dances were danced around the birch, they sang songs and were sure to eat. Unmarried girls guessed at the "friend of the heart", and family girls - about their later life. The main dish was scrambled eggs, which was called "woman's". In general, when the feast of the myrrh-bearing wife came, they also said about it: “baby”.
Other names of the holiday and its connection with Christianity
This day has had many names. The main definition in them pointed precisely to the feminine principle. They called him like this: “Indian Yaish”, “Indian Brother”, “Indian Week”, “Kumite” or “Curling” Sunday (from the “curling” of birches - the interweaving of its branches in the form of an arch and braiding braids). What is interesting: in almost no Russian province there was a single regulation for holding celebrations. In Pskov or Smolensk, Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod, as well as in others, "Indian Sunday", or the feast of myrrh-bearing women, was celebrated in their own way. The scenario is different everywhere. The only thing that united them was that on the eve of the day, women went from house to house, collecting bread, pastries, eggs, and other products for a common feast. Must be on a holiday unmarried girls, their older relatives first went to church to defend mass. After that, they ordered a common prayer service for the entire female part of the village. They paid for it not with money, but with eggs, which was also part of the ritual of the myrrh-bearing week. And in the evening, the actual festivities began: with dances and songs and other attributes of the holiday. And then the feast followed. In the regions where flax was grown, for a rich harvest, scrambled eggs were often eaten under a special conspiracy.
Funeral motives
Among the days of the Myrrh-bearing week, time was always set aside for commemoration of the dead. For these purposes, in each parish, a common magpie was served - secular, for the deceased members of the church. In under Myrrh-bearing Sunday, in many settlements cemeteries were visited and dyes were left on the graves. In this tradition, echoes of pagan cults, in particular the cult of ancestors, are also clearly audible. The deification of nature, the change of seasons, as well as the onset of the agricultural season also played a role in the emergence of the holiday.
"Mironositsky" days today
Orthodox is celebrated today in all Christian parishes in Russia and abroad. In Sunday schools at churches, teachers prepare a concert for mothers, grandmothers, sisters with children. In songs, poems, scenes played on scenes from the Holy Scriptures, they glorify not only biblical heroines, saints, but simply all women - the successors of the human race, the embodiment of peace, goodness, love. If workshops work at Sunday schools, then mentors with students prepare small gifts for guests. These are, as a rule, frames and shelves for icons, wooden painted or scorched eggs, bags for prosphora and other beautiful and useful items, as well as thematic drawings, applications. Organized with soul, such holidays leave a deep imprint on the heart and have great educational and moral significance.
Temple celebrations
Solemn services are held in all Orthodox churches and cathedrals these days. Pilgrims come from everywhere to places of faith to feel their communion with the entire Church of Christ. Laity attend services no less zealously than Orthodox believers. In the walls of the houses of God, in the pious examples of clergy, in the wisdom of the Holy Scriptures, they seek and find support that helps to survive in our difficult times and gives hope for the future. After Divine Liturgies pastors address parishioners with a special Word - a heartfelt sermon in which they congratulate all women on a bright, joyful holiday.
The Church treats with respect and reverence not only the feat of biblical wives. Special attention The Holy Fathers give in their Word to the glorified and little-known, humble workers of the Faith. Everyone who works in the spiritual field, the Christian field, performing a daily, sometimes imperceptible feat for the glory of God, is addressed with words of gratitude, wishes of the grace of the Lord, health and peace - in souls, in families, between people. In their sermons, the pastors emphasize that without women's participation, without the support of women, their painstaking work for the benefit of the Church, Christianity would not have become so widespread. In Russia, for example, in the era of godlessness, it was women who remained the stronghold of faith and unbending courage. Therefore, although they are called the weaker sex, their mission in Orthodoxy is significant. Parishioners should always remember this and remain the personification of spiritual purity, chastity, bearers of eternal Orthodox moral values. Women must fight for peace, and the example of the myrrh-bearing women inspires them on this thorny path.
Week 3 of Easter on April 30 (Sunday) of the myrrh-bearing women is a holiday for every Orthodox Christian woman, an Orthodox women's day. On this day, the holy myrrh-bearing women are remembered. Who are they, the holy myrrh-bearing women - Mary Magdalene, Mary Cleopova, Salome, John, Martha, Mary, Susanna? Why does the Russian Orthodox Church commemorate these women on the second Sunday after Pascha?
Every woman on Earth is a myrrhbearer and brings peace to the world, to her family, hearth, she gives birth to children, is a support for her husband. Orthodoxy glorifies the woman-mother, the woman of all classes and nationalities.
Myrrhbearers are the very women who, out of love for the Savior Jesus Christ, received Him in their homes, and later followed Him to the place of crucifixion on Golgotha. They were witnesses of Christ's suffering on the cross. It was they who hastened in the dark to the Holy Sepulcher to anoint the body of Christ with myrrh, as was the custom of the Jews. It was they, the myrrh-bearing women, who were the first to know that Christ had risen. For the first time since his death on the cross, the Savior appeared to a woman, Mary Magdalene.
This holiday has been especially honored in Russia since ancient times. Well-born ladies, rich merchants, poor peasant women led a strictly pious life and lived in faith. The main feature of Russian righteousness is a special, purely Russian warehouse, the chastity of Christian marriage as a great Sacrament. The only wife of the only husband - this is the life ideal of Orthodox Russia.
Another feature of ancient Russian righteousness is the special "rank" of widowhood. Russian princesses did not marry a second time, although the Church did not forbid a second marriage. Many widows cut their hair and went to the monastery after the burial of their husband. The Russian wife has always been faithful, quiet, merciful, meekly patient, all-forgiving.
The day of the myrrh-bearing women in Orthodoxy is considered an analogue of March 8. Only instead of the dubious ideal of a revolutionary woman and a feminist rebel, the Church praises completely different qualities of our mothers, spouses, sisters and girlfriends. First of all, it is a great sacrifice, self-forgetfulness, fidelity, love and a living fiery faith that can overcome everything. Those very faith and love, which are fully accessible only to the weak female nature, and which shine even in the most hopeless darkness.
How many myrrh-bearing women there were in total - we do not know for sure. The Gospel simply lists them by name, and only a few women are more or less specific. The church tradition appropriated the title of myrrh-bearers to seven or eight disciples of Christ. All of them subsequently became ardent preachers and worked on a par with other apostles. And Magdalene was even honored to be called equal to the apostles - that is, having the same glory and bearing the same cross as other male disciples.
