People also
call it “Crucified Friday”. This is a great holiday. People don’t work
for they believe that if anyone breaks the taboo the fields will be
destroyed by heavy hail. On this day in some regions the young girls
draw with coal and pens the eggs dyed on Thursday. A legend tells that
on Friday, when Christ was ascending the hill with the enormous cross
on his back, he passed by a woman who was washing. He asked her for
some water to moisten his dried lips. She took some of the slosh and
gave it to him. He drank it but said nothing. Further on from a house
in which people were baking bread they gave him a piece of hot bread.
When he climbed the hill Christ said: “Let a woman who washes on this
day be damned and let he who bakes bread be blessed!”
That is why no one must
wash on Friday and young girls and women make Easter dolls and breads.
But before that they make fresh yeast, for Easter buns are made with
new yeast. In the past all houses had yeast, for if someone lost the
yeast the house remained bare and without fruit during the whole year.
The fleshing up is done not by putting old yeast in the dough but by
leaving it in a warm place to turn sour. From this yeast they make the
ritual breads and keep some for the next baking of bread. Ritual
Easter breads are different – round, with a hole in the middle,
elliptical or in the shape of a pleat. But everywhere people put red
eggs in them. These ritual breads are always made by married young,
clean women and from wheat flour. The flour is sifted three times and
during the souring of the dough fresh picked green leaves are put in
it – nettle or wild geranium.
The
Holy Friday marks the respect of the entire Christian world to the
crucified Jesus. Jesus was made to carry a heavy cross on his way up
the Golgotha hill. There he was crucified on the cross by nailing his
feet and hands to the cherry-wood cross. The blood of Jesus coming
from his wounds has purified the sins of all human mankind. The
suffering of Jesus was enormous but he never stopped praying for his
tormentors. The priests take out the Jesus shroud at 11am in the
middle of the churches and spread it on a special table.
The
believers cover it with flowers. The priests will serve a burial
service for Jesus who died on the cross in the evening. The Christians
walk around the inside of the church as if attending as funeral. Then
they go under the table covered by the shroud for health. The flowers
mounted on the shroud are given away to the people and they are
believed to have the power to cure kids and sick people.
Good Friday is a special day celebrated by
Christians on the Friday before Easter or Pascha. It commemorates the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Special prayer services are often held on
this day with readings from the Gospel accounts of the events leading
up to the crucifixion. Many Christians view Christ's crucifixion as a
voluntary and vicarious act by which death itself was conquered, not
as a temporary defeat overturned by His resurrection on the third day.
In Early Modern English, good had a meaning of "holy". A "good tide"
is, for example, Christmas or Shrove Tuesday.
Click on thumbnail to
return to Festival Calendar
PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
