Typical
of the period of Saint Theodore’s week is that people eat nothing for
three days. This is complete fasting – they eat no food, they don’t
even drink water. The Trimiro lasts Monday through Wednesday following
Sirni Zagovezni.
On
Wednesday morning people go to church, receive Holy Communion and then
go home where all the relatives and neighbours are given a treat. The
connection between the Trimiro and the cult of the dead is obvious.
Bulgarians have the belief that a man fasts in order to be well “in
the other world”, to save his soul. In folk conceptions “in the other
world” each person gets bread and water. But if he does not give out
the same things after the Trimiro, he won’t have them in “the other
world”. That is why on Wednesday the table
is laid with many Lenten dishes (boiled wheat, fresh bread, beans,
stewed fruit) and bread and water is given to the guests.
The
guests, on their part, bring presents and hand them saying: “May you
be alive and healthy so that you can celebrate the Trimiro next year
too!” In some villages the guests give money to the host to buy
himself a red pitcher or a bright red kerchief, which he has to give
someone else as a present and thus receive it in his afterlife to pay
his journey across the river to “the outer world”.
For
that reason in some regions the Trimiro is also called "live All
Souls’ Day”, the souls’ day of the living. People believe that by not
eating for three days a man’s sins will be absolved and he will go to
Heaven. Those who have not gone through this will boil in the tar.
There is also the belief that by fasting one pays off his mother’s
milk and his own birth.
The
Trimiro is observed by people of all ages, but those who fast keep it
in secret. The ritual of fasting is performed three, five, seven or
nine years in succession or three times in one’s lifetime, in order to
be complete. If during the three days of fast one feels faint, he is
allowed to take only some soup of boiled wheat or fruit. According to
the popular belief, the one who fasts "dies" and then is born again.
The one who cannot endure the fast remains unpurified but he is also
obliged to treat guests at table.
A
man who dies during the Trimiro is considered to be the greatest
sinner and in the Strandja Mountain they don’t bury them in the
graveyard but in the dumping ground. It is believed that such people
become vampires and the one to blame is the “dry little Theodore” who
represents the saint as a mediator between God and the world of the
dead.
In
the evening the women would go from house to house with lighted
candles, in order that the souls of the dead may have good appetites,
and be well fed in the place where they are."
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PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
