TRINITY

TRINITY is one of the main Christian holidays honoring God in His three images – Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. The day was to memorize the descent of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, it is held on the 50th day after Easter. It is celebrated either for 1 day (On Sunday) or for 3 days (from Sunday to Tuesday), includes Prepoloveniye, Ascention and Semik. T. includes elements of pagan traditions and beliefs of different peoples connected with the cult of fertility; it marks the calendar end of spring and beginning of summer. According to field material, ethnic traditional Trinity rituals were used to help grain and vegetables to grow, to enlarge one's clan and make nature safe. People used to observe customs for their fields, praise rye, hold rituals, cast spellings to avoid hail, drought etc., They also read fortunes, performed round dances, cooked a ritual meal, decorated their houses, churches and kualas with birch branches, wild flower,s etc. Birch is a symbol of T. Maris, Mordovians, Chuvashes, Udmurts also hold semik (from Russian “semik” – the 7th week or the 7th Thursday after Easter). It is a traditional ethnic ceremonial calendar holiday dedicated to the summer commemoration of dead ancestors; baptized Tatars, kryashens call it troysyn. While Slavic peoples held commemorations for the “zalozhniys” (people who did not die of natural clauses to bring peace to their souls; young people wore inside-out fur coats, marched noisily along the streets and “scared the mermaids”), other peoples from RB held commemorations for all dead (see Cults, Prayers, Lamentations). People also cooked food for the T. and the semik ceremonial meal: they would sing songs and collect eggs, buns from their neighbors. The day before the holiday or on the celebration day people used to heat the banya. E.g. Chuvashes would prepare twigs made of 7 “clear” deciduous trees in advance and cook a herb decoction (conventionally made of 77 kinds of herbs). Every herb collected before the semik dawn was considered to have healing properties. According to ethnic belief, the souls of the dead returned home or were hovering hear their houses this day. It was forbidden to speak loudly and produce any noise, do needlework or pour slop out, etc. in order not to scare the dead souls. Going back from the cemetery the youth would sing songs and hold each other's hands, they had to go around their village 3 times (“long handkerchief”). It was the moment to start the youth games. Udmurts, Maris, Mordovians would pray in the sacred groves, hold the ceremony to consecrate the leaves and after that it was allowed to prepare feed and do haymaking. There are many proverbs and idioms, signs and blessings connected with T. and semik.

T. is celebrated in the temples of the republic. Historical and cultural centers, National and cultural centers, district authorities organize the holidays dedicated to the T. symbol: “Green birch”, “Birch holiday”, “Semyk” etc.

L.A. Afanasyeva, F.G. Galieva, I.G. Petrov