Lazarus Saturday
The Saturday before Palm Sunday is celebrated as Lazarus Saturday in the Orthodox churches .
In the Gospel of John , the resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus is understood as a sign of his own resurrection and at the same time as the main reason for his crucifixion ( Jn 11 : 45-53 EU ). That is why, starting from the Holy Land , there was a commemoration of Lazarus on Palm Sunday, the beginning of the Holy Week , or the Saturday before. A Lazarus procession has been taking place on Saturday from Jerusalem to Bethany since the 4th century . This pre-Easter commemoration of Lazarus has been preserved in the Orthodox churches as Lazarus Saturday.
In Bulgaria the custom is called Lazaruvane . Girls in festive costumes perform circle dances ( choro ) and sing songs, the common basic motif of which is the request for fertility in agriculture. Fertility and rainbows ceremonies - such as the ritual burial of a doll named German in Bulgaria - are the domain of women in the Balkans. The custom is similar to that of the Koledari male singing groups wandering around at Christmas .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Joachim Schäfer: Lazarus of Bethanien . Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints , accessed on March 23, 2016.
- ↑ Heike Harbecke: December 17th: Saint Lazarus of Bethanien . kirchensite.de, December 8, 2003, accessed on March 23, 2016.
- ↑ Cf. Walter Puchner : Women's abuse. Age-sociological considerations on the exclusively feminine rites of Southeast Europe. In: Ders .: Studies in Folklore of Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean Area. Böhlau, Vienna 2009, pp. 151–176
- ↑ Christo Vakarelski: Bulgarian folklore. De Gruyter, Berlin 1969, p. 325