The Meat Week is part of a series of preparatory events preceding Great Lent, which, in turn, is the eve of the main Orthodox and ancient Christian holiday of Easter, personifying the greatest event - the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The entire preparatory period before Easter
The importance of the great holiday is emphasized by the Great Lent preceding it, during which a person is mentally and physically preparing for this event.
Preparatory weeks (there are three of them) and Weeks (there are four of them) precede Great Lent itself. We must immediately make a reservation that, translated from the Old Slavonic language, a week is a week in the current sense, and a Week is Sunday. The word is thought to have come from the verb "not to do", which means not to work and dedicate oneself to God. The whole, in modern terms, the preparatory cycle before Easter has 70 days. It starts on Sunday(The Week of the Publican and the Pharisee) and ends with Great Saturday, which marks the end of Passion Week - the last week. Great Lent in church life has another name - Holy Fortecost. It is preceded, as noted above, by three weeks, during which a strictly defined order of services is carried out.
Four Sundays - four milestones
Actually, not all days of these weeks matter, but only Sundays, which are given names - about the publican and the Pharisee, about the prodigal son, meat and cheese week. Last Sunday coincides with an ancient, pagan and very beloved holiday - Maslenitsa, immediately after which, on Monday, Great Lent begins. The essence of these preparations is the preparation of a gradual transition to severe abstinence. This order itself is very ancient and has been known since the 4th century.
Meat-Free Week, continuing the spiritual repentance of a person, begins to prepare him physically. It is the last day when meat can be eaten. This day is also called the Week of the Last Judgment, because all 6 days preceding this Sunday, pages from the Gospel dedicated to the Day of Judgment are read at the liturgy.
Begin fasting for meat
What does Meatless Week mean? This is the day after which the "vacation" of meat stops, so it was necessary to eat enough. It was believed that on this day it was customary to slurp cabbage soup 12 times and eat meat 12 times. This is the Sunday that ends the meat-fare week, which begins on Monday, after the Week (Sunday) ofprodigal son. This week is also popularly called motley or pockmarked. This happens because on two of its six days (Wednesday and Friday) they are already “fasting for meat”, that is, fasting. Thus, it differs from the previous week, when meat is eaten every day, and from the following cheese week, when it is not eaten at all.
Universal Parent Saturday
Meat Week completes the week, which has another name - the people call it a memorial week. On meat-fare Saturday, which is also called the Ecumenical parental, it was customary to go to the cemetery, commemorate the dead father and mother (in Belarus, memorial days fell on Thursday and Friday). There are several other traditions associated with this period. Winter weddings are over these days. There are many proverbs to support this. One of them - "To marry Motley - to intermarry with misfortune." In addition, it was during the meat week that people went to their neighbors and invited them to their place for the celebration of Shrovetide. On the eve, in some regions it was customary to thoroughly clean the house, prepare a festive table, that is, wait for guests.
Traditions and customs associated with this week
What does Meatless Week mean? This, on the one hand, is the eve of the Cheese Week, and on the other hand, Sunday, after which exactly 56 days remain until Easter. Its shadow side includes some ambiguity and instability, unreliability associated with the names "variegated" and"pockmarked". Therefore, there are prohibitions on certain actions and deeds these days. The people have always had a lot of signs and traditions associated with any holiday. Sometimes they were peculiar. So, in some provinces, even on the meat-fare Saturday, they began to celebrate the “small Maslenka”. They baked the first pancakes, left some of them for dead relatives. The children had their own customs on this day, for example, to collect old bast shoes throughout the village, their “chants”, with which they called for spring.
It turns out that the meat-fare week, the week following it, like the two previous ones, is not only a preparatory period for Great Lent, but also a time of holidays, festivities and related folk beliefs, will take and customs, about which, in turn, stacked dozens of proverbs and sayings.
