Trinity rituals and customs, traditions, signs, conspiracies. What traditions, signs and rituals correspond to the Trinity and when is this holiday celebrated?

What traditions and signs are associated with the Feast of the Holy Trinity? When is this holiday celebrated in 2022 and what rites and rituals can be performed on this day?

The Day of the Holy Trinity is associated with the descent of the Holy Spirit to earth many years ago. It was after this event that this holiday began to be celebrated every year. When the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles of Christ, exactly 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, the Apostles began to speak different languages, and this helped them in the future to carry the word of the Lord throughout the whole world. They were also given the ability to heal people and foresee the future.

Every year we celebrate Trinity exactly 50 days after Easter. This is where the second name of this holiday came from - Pentecost. In 2022, the Orthodox people will celebrate this holiday on June 16. There are many rituals and traditions associated with the Trinity, which we will talk about now. You will learn how you can change your life on this holiday with the help of spells and rituals.

Holy Spirit Day

The day after Trinity is dedicated to the Holy Spirit. This holiday has been known since the 4th-5th centuries; it was established for special veneration of the Holy Spirit, in contrast to the heresy of Macedonius, who considered Him to be a creation and not God.

The celebration of the Holy Spirit, according to current liturgical practice, begins on the day of Pentecost itself, when after the liturgy the festive vespers of this day are served. It begins with the prayer of the Third Hypostasis of the Trinity.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

“Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who is everywhere and fulfills everything, Treasure of good things and Giver of life, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filth, and save, O Good One, our souls.”

This prayer is now part of the home morning and evening prayer rules, and is repeated many times at all services. But initially it is the stichera of Vespers on the Day of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is called the King of Heaven, the Comforter, the Filler of the World.

What does the icon of the Holy Trinity protect from?

This icon is one of the most important, because it reflects the unity of the Lord in a three-faced image. The history of the appearance of this image in the form of a mosaic appeared in the 5th century, and in icon painting it could only be seen in the 14th century. According to Orthodox canons, there is no clear depiction of images on the icon, since this contradicts the concept of the incomprehensible and the trinity of the divine principle. This is due to the fact that no one has ever seen God. But knowledge and faith in him allows Christians to honor him in exactly this guise.

Archpriest Alexander Prochenko will express the essence that the icon of the Holy Trinity reflects:

Due to the fact that the icon of the Holy Trinity is one of the most important images of this bright day, it is endowed with powerful divine power. This allows believers to turn to her, asking for help in solving difficult everyday situations. Although initially it was considered a confessional, Orthodox believers confessed before it, cleansing themselves of sins. In addition, this icon protects the person asking from committing any bad deeds in the future.

Removing damage

Orthodoxy does not welcome any magic, but provides the opportunity for cleansing from evil spirits, damage and other magical actions. Damage is a rather powerful spell, which is sometimes quite difficult to remove. But on the Holy Trinity, you can perform a ritual that will help remove even very strong damage.

To do this, you need to collect a bouquet of wildflowers; you can also take garden flowers, but there must be at least 40 species.
Then, with this bouquet you need to go to church and bless it at the morning and evening services.
It is worth remembering that the ceremony will last 40 days, that is, according to the number of flowers collected.

To perform the ceremony, every day one flower is taken from the collected bouquet and placed in a glass. After which it is watered with sacred water. When all the water from the flower has drained into the glass, then dip your finger in this water and wet the top of your head three times. And then all the water is drunk.

In addition, you need to prepare a small box, into which you need to put one coin after each time. In the end you should get 40 coins in 40 days. After they expire, visit the church again and order yourself a service about health.

Be sure to listen to the entire prayer service, and do this for three days in a row. At the end, candles are lit to Saint Panteleimon, Saint Tryphon and the immortals Cosmas and Dimiam. And the coins that were collected (40 coins) were to be divided among the poor.

Traditions: how to spend this day with dignity

However, already during St. John Chrysostom, believers had to be reminded of the broader spiritual significance of the celebration. This saint has
one of the most accurate statements about who will spiritually celebrate the day:
“... Let us also begin to celebrate in accordance with the dignity of the blessings given to us, not laying wreaths on the gates, but decorating souls, not cleaning the square with veils, but enlightening the soul with the robes of virtues, so that in this way we can both receive the grace of the Spirit and gather the fruits that come from Him.”

Now believers are trying:

attend a service on the eve of the celebration and, of course, on the day of the holiday itself; it lasts longer than usual. since after the liturgy Vespers is celebrated, during which special kneeling prayers are read;
if possible, receive Holy Communion, having prepared by prayer, fasting, and confession the day before.

Signs for marriage

Many popular Trinity beliefs concern young girls who have not yet married.

You cannot get married on Trinity Sunday - weddings are not held on major church holidays.
But getting married on this day is a good omen. It is believed that those who woo on Trinity and get married on the Intercession will live happily ever after in marriage.
If a guy kisses a girl under a birch tree, the girl will be his wife.
On this day they listened to the cuckoos - how many times the cuckoo crowed, the number of days the girl still had to spend in her father’s house.
If you wash your face with morning dew, you will retain freshness and beauty for a long time.

About the holiday

Trinity: history and traditions of celebration

When (what date) will Trinity be?

The Holy Trinity, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost are names of the same religious holiday. Based on the latter, it is easy to determine what date Trinity is in the year of interest.

The Orthodox celebration falls on the 50th day after Easter , so the calculation will not be difficult for even the most “advanced” humanist.

The day on which Trinity is celebrated always falls on Sunday . In 2022, the holiday will fall on June 20.

Catholics approach the question “when will Trinity be” differently. They separate the celebration of Pentecost and the Holy Trinity itself, the second event is celebrated on the next Sunday after the first (on the 57th day after Easter).

Fortune telling and conspiracies

According to church canons, it was impossible to tell fortunes, but this did not stop people, and many girls wondered about their fate, about their betrothed, and waited for the arrival of matchmakers.

"Curling a birch tree"

One of the most common fortune telling is weaving wreaths. On the eve of the holiday, the girls went to the forest and wove a wreath on the top of young birch trees. If on Trinity the wreath bloomed or withered, then there will be troubles, and if nothing has changed, this means a wedding and a happy marriage in love and wealth.

"Weaving wreaths"

It was customary for girls to weave wreaths in company and not show their creations to men. If one of the male half saw a wreath, it was considered a bad omen.

It was also customary to go with wreaths to the river and lower them into the water:

in which direction the wreath floated, the betrothed will come from there;
if the wreath remains on the shore, then the girl will remain unmarried;
if it goes down, it means the girl’s death.

It was impossible to lower the wreaths into the water by hand. The girl had to put it on her head and lean towards the river so that it would fall on its own.

Since ancient times, believers have used Trinity conspiracies to save their loved ones from all misfortunes. On the holiday you need to visit the church and read the prayer “To the Heavenly King”, kneeling prayers.

Ritual for home protection

According to old legends, birch is a symbol of purity and innocence. Thanks to its properties, you can cleanse not only yourself of evil spirits and thoughts, but you can also protect your home.

To do this, before the holiday, general cleaning is carried out not only in the house, but also in the yard.
A very important point in this case is that you need to wash the floors with the addition of wormwood.
Afterwards, fumigate all the rooms with incense or you can use thyme.
Then, decorate the house with meadow grasses, and of course, birch branches.

Trinity: how to understand it

The word “trinity” appeared in Christianity with the light hand of St. Theophilus of Antioch in the distant 2nd century. This is a key term in theology, reflecting the doctrine that God is one and at the same time threefold in Persons (hypostases):

God the Father: has no beginning (not created by anyone, not created, not born from anyone).
God the Son: born of God the Father.
God the Holy Spirit: comes from God the Father.

Each of the three Persons has the fullness of existence and is itself God, and not 1/3 of it. Moreover, all 3 Persons are one God. This is such difficult theological mathematics!

Church teaching excludes the idea of God as having three heads. 3 divine personalities unite, do not exist one outside the other, but do not merge.

One in 3 persons, God is an eternal, living, omnipresent incorporeal spirit that cannot be seen.

Orthodoxy allows for a symbolic depiction of this incomprehensible theological category; the generally recognized icon of the Trinity is an image created by the icon painter Andrei Rublev. Here the emphasis is on the equality of the 3 figures, differing only in their faces and clothes.

The word "trinity" or anything similar does not appear in the Bible. If you read carefully, you can find 2 texts that hint at this concept. One is hidden in the Gospel of Matthew, the second is known as the “John verse”.

It is believed that the dogma of the Holy Trinity cannot be expressed rationally, and therefore is incomprehensible to the human mind. It is impossible to understand this, all that remains is to know and believe.

A little history

The appearance of this celebration has been known for sure since apostolic times. And the writing of one of them, St. Luke, brought to us the circumstances of the appearance of this holiday.

After the Ascension of the Lord, the Acts of the Apostles tell us, all of Christ’s disciples stayed together, awaiting the fulfillment of the promise for which they were commanded to remain in Jerusalem.

"Fire without burning"

According to Luke, on the 50th day after the Resurrection and 10th after the Ascension of the Lord, a miraculous thing happened to the Apostles. Even after years of St. Luka has difficulty finding human definitions of what happened. He writes how “suddenly there came a sound from the sky, as if from a rushing strong wind, and filled the whole house where they were” - but the wind, as the interpreter, Archbishop, notes. Averky (Taushev), there was no. And then “there appeared to them cloven tongues as of fire, and one rested on each of them” (Acts 2:2-3). But this is “like fire,” but at the same time it is not.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes:

“They received fire that does not scorch, but that saves, a fire that destroys the thorns of sins and enlightens the soul.”

From that moment on, the disciples, who did not always understand their Teacher, and sometimes had human doubts, truly became His Apostles. Their transformed souls shone with Grace so much that after Peter’s first sermon, the Jews who listened and were touched in their hearts had only one question: “What should we do, men and brethren?” (Acts 2:37). About 3,000 people were baptized that day alone.

This is how the Church of Christ was born. And the Spirit that descended on the Apostles has been with the faithful for more than 2000 years, for:

“Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

When did the holiday appear?

In the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of the Apostle Paul, “Pentecost” is mentioned more than once. Therefore, some holy fathers, for example, Blessed Augustine (IV-V centuries), believed that the celebration already existed under the Apostles. Later theologians are more cautious, thinking that St. Paul nevertheless revered the Jewish holiday of the same name (associated with the giving of the 10 commandments to the people of God at Sinai).

The earliest documentary evidence of the celebration dates back to the 3rd century. The theologian of this time Tertullian writes:

“Collect all the pagan holidays, arrange them in a row, and they will not be able to fill Pentecost” (this celebration is so great).

What you can and cannot do on Trinity

For each Slavic holiday, there are a number of signs and superstitions dedicated to what you can and cannot do. Trinity has its own folk rules.

One of the most important traditions observed on this day is going to church . On Trinity Sunday two services are held - the morning Divine Liturgy and Great Vespers. On Pentecost it is not customary to ask God for anything, but only to sincerely thank you for what you already have.

Photo: Vladimir Lobachev, wikimedia.org

Family meals are also welcomed on this day . Trinity Sunday does not fall during the Lenten week, so you can put everything on the table, including meat and dairy products. However, it is better to give up alcohol, and you should know moderation when it comes to food - gluttony, after all, is a sin. If someone comes to visit on this day, they should be received hospitably and with all honors.

a new tablecloth was always laid on the table - a symbol of renewal and prosperity. They prepared simple but satisfying dishes - pancakes, pies, chicken, gingerbread, jelly. loaf of bread was always placed on the table - the crown of the entire meal. While kneading the dough, they put in a coin - whoever got a piece with it would have success and wealth ahead.

Houses were decorated with greenery : freshly cut branches, mown grass, flowers. They were placed near icons and in vases throughout the house. It was believed that on this day nature itself protects everyone who is under this roof from evil and unkind.

do handicrafts on a holiday . They also disapproved of working in the fields .

On major church holidays you cannot quarrel , swear, or think about unclean things. On a bright day, all thoughts should be occupied with good reflections. Charity activities that come from the heart are encouraged.

Poetry and prose

Congratulations on Trinity. Warm words for those closest to you