Ascension or Ascension Day - one of the twelve (twelve important solemn events after Easter) holidays in the Orthodox calendar. The Ascension is closely connected with the Holy Resurrection of Christ and does not have a fixed date. Therefore, Orthodox Christians annually calculate how much to celebrate the Ascension. 2020 will not be an exception.
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Ascension is a celebration in honor of the famous event described in the Bible, the ascension to heaven of Jesus Christ in the flesh after His Resurrection. According to legend, this happened on the fortieth day after Christ appeared before His disciples. The Feast of the Resurrection is now called Easter, which means that the Ascension is celebrated forty days later (at the same time, Bright Sunday itself is taken as a reference point).
In 2020, the Ascension will be celebrated on May 28, Thursday.
Of course, you can calculate the holiday date for 2020 yourself. It is enough to add the indicated time (40 days) to the date of Easter (April 19).
Bible events
In the Gospel, the event underlying the celebration is described briefly. Christ, gathering around his disciples, announced that in a few days the apostles would be “baptized with the Holy Spirit” - it is about the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles in Jerusalem 10 days after the Ascension (this holiday in Orthodoxy was called Spirits Day). After parting with his disciples, Jesus rose above the earth, shrouded in a cloud, and ascended into heaven.
Ascension itself is described in the Gospels of Luke and Mark and in the Acts of the Apostles. Strange as it may seem, the event is literally devoted to several dates in the holy books, although Jesus himself spoke of the impending ascension to heaven long before his death and return to the world of the living.
Symbolism
In Christianity, Ascension is of the utmost importance. The symbolism of the holiday is in the discovery of Heaven, the opening of a place where a person will be unconditionally happy. Heaven is the open door to the world of kindness, joy, forgiveness, the world of eternal life.
The coming of Christ is a symbol of forgiveness that every believer receives. A symbol of knowledge that at the end of the earthly path, everyone will be able to cast off the shackles of original sin.
Ascension Day
Ascension is not only a church holiday, but also a national holiday. And in the peasant calendar this day was of great importance.
In the popular calendar, Ascension completed the cycle of spring celebrations. After this day, spring ended and summer began, already with its own customs and festive events. The spring girl “faded” and ceded her rights to heat and heat.
According to signs, the rain on this day promised "wet", with thunderstorms, July. Nightingales on the Ascension night sang cleaner and louder, seeing off spring and inviting summer.
Stairs to heaven
It was believed that for forty days, from Easter to Ascension, the gates of Heaven and Earth, Paradise and Hell opened. And all this time, the souls of the dead could freely move around the earth, visit their near and dear ones, and sometimes enemies and tormentors. With the sunset on Sunday, the gates were closed and the dead returned.
In the evening, at that moment when the disk of the sun was hiding behind the horizon, in the sunset sky one could see ghostly, slowly closing gates. The high, carved sashes smoothly converged and then melted in the dark - it closed the gates of Paradise, closed Heaven. True, this picture could be observed only by one who is pure and bright in his soul, one who has not stained himself with the filth of sin.And this belief was perhaps the most powerful of those associated with Sunday Day.
Christ himself, according to popular rumor, wandered along dusty roads all these forty days, observing how people live, punishing for the evil done and rewarding for selflessness. That is why these days it was impossible to refuse to those who ask - to give alms, to feed the hungry, to listen to the holy fools. After all, it is not known who is hiding under the guise of a wretched person - a mere mortal, a saint, or the Son of God himself.
Because of this belief among the Slavs, this holiday was celebrated as the day of the commemoration of the dead, with all the attendant attributes. Fried pancakes and thin cakes from unleavened dough - “onuchki” or “paws” / “lapochki”. They were called that because they were baked “on the track” - the road to heaven was meant. The first pancake, “lapotka”, certainly had to be given to someone, best of all the poor, blissful, “transitional peasants”. Then treat the neighbors - “for the remembrance of the soul”, and only after that sit down for a hundred with the whole family. Pancakes generously flavored with oil - "so that the path under the legs rolled."
An indispensable attribute of the commemoration was "ladders" - cookies made from fresh or yeast dough, often unsweetened, baked in the form of small, two or three crossbeams, stairs. Ladders are primarily a treat for children. They gifted all the neighboring children that they remembered the dead. Through these ladders, the soul could rise faster to heaven. The traditional table was complemented by colored eggs, porridge-kutia, sometimes small funeral bread rolls.
The people of Sunday were quietly celebrated, in the family circle, without big festivals and fairs.
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