Good Friday is the saddest day of the year for a believing Christian. Find out what beliefs and prohibitions are associated with the Friday before Easter.

Great, or Good Friday - the essence of the date

Of all the days of the Great Week, this - mournful. Condemned and crucified on Golgotha ​​Jesus Christ, who sacrificed his life for the forgiveness of the sins of mankind. Good Friday was the last earthly day lived by the Savior.

Good Friday falls on Great Lent, which lasts until Easter. On this day, it should be observed more strictly than usual. It is customary to limit as much as possible. Everything earthly and mortal should fade into the background. Before the Taking Out of the Shroud (around 2:00 pm), it is better to abstain from food altogether, and after it, prefer bread, raw fruits, and water.

The Church recommends devoting the date to prayers and be sure to go to the temple service. There are three worship services. In the morning Hours with the reading of the Gospel of the Passion of the Lord. In the afternoon - vespers with the removal of the shroud. The evening service lasts until Saturday morning and ends with the burial of the Shroud. In the old days, candles from the church were carried lit. Now they are extinguished at the exit from the temple, houses are lit near the icons.

What not to do on Good Friday

On Good Friday you can not work at home - a sin. Household chores are best done in. It is also better to do personal hygiene in advance, on Friday, leave all earthly affairs and do spirituality. An exception is the preparation of Easter cakes, but more on that below. It is customary to transport bees on this day to avoid their death.

One of the most serious sins "pierce the ground" i.e. work in the garden. Plant something on the Friday before Easter - there will be no harvest, trouble will come to the house. This does not apply to cabbage and parsley. Sowed now, they will yield a double harvest.

It is impossible to spit on the ground, so that the saints and angels do not turn away for a whole year. Under a special ban, work with metal tools, they symbolize the spear with which Christ was killed. Even slicing bread falls under the ban, it must be broken by hand.

On Good Friday, you can not cut your hair and dye your hair - to the loss of health and beauty. It is better to refuse cosmetic and medical procedures.

According to the church, the whole day before should be devoted to prayers and reflections on the sacrifice of Christ. The observance of Great Lent is not only about food. Children conceived on Good Friday will be born sick or grow up to be evil, cruel people. Whoever gets drunk on the day of the death of the Son of God will turn into an alcoholic within a year.

On Good Friday, you can not rejoice and have fun. Therefore, it is better to postpone a birthday or other holiday to another time. This date is dedicated to universal sorrow. Laughing, singing, talking loudly and walking for fun is not allowed. Whoever laughs on the Friday before Easter will cry for a year.

Signs for the Friday before Easter

Our ancestors noticed a way to check the house for damage. Go to the service in the church in the morning, do not forget to buy a candle before it begins, with which you are supposed to stand until the end of the service. Bring the rest of the candle home. With it go around the whole house without missing a single room. Near the object on which damage is directed, the candle will begin to crackle and smoke.

To attract prosperity, you need to bring 12 candles from the church. Place them around the house and light them up. Let them burn. If you consider yourself a wealthy person, for additional income, treat the needy.

They believed in the old days that if you wash your laundry on the Friday before Easter and hang it outside to dry, traces of blood will appear on it - a reminder that household chores are prohibited.

Whoever abstains from food and water before the start of Holy Saturday will know the exact time and cause of death three days before his death. No drink can then harm the one who withstood thirst on Easter Friday. Those who fall ill on this date will recover quickly.

The Friday before Easter is the best day to wean a baby. The child will grow up healthy and strong, there will be a lot of happiness in his life.

Wipe the corners of the house with a clean rag and hide it from strangers. It helps with diseases of the lower back and legs. After the bath, you need to tie a rag around the sore spot and leave it overnight. On Maundy Thursday, stoves are cleaned of ash, from Good Friday kept to treat the evil eye, depression and alcoholism. A ring consecrated in the church of any precious metal protects against diseases.

Good Friday Baking

The church and a number of signs advise you to cook Easter cakes and paint eggs - you can’t take care of the house on Good Friday. But folk legends endow baked goods prepared on this day with magical properties..

Starting to prepare dishes for the Easter table, read any prayer you know. The dough should be made by the mistress of the house alone, without helpers. No one should see him, the dish will turn out tasteless. While the pastries are in the oven, forbid the household to make noise so that the Easter cakes turn out to be lush and beautiful.

Easter cake baked on Good Friday is not eaten entirely on Easter. The portion must be kept behind the icons until the next Great Week. Pieces of this cake are given to patients to improve well-being. It also protects against fires and natural disasters. The cake prepared on this day will not mold.

Bread is baked on Friday. They do not eat it, but keep it in the house. Bread baked on Good Friday- a strong talisman against diseases and natural disasters. It protects the house from thieves and intrigues of enemies. Well, if the bread turned out beautiful. If it is burnt, you should beware of trouble.

Baking is stored until the next Great Week. It is not thrown into the trash, but fed to birds.

Good Friday is a time of bodily restrictions and spiritual self-improvement. Set aside worldly affairs and make time for church, prayer, and meditation on God. Ancient signs will help to attract wealth and good luck, get rid of troubles and diseases.

The last Friday before Easter is called Good Friday, because it was on this day that traitors crucified Jesus Christ. Of course, all Christians treat this memorable date with great respect and even awe.

Signs, customs and beliefs on Good Friday before Easter

Over the centuries, Good Friday has acquired quite a lot of interesting folk signs and beliefs. They are remembered today and used before Easter, so that the whole next year will be happy and satisfying. Recall that in 2018 Good Friday is celebrated on April 6th.

Folk omens and beliefs

As for the folk signs of Good Friday, they have survived even to this day:

1. If you bake a loaf of bread on this very day (including Easter cake), it will not grow moldy for many days. And besides, it can still charge a person with healing energy, saving from various diseases.
2. If you go to church on Good Friday and bless a silver ring, it will serve as an amulet against accidents and help protect your health.
3. On this day, one should not pierce the earth with iron (shovel, pitchfork, etc.) - it is believed that this is a great sin and a bad sign. Those who take such risks can incur adverse consequences (up to wounds and blood).
4. On this day, it is better for women to postpone some household chores. So, you do not need to sew, knit, clean the house, do laundry. It is also better to refrain from cutting hair and beautifying.
5. If the baby is already approaching the age when it is customary to wean, it is necessary to do this on Good Friday. Then the child will grow up strong and healthy.
6. And there is also an interesting observation: if on Friday night it is so clear that you can see the entire starry sky, then this year's harvest will be good, and the wheat will be granular.
7. A dream from Pure Thursday to Good Friday predicts the future. Usually such a dream is filled with accurate predictions.
8. On Good Friday, after the service in the temple, you need to bring home 12 burning candles, which are not allowed to burn out to the end. It is believed that such Friday candles bring prosperity and happiness to the house where they are stored.

Conspiracies for Good Friday

On the special day of Good Friday, a special conspiracy is read to heal those suffering from depression. To do this, you need to take three Easter colored eggs, dip them into the water. At this time, you need to read a special plot:

Strengthen my faithful words, Lord, strengthen, Christ, the servant of God (name). As people rejoice at a bright Easter, so may the servant of God (name) be happy with life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen.

The patient should then wash himself with this charmed water.

It is also believed that during Holy Week, rituals can be performed to get rid of drunkenness and alcoholism. It is on Pure Thursday and Good Friday that they have special power.

So what needs to be done:

• On Good Friday, stove ash is taken from the stove.
• ash is taken out of the house and spilled out at the intersection, where there are no cars..
• while the plot is read three times:

Just as this ash does not give sprouts, but sprouts petals, from petals a fruit, so the slave (name) of wine will not take into his mouth: neither on Sunday, nor on Saturday, nor on Friday, nor on Thursday, nor on Wednesday, nor on Tuesday, and not on Monday. Amen. Just as this ash will not fill with a key, it will not sing like a nightingale, so the slave (name) will not drink green wine. Amen.

As this ash does not farrow, does not give birth, so the slave (name) will forever say goodbye to wine. He will not drink: neither on Sunday, nor on Saturday, nor on Friday, nor on Thursday, nor on Wednesday, nor on Tuesday, nor on Monday, nor on weekdays, nor on holy days. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen.

On Good Friday, it will be useful for women and girls to learn about a special rite and conspiracy - to strengthen peace and harmony in the family. What you need to do for this:

• On Good Friday, you need to bake a small bun.
• Say the words of the conspiracy over the bread (read below).
• Then divide the bread in half. One half must be eaten by the one who performs the ceremony.
• The other half of the kolobok must be kept for the whole year behind the icons.

Lord, save, save, protect. Now and forever and forever and ever. Amen.

Birthday on Good Friday - signs

Sometimes parents worry: what fate awaits a child born on Holy Week, and especially on Good Friday?

• Once in the old days it was believed that if a child was born on Good Friday, then he certainly had to be taken to his grandmother - so that she would reprimand him from future troubles and from a difficult fate.
• Do not worry about this today: the tragedy of this day will in no way affect the fate of the baby.
• By the way, representatives of the church have their own opinion on this matter. The troubles that will happen in the life of a child born on Good Friday will eventually turn into great joy.
• But if a birthday fell on Good Friday, then it is better to postpone the magnificent celebrations and congratulations, or celebrate it as modestly as possible.

Signs for Great Saturday before Easter

In fact, Friday smoothly passes into Saturday, and both of these days on the eve of Bright Sunday have a very similar atmosphere. Late in the evening on Friday, the body of Jesus Christ was removed from the cross, and throughout the entire Saturday it lay in the tomb. Therefore, this day is also called quiet: of course, it is strictly forbidden to make noise, have fun, and even more so conflict.

And most importantly, a tradition has developed among the people, which is in many ways similar to Forgiveness Sunday (the last day before the onset of Lent). It is customary to simply ask for forgiveness and reconcile with those people with whom there may have been disagreements.

Let this be a temporary and even quite modest compromise. But after all, any business begins with the first decision, just as the road of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

What not to do on Good Friday and Saturday

Of course, signs before Easter, as well as popular beliefs, call us to some kind of action, or at least to observations of nature. On the other hand, it is useful for a believer to know what not to do on Good Friday in order to have a clear picture of the rules.

Here's what you should pay attention to first:

1. Obviously, on Good Friday, Good Saturday and Bright Sunday itself, you should not get annoyed, swear, which means you don’t need to start a showdown. There are other days for this - why then darken the memory of Christ and the feast of Easter?
2. You should not drink alcohol, take part in feasts, parties.
3. Spouses are advised to refrain from mutual pleasures. There is no strict ban on intimacy, but it is intuitively clear that the remembrance of Jesus Christ, participation in his suffering does not involve carnal pleasures and lovemaking.
4. Of course, it is worth excluding any idle talk, gossip, empty news, gossip, lengthy reasoning, jokes. It is clear that Good Friday is a day of remembrance and mourning for Jesus. And any lively communication can simply dispel the atmosphere of sacred veneration of the deceased Savior.

Lent on Good Friday: what you can eat

Finally, those who observe Great Lent know that on Good Friday it is forbidden to consume any food until the removal of the shroud from the temple (this happens at about 3 pm, that is, after dinner). And after that, you can only eat any bread (but not sweet pastries) and drink water all day long.

A similar ban lasts until Sunday night, when, after the service, the believers joyfully exclaim with the news: “Christ is risen! He has truly risen!"

Of course, such a strict ban does not apply to people with poor health, children, the elderly, as well as those who work physically and can simply lose strength from starvation.

Thus, folk signs and customs on Good Friday and Great Saturday before Easter are directly related to the events that took place on these days about two thousand years ago.

Of course, whether to trust these folk ideas or not is a personal matter for everyone. In any case, if a sign helps a person sincerely believe in a miracle and tune in to a new bright wave of change, this is much better than not believing in anything and not expecting anything.

Based on site materials RosRegistr

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Saturday, which comes in Holy Week before Easter, is a special day. Therefore, they are often interested in the question: what can and cannot be done on the Saturday before Easter?

A detailed response and first-hand comments from the clergy are presented below.

You can start the discussion with what kind of Saturday comes before Bright Sunday. Interestingly, this day has several names at once:

1. Great.
2. Passionate.
3. Dyeing.
4. Quiet.

The main name is due to the fact that Saturday is the last day of Holy Week. These days were the last in the earthly life of Jesus Christ.

On Good Friday, the Savior was crucified, and all Saturday his body lay in the tomb. And the grief of loved ones at the tomb of Christ was very heavy, because hardly anyone hoped that he would rise again.

That is why Great (Holy) Saturday is a very dramatic day. And therefore it is undesirable:

• make any fun
• go to parties,
• sing dance,
• organization of some celebrations (wedding, birthday, etc.)
• indulge in carnal pleasures.

In this regard, the Sabbath day is also called quiet - it is really better for believers to refrain from worldly noise.

It is also better to give up work in the garden, hunting and fishing.

What not to do on Great Saturday before Easter

It is good to feel the atmosphere of Great Saturday, to learn a brief history of what lies in the traditions of this day, and what it means. Then it will become clear what exactly should not be done in such dramatic hours.

First of all, this is a day in which you need to try to restrain all earthly passions. It is unacceptable to swear, especially to swear and get annoyed in general.

So, it is better to leave all the clarification of the relationship for later. After all, Easter is coming, and it's time to tune in to the bright waves of the holiday.

If possible, it is better not to devote time to fun parties, to postpone the celebration of any dates. It is undesirable to do housework, hard work. It is better to plan your time in such a way in order to fulfill routine duties before the mournful hour.

Of course, there is no need to laugh, unrestrainedly have fun on Saturday before Easter. After all, we certainly would not do this in the days of memory of our loved ones. And if we are talking about the fact that a good half of humanity remembers the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, it is clear that this only increases our responsibility.

What to do on Holy Saturday before Easter

Since we are talking about the fact that on this day believers especially commemorate Christ, it is important to pay sufficient attention to their spiritual life. It would be right to attend a church service that starts early in the morning and continues throughout the day. Moreover, in the evening it turns into an all-night service, and then Bright Sunday comes.

And among the people, Saturday is also called Dyeing (or Red), since the hostesses are completing the last preparations for Easter. Eggs are dyed in the house, Easter cakes are baked, boiled pork is baked. Although it is traditionally customary to finish all household work on (cleaning the house, washing), the church does not prohibit doing business on the Sabbath.

Of course, on such a day you can read the Bible, pray, do good deeds, help those in need. Here you can focus on your inner voice. Perhaps someone has long needed your attention - then you should visit the person and help him as much as possible.

It would be useful to ask for forgiveness and forgive other people yourself. After all, by doing even the smallest things, we really change the world for the better and fill it with joy.

What can you eat on Good Saturday in Lent

And you can also take care of tomorrow's celebrations - traditionally, housewives begin to collect Easter baskets in order to consecrate festive food in the church. In this regard, the question arises: what do they eat on the Saturday before Easter?

In fact, this is the last day of Lent, so it is better to try to withstand the restrictions. In addition, there is not long to endure - tomorrow you can eat any dish.

And on Saturday itself, you can be content with only this menu:

• bread (not rich);
• fruits and vegetables in any form;
• water.

Great Saturday is the last day of Great Lent, and it is very strict (bread and water). And if we talk about when the Sabbath meal is allowed before Easter, then only after the end of the vigil in the temple. In fact, Great Lent ends on Sunday: after the service, believers solemnly say: “Christ is risen! He has truly risen!"

And then you can already taste pastas, eggs and other food. After that, the parishioners go home, rest and go to bed. But the real Easter holiday comes a few hours after Easter night - and it lasts at least a week.

Folk signs and beliefs on Holy Saturday

As we know, this is a particularly dramatic day: the body of the Savior has already been removed from the cross and placed in a coffin. Of course, on such a day you should refrain from any quarrels, and even irritation is better left for later. And you also need to pay attention to such folk signs and beliefs:

1. On Good Saturday, it is better not to plan any noisy parties. Even if a birthday falls, it should be celebrated as modestly as possible. And if you arrange a feast for the whole world, then this is an unkind sign: the year may not turn out as well as you planned.
2. It is also popularly believed that it is not necessary to take out the garbage on Saturday and nothing (any item) from the house at all, including loans. Wait until Sunday - because if you disobey, it can give rise to minor troubles, failures and harm you.
3. If Easter cakes turned out well on Great Saturday, this is a very good symbol: the year will turn out and delight loved ones with pleasant events.
4. If you wake up precisely during the Easter dawn and see it, a new bright streak will come in business.
5. If a deceased relative dreamed on Easter night, this is a very good sign. There is a belief that then in the next year all family members will be healthy, and no misfortunes will touch them.
6. It is better to try not to oversleep the morning service and generally get up early. Being late for church is not a good sign.
7. Interestingly, even hunters have a peculiar system of Easter symbols and signs. If you describe all their signs, you need a whole book. But the most important rule is that on such a day it is strictly forbidden to shed the blood of animals, this is considered a great sin. Therefore, with hunting (and fishing) you need to wait a little.
8. If it was clear and warm on Saturday before Easter, then the whole summer will be clear and sunny. And if cloudy weather turned out - to be a cold and rainy summer.

– Well, how are you going to celebrate your daughter's birthday on Friday? I was extremely surprised when I heard a colleague's question. After all, my girl's two-year anniversary fell just on. The colleague was not the only one among the numerous Orthodox acquaintances who, having learned about the postponement of the family holiday, strictly scolded that we were depriving the child of childhood, that he still did not understand anything about "church affairs."

In general, it turned out that the theme "Family holidays in Holy Week" has a place to be. It is about her - a conversation with, the rector of the temple of the martyr. George the Victorious of the Patriarchal Metochion in Georgia.

Archpriest Theodore Krechetov

— What if some important family holidays fall on Holy Week?

- If the spouses are believers in the family, there is agreement and understanding between them, such a question simply does not arise. I myself have been accustomed since childhood to the fact that any family celebrations that fall on Lent are postponed to the next Sunday or to or even for a time after Easter. It was natural and it simply could not have occurred to anyone that, say, a birthday could be celebrated on one of the Passion Days. And no one felt slighted if his personal triumph was postponed ...

The issue becomes relevant in those families where one of the spouses is an unbeliever or simply has a “liberal” view of the issues of church life. Then it can be difficult to reach agreement, and sometimes you just need to make a reasonable compromise: at least not touch the second half of the week: Thursday, Friday, Saturday ... Because these are special days, and it is still desirable for an Orthodox Christian to spend them in the temple .

- I have heard such objections: why deprive a small child of a holiday if he is not yet able to understand what kind of Events we remember on ...

- In fact, the child absorbs, remembers the general mood of his loved ones. But as for the celebration of the birthday of a small child, it just makes no sense to insist on a specific date: when adults arrange a holiday for him, then he will be happy. And in the future, when he becomes older, it would never even occur to him to expect fun for himself in tense and mournful days for every Christian. Unless, of course, before him will be an example of elders.

I remember that I postponed the celebration of my Angel Day, because it fell on the First Week of Great Lent. This is an example to all of us that for the sake of general church events, you can move your own, even such significant ones as Angel Day.

- And in your opinion, why do people today have the idea that family celebrations and Holy Week are quite compatible?

- It's just that now people are increasingly obsessed with their own "I", on its significance. And yet - this is the result of a lack of a sense of proportion, falling into some extremes. One extreme usually happens at the beginning of turning to God, the so-called neophyte spirit, when people still do not know how to calculate their strength and usually try to act according to the letter, for example, to fast very strictly, although there are neither forces nor conditions for this.

The other extreme usually happens later, when people have already gained experience and, realizing that the spiritual life is not built according to the letter, they decide that they will not “blindly obey the letter”, because the main thing is the spirit. And they begin too easily and imprudently to deny the rules, traditions, often in the end - the church life itself, arbitrarily adjusting it to their personal desires and requirements.

If it seems to us easier and easier, why not do it? After all, the main thing is that "in the soul everything was for real." How “real in the soul” is, with the priorities set in this way, it’s not worth saying.

If I consider myself a church person, then I must always subordinate my personal life to church life. There should be no arbitrariness of people's own will.

- And in this case, is there no risk of going just into the formal implementation of certain rules and regulations?

- A person should always seek his measure, based on the realization of what he is ready to sacrifice for the sake of God. And this feeling makes it clear what is acceptable and what is not. And just today we often observe a loss of a sense of proportion ... It occurs most often in the case when a person outwardly - accepted Orthodoxy, he is captured by the novelty of sensations, he tries to live a church life, but it does not become deeply close to him, remaining something formal.

And church life should not be formal. It was often like this, say, in pre-revolutionary times, when many people perceived everything connected with faith as a custom. The loss of reverence, and eventually the very meaning, led to the fact that later all customs were easily lost. Or they have transformed, sometimes so senselessly that people don't know why they do certain things.

Earlier, after Easter, on Radonitsa, people, having prayed in the temple, went to cemeteries, to their departed loved ones and laid Easter cakes, eggs on the graves, so that later the beggars would go, pick up this offering as alms and commemorate the deceased, whose name is indicated on the cross . And now it has turned into some kind of mandatory burden: why, why - they themselves do not know. But it is necessary - it is necessary: ​​everyone does it. There was just a loss of meaning.

The same applies to family holidays on Strastnaya. A person says to himself: “The main thing is that I - internally - believe. Why should I follow the rules then? And the memories that the Church is talking about, I do not need. I remember everything anyway." A person insists on some kind of personal faith. The balance between personal faith and church consciousness turns out to be not only disturbed, but completely lost.

What is the cost of loss?

“As a result, the living feeling, the living presence of Christ in life is lost. Passion Week is the time when a person visibly and vividly feels the convergence of time, world history at one point. And he feels a part of it. Through prayers, through the whole mood of the services of Holy Week, we are transported, out of time and space, into what happened more than 2000 years ago and at the same time is happening now, we empathize and participate in those Events, because every day of Holy Week corresponds to the day of the Savior's earthly life. Through this we come into contact with Eternity.

And if this is not close to a person, he does not want to be transferred anywhere, services for him turn simply into being inside the temple, where they stand for a long time and read something. Of course, this is painful and the person reassures himself: “God does not need this tedious standing. God needs me to love Him. And why then postpone the birthday of a person dear to me in order to spend several hours on my feet in a stuffy temple? There is a loss of feeling, but at the same time the person continues to call himself Orthodox.

There is a separation of consciousness. It would not occur to a normal person to arrange a holiday, to have fun when someone close to him has just died. But because of the loss of sensitivity, a living sense of presence, the Gospel Events begin to be perceived as something abstract. Which leads to questions like the one we just discussed.