Radonitsa (03/05)

On the Tuesday of the second week after Easter, one day after Thomas Sunday (or Antipascha), the Orthodox Church established the day of remembrance of the deceased, the first after Easter.

This day is called Radonitsa and is considered Easter for the dead.

On the day of Radonitsa, Christians symbolically share the Easter joy of the resurrection of the Savior with members of the Church who have already left this world. According to St. John Chrysostom, this holiday was celebrated in Christian cemeteries in ancient times.

Etymologically, the word «radonitsa» goes back to the words «rod» and «joy», and Radonitsa’s special place in the one-year circle of church holidays — immediately after Bright Easter Week — seems to oblige Christians not to grieve or complain about the death of loved ones, but, on the contrary, to rejoice their birth into another life — eternal life. Victory over death, won by the death and resurrection of Christ, displaces the sadness of temporary separation from relatives.

It is on Radonitsa that there is a custom of celebrating Easter on the graves of the deceased, where colored eggs and other Easter dishes are brought, where a funeral meal is performed and part of what is prepared is given to the poor brethren for the remembrance of the soul. Such communication with the departed, expressed through simple everyday actions, reflects the belief that even after death they do not cease to be members of the Church of the God Who « is not the God of the dead, but of the living» (Gospel of Matthew 22:32).

The now widespread custom of visiting cemeteries on the very day of Easter contradicts the oldest institutions of the Church: until the ninth day after Easter, remembrance of the dead is never performed. If a person dies on Easter, then he is buried according to the special Easter rite. Easter — is a time of special and exceptional joy, a holiday of victory over death and over all sorrow and sadness.



Story «Bright sadness»

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