Parents' memorial Saturday February 18th. On prayerful remembrance of the departed. The meaning of parent's Saturday

MOSCOW, February 18 - RIA Novosti. The Saturday before the beginning of the last week preceding Lent is celebrated in the Russian Orthodox Church as Ecumenical Parental Saturday - a day of special prayerful remembrance of the departed.

To remember his deceased relatives, an Orthodox Christian attends a church service on the Friday evening before parental Saturday. At this time, a special funeral service is performed - parastas. All prayer chants and parastas readings are dedicated to prayer for the dead. On Saturday morning, the funeral Divine Liturgy is served in churches, followed by a general memorial service for the departed.

“On the eve of Ecumenical Parental Saturday, a serious funeral service is held, and in the canons that are read on Friday evening, there are prayers for those who died without repentance, drowned in the sea, “choked on a bone,” who were eaten by animals - for everyone who has no one to remember, who was not buried humanly. Let me remind you that this does not apply to suicides, but to Christians who were caught by sudden death and were not guided to the afterlife by the prayers of the Church,” the head of the department of biblical and theological disciplines at Kaluga Theological Seminary told RIA Novosti. , teacher of dogmatic theology, Archpriest Dmitry Moiseev.

The Synaxarion of the Lenten Triodion, a liturgical text that reveals the history and meaning of the main stages of Lent, also affirms the need for church prayer for all Christians who died “unnaturally” and without the possibility of repentance. “Who can count all the genera and types of death unexpected and not expected by anyone? And all of them are deprived of legalized psalmody and funeral prayers. That is why the holy fathers, motivated by love for mankind, established, based on the apostolic teaching, to perform this general, universal commemoration, so that no one - Whenever, wherever and however he ends his earthly life, he will not be deprived of the prayers of the Church,” it says.

Since ancient times, on Mother's Saturday, believers bring home-cooked funeral kutia (a brew of rice or wheat with raisins) and sweets to churches. The offering is placed on special memorial tables, with lighted candles placed on them. The funeral meal begins with kutya. On Parents' Saturday it is also customary to visit cemeteries.

Special days of remembrance of the dead in the Russian Church are also the second, third and fourth Saturdays of Great Lent, Radonitsa - Tuesday after the end of Bright (Easter) week, Victory Day, when deceased soldiers are remembered, Trinity Parental Saturday - on the eve of the Trinity holiday and Dmitrievskaya Parental Saturday - before Day of Remembrance of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki.

Ecumenical Parental Meat Saturday is one of the main days when Orthodox Christians remember their deceased relatives. This day is extremely important for all believers.

Parent Meat Saturday is celebrated shortly before the start of Lent. In 2017 it falls on February 18th. Maslenitsa week, despite the riotous and happy pastime, requires adherence to certain rules, including preparation for abstinence and repentance. Even in ancient times they said that if you remember the hour of death, you will not sin. Therefore, we sacredly honor the covenants of our ancestors and on Ecumenical Saturday we pay tribute to the memory of the deceased.

The meaning of parent's Saturday

Ecumenical, that is, universal, Saturday is the time of a single memorial service for all those who have left this world. Parents' Saturday is named because mother and father are closest relatives, and first of all it is customary to pray for the peace of their loved ones. On this day, the church allows you to pray for people whose lives were cut short by their own will, and for those who are missing and not interred. The church also commemorates all those who lived during the Last Judgment of Christ and those who defended him from the attacks of unbelievers.

Meat Saturday is the oldest holiday of remembrance of all the dead Orthodox Christians who were innocently killed and tortured for their true faith in Christ. February 18 is a day that reminds us of the Great Judgment, the time of meeting with God. The clergy give everyone a chance to cleanse and save their souls from terrible sins, in order to be honest and pure before themselves and our Lord. The covenant of the Apostle James to pray for one another in the name of healing applies not so much to the body as to the soul. After all, it is she who is the focus of all human benefactors and reflects their emotional and physical state. It is we who can help our loved ones with prayers by gathering together and offering a single prayer to the Higher Powers. On Parents' Saturday it is also customary to give alms generously.

Prayer on Meat Saturday

“Lord Savior! You redeemed all people with your blood, you chose us as a weapon for your death from bitter and envious revenge. By your miraculous resurrection you give us eternal life. May God rest the souls of our relatives who left the mortal world and ascended to the Kingdom of Heaven. We also pray for everyone who has left their body, having found eternal peace. For ordinary people, for kings, clergy, suicides and military men, the righteous and the lost. Save, Lord, their bright souls and lift them up to the Kingdom of Heaven. We offer a single prayer for the souls of those living today. Deliver them from fears and spiritual vices, guide them on the righteous path and do not leave them with your care until their death. Amen"

The prayers of all those praying merge into a single stream and are heard in Heaven. On this great day, the souls of all the dead have a chance to ascend to the Lord God. The souls of sinners, voluntary and involuntary, are also cleansed. We pray for those who drowned, and for those who died in accidents, and for those killed, for the entire human race, because there are no differences between people - we are all one before our Father.

Traditions for Parents' Saturday

On this day, kutya is traditionally prepared - a special dish for commemorating the dead. Kutya is a symbol of a person who has left the world of the living. Grain for bread is placed in the ground, it rots, producing fruits that we reap for cooking. Likewise, a person must be consigned to the earth so that the body decays and the immortal soul ascends to the Kingdom of Heaven. Kutya also serves as a symbol of the burial of all who, for various reasons, were not interred, and whose spirit rushes about, unable to leave this world.

The treat is made from grain, mainly wheat, which is soaked for several hours. Pearl barley and rice are also used. The porridge should be uncooked and crumbly, so that the grains are separate and not crushed. Season the porridge with dried fruits, nuts, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, marmalade - whoever prefers what. The dish is topped with honey or sugar syrup. Kutia is necessarily consecrated in the church at a memorial service for all the departed.

Ecumenical parental Meat Saturday serves not only as a day of remembrance for all the departed, but also as a day of atonement for sins and sincere repentance. Remember that you need to be honest, first of all, before yourself and your conscience. Live in peace and harmony with each other. We wish you all the best and don't forget to press the buttons and

16.02.2017 03:10

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The Orthodox calendar has special days for church-wide commemoration of the departed. These days are called parental Saturdays.

There are several parental Saturdays in the year: Saturdays before Meat Week and before the Feast of the Trinity (Pentecost) - they are called Ecumenical Parental Saturdays.

Dedicating the Meat Week to the remembrance of the Last Last Judgment of Christ, the Church, in view of this judgment, established to intercede not only for living members, but also for all those who have died from time immemorial, those who have lived in piety, of all generations, ranks and conditions, especially for those who died a sudden death.

“The Holy Fathers legitimized the commemoration of all the dead for the following reason. Many very often die an unnatural death, for example: while traveling across the seas, in impassable mountains, in gorges and abysses; It happens that they die of hunger, in fires, in war, or freeze. And who will count (list) all the genera and types of unexpected and unexpected death? And all such are deprived of legalized psalmody and funeral prayers. That is why the holy fathers, motivated by love for mankind, established, based on the teachings of the apostles, to perform this general, universal commemoration, so that no one, no matter when, where and how they end their earthly life, would be deprived of the prayers of the Church.”

The solemn all-church commemoration of the departed on this Saturday (as well as on Trinity Saturday) brings great benefit and help to our deceased fathers and brothers and at the same time serves as an expression of the fullness of the church life that we live.

Trinity Parents' Saturday - June 3, 2017

On Trinity Parental Saturday, it is customary in the Orthodox world to remember the departed. This tradition dates back to apostolic times. Trinity Saturday is universal and represents the last day of the Old Testament Church before the revelation of the Church of Christ in its entirety on the Day of Pentecost.

Intercession Parents' Saturday - October 7, 2017

On Mother's Saturday of Intercession, on the eve of the Intercession holiday Holy Mother of God, in the Orthodox world it is customary to remember the dead. Parents' Saturday of the Intercession is not a widespread tradition; it is celebrated only in a few regions of Russia, since it is associated with the commemoration of “the fallen soldiers who laid down their lives for the faith and Fatherland near Kazan” during the conquest of Kazan by Ivan IV the Terrible in 1552.

Dimitrievskaya (Dmitrievskaya) parent's Saturday - October 28, 2017

On November 8 (new style), the Orthodox Church honors the memory of the Great Martyr Dmitry of Thessalonica. And on the coming Saturday before the day of memory of Dmitry of Thessalonica, a commemoration of all the deceased is held - Dimitrievskaya (Dmitrievskaya) parental Saturday.

Parental Saturdays of the Holy Pentecost

Holy Pentecost is the name given to the days of Great Lent, which lasts exactly seven weeks (weeks). It usually begins in February or March and ends in April-May. At this time, the church calls on believers to be in the closest union of Christian love and peace not only with living people, but also with the dead, performing prayerful commemorations for them on designated days. Memorial days during Great Lent are appointed on Saturdays of weeks, since on all other days of remembrance of the dead (funeral litanies, litias, memorial services, the third, ninth and fortieth day after death, sorokoust) are not performed at this time - for the reason that every day is not There is a full liturgy, with which this ritual is associated. It is precisely in order not to deprive the dead of prayer on the days of the Holy Pentecost, and these Saturdays were established. They are called Ecumenical Parental Saturdays, and the funeral services themselves performed on these days are called ecumenical memorial services.

• Parents' Saturday of the second week of the Holy Pentecost Orthodox holidays - March 11, 2017

• Parental Saturday of the third week of the Holy Pentecost Orthodox holidays - March 18, 2017

• Parents' Saturday of the fourth week of the Holy Pentecost Orthodox holidays - March 25, 2017

Also on these Saturdays, in addition to commemorating each individual deceased, the church commemorates all “fathers and brothers in faith who have passed away from time immemorial, who have been worthy of Christian death, as well as those who, being caught by sudden death, were not guided into the afterlife by the prayers of the church.” . In the circle of the liturgical year, such days of general commemoration are considered to be Meat Saturday and Trinity Saturday, as well as Saturdays of the second, third and fourth weeks of Great Lent. On all parental Saturdays, the service is performed according to a special charter.

Ecumenical memorial services are held in churches - prayers are read for the remission of sins and the grant of eternal life.

The funeral service on this day is called: “Memory of all Orthodox Christians who have departed from time immemorial, our fathers and brothers.”

Meat-eating

The Orthodox Church celebrates this day on Saturday, a week before the start of Lent. In 2017, Lent will begin on February 27.

Meat-free Saturday is called because the Sunday following it is called “Meat-free week” - the day on which last time Meat food is allowed before Lent. Sunday is also called Little Maslenitsa, as it precedes Maslenitsa week.

This is the first parent's Saturday of the year (on church calendar there are seven of them) when in Orthodox churches A special commemoration of deceased Orthodox Christians is performed. All but one (May 9 - Commemoration of Deceased Soldiers) have a moving date.

On this parental Saturday, they especially pray for those who suffered an untimely death in a foreign country, far from their relatives, at sea, in the mountains, from hunger or infectious diseases, in battle, during natural disasters, who did not have time to repent before death, and above who did not perform the funeral rites.

The Holy Church, based on the apostolic teaching, established this general, universal commemoration so that no one, where, when and no matter how he ends his earthly life, is deprived of her prayers.

Story

Meat-eating Saturday is one of the most ancient in origin. The Special Ecumenical Saturday is mentioned back in the 5th century in the traditions of Sava the Sanctified, but there is evidence of an earlier celebration of this day.

According to legend, on this day, still persecuted and not recognized by anyone, Christians gathered together to honor the memory of tortured and executed brothers and sisters in faith who did not receive a proper burial.

This day was not chosen by chance - the Sunday after Meat Saturday is dedicated to a reminder of the Last Judgment of Christ, which will be upon all people at His second coming, and when the eternal fate of each person will be determined.

© photo: Sputnik / Alexey Danichev

Painting " Last Judgment"(artist F. Bruni) over the hall of St. Isaac's Cathedral

During the service, they remember the parable of the Last Judgment of the living and the dead, so that a person remembers that he will have to answer for sinful acts committed during the Judgment.

Therefore, the Church has established to intercede not only for its living members, but also for all those who have died from time immemorial, especially for those who died a sudden death, and prays to the Lord for their pardon. Thus, the Church gives everyone a chance to save their soul.

Parents' Saturday

These are days of special remembrance of the dead. On these days, special commemoration of deceased Orthodox Christians is performed in Orthodox churches.

The name “parental” most likely comes from the tradition of calling the deceased “parents,” that is, those who went to their fathers. And also because Christians prayerfully commemorated, first of all, their deceased parents.

Among parental Saturdays, Ecumenical Saturdays are especially distinguished, on which the Orthodox Church prayerfully commemorates all the departed. There are two such Saturdays: Meat and Trinity (on the eve of the Feast of Pentecost, in 2017 it falls on June 3). On these two days, special services are held - ecumenical memorial services.

The remaining parental Saturdays are not ecumenical and are reserved specifically for private commemoration of people dear to our hearts.

Traditions

On the eve of parental Saturday, that is, on Friday evening, a great memorial service is served in Orthodox churches, which is also called the Greek word “parastas”. And on Saturday morning, they serve the funeral Divine Liturgy, followed by a general memorial service.

On this day, you should remember your deceased parents in church - people submit notes with the names of loved ones of the deceased and pray for the repose of their souls in the afterlife.

According to the old church tradition, parishioners bring Lenten foods and wine to the church for the liturgy, which are blessed during the service, and later distributed to those who wish. Also on this day, it is customary to give alms to the poor with a request to pray for the deceased.

After visiting churches, Orthodox Christians go to the cemetery, read prayers for the repose of the souls of deceased relatives, and tidy up the graves.

The clergy believe that on this day it is more important to hold a service in the church than to go to the cemetery, since our prayer for deceased relatives and friends is much more important than visiting the grave.

But, if it is not possible to visit the temple and cemetery these days, you can pray for the repose of the deceased at home.

Customs

In Rus', folk traditions of commemorating dead people were somewhat different from church traditions. Ordinary people went to the graves of relatives before major holidays - on the eve of Maslenitsa, Trinity, the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the day of remembrance of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica.

Most of all, people revered Dmitrievskaya parental Saturday. In 1903, Emperor Nicholas II even issued a decree on holding a special memorial service for the soldiers who fell for the Fatherland - “For the faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, who laid down their lives on the battlefield.”

© photo: Sputnik / Yuri Kaver

In Ukraine and Belarus, days of special commemoration of the dead were called “Grandfathers”. There were up to six such “Grandfathers” a year. People superstitiously believed that on these days all deceased relatives invisibly joined the family funeral meal.

According to ancient custom, on parental Saturdays it was customary to eat kutya - an obligatory dish for the funeral meal. Sweet porridge was usually prepared from whole grains of wheat or other cereals with the addition of honey, as well as raisins or nuts. True, today few people follow it.

Prayer for the departed

Rest, O Lord, the souls of Your departed servants: my parents, relatives, benefactors (their names) and all Orthodox Christians, and forgive them all sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant them the Kingdom of Heaven.

During church services, Orthodox people remember by name many generations of their deceased ancestors.

The material was prepared on the basis of open sources.

Ecumenical parental (meat-free) Saturday

Dedicating the meat-eating week to the reminder of the last Last Judgment of Christ, the Church, in view of this Judgment, has established to intercede not only for its living members, but also for all those who have died from eternity, who have lived in piety, of all generations, ranks and conditions, especially those who died a sudden death, and prays Lord, to have mercy on them. The main reason for the appearance of a special memorial day on Meat Week was not the content of the Orthodox menu.

It’s just that on Sunday of this week the Church remembers the Last Judgment of Christ, and it is logical to devote the day before to prayers for the departed, to intercede not only for our living members, but also for all those who have died from time immemorial, who have lived in piety, of all generations, ranks and conditions, especially those who have died sudden death, and prays to the Lord for mercy on them.

The solemn all-church commemoration of the dead on this Saturday brings great benefit and help to our deceased fathers and brothers and at the same time serves as an expression of the fullness of the church life that we live. For salvation is possible only in the Church - a society of believers, the members of which are not only the living, but also all the dead in the world. And communication with them through prayer, their prayerful remembrance is an expression of our common unity of the Church of Christ.

The main meaning of these “universal” (common to all Orthodox Church) funeral services - in prayer for all deceased Orthodox Christians, regardless of their personal closeness to us. This is a matter of love that does not divide the world into friends and strangers. The main attention these days is to all those who are united with us by the highest kinship - kinship in Christ, and especially to those who have no one to remember.

For the primary commemoration of people dear to us personally, there are other parental Saturdays. First of all, these are the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Saturdays of Great Lent, and besides them, the Dimitrievsky parental Saturday established in the Russian Orthodox Church, which was originally intended to commemorate the soldiers who fell in the Battle of Kulikovo, but gradually became a general memorial day .

In our country, meat-eating Saturdays are often viewed only as simply parental Saturdays, intended mainly, if not exclusively, for the commemoration of our relatives and friends.

Love for loved ones and the resulting need to pray especially earnestly and often for them, as natural and completely understandable, are praised and encouraged by the Holy Church. But if all Orthodox Christians began to pray exclusively only for their relatives and friends, what reward would they have (Matthew 5:46), what grace would they have?.. And sinners love them (Luke 6:32), and the pagans do the same (Matt. 5:47) ... And most importantly, in such an order, when everyone would pray only for their own, prayer for our beloved relatives and friends and for ourselves would continue only for several years or decades after death, only as long as those who knew and loved them were still alive and had not yet forgotten the deceased - and then there would be no one to remember them. And for poor relatives and friends there would be no prayer at all after their death.

Therefore, the Holy Church, presenting us with many opportunities to pray for our loved ones, dear departed and to remember them by name, at the same time, in her funeral hymns and prayers, constantly instructs us to simultaneously pray to the Lord and for the repose of all the departed servants of God, all the deceased Orthodox Christian.

By this she reminds us that in addition to our beloved relatives and friends, we also have many brothers in Christ, whom we, even without seeing them, must love, for whom, even without knowing their names, we must pray.

Thus, she establishes and tries to maintain such an order in which prayer for every Orthodox Christian will be unceasingly offered up even when none of those who personally knew him remain alive, when his name is forgotten on earth - prayer for him will be unceasingly offered up until the end century.

We usually make a special commemoration of each of our loved ones every year on the days of their death. Sometimes commemoration is also performed on the name day. But so that those of our brothers who have previously fallen asleep in Christ, who no longer have relatives and friends on earth who pray for them and remember the days of their death and name days, do not remain without annual deliberate commemoration, the Holy Church especially singles out two of all memorial days - two ecumenical Meat Saturdays - before the beginning of Great Lent and Trinity Memorial Saturday), when the living are invited to offer funeral prayers first of all, about all the generally deceased, “and in some cases special ones who did not receive legal(i.e. those about whom there was no mention of each individual), now by common memory they too will be remembered«.

Prayer for the departed

Rest, O Lord, the souls of Your departed servants: my parents, relatives, benefactors (names) and all Orthodox Christians, and forgive them all sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant them the Kingdom of Heaven.

In this way, Orthodox people remember by name many generations of their deceased ancestors.

Church commemoration on Parents' Saturday

To remember your deceased relatives in church, you need come to church for a service on Friday evening before parent's Saturday. At this time, a great funeral service, or parastas, takes place. All troparia, stichera, chants and parastas readings are dedicated to prayer for the dead. In the morning, on Memorial Saturday, the funeral Divine Liturgy is celebrated, after which a general memorial service is served - your presence at the Liturgy and memorial service is required. Moreover, our dead are clear witnesses of whether we attended the service, prayed for them, or simply wrote off notes and paid off with candles.