The rite of hiding the newlyweds

The liturgical practice of the southern Russian Church, despite the direct order of the church administrative authorities regarding the uniformity of liturgical books for the entire Russian Church, continues to this day to preserve some differences in the text of church liturgical books, and some rituals in church practice, and even entire rites, which the northern Russian Church has never known and does not know to this day. Once placed in an exclusive and almost independent position, the Southern Russian Church, thanks to various internal and external circumstances, has adopted into its practice many things that cannot but strike the eye of a person accustomed to the liturgical orders of the Northern Russian Church, but which here, according to the traditional order, exists as a completely normal, natural phenomenon, with which both the spiritual shepherd and his flock are equally akin. We are saying all this about a manuscript that accidentally came across our eyes, in which, between the rites known in the Northern Russian Church, printed, as is known, in the so-called additional Trebnik, for example, “the rite of the practiced panagia,” “the rite of founding a house,” “the rite of the blessing of icons,” etc., we came across a completely unknown in Russia, but nevertheless performed in Little Russia and hitherto, The rite of “hiding the newlyweds.” This rite is usually performed the next day after the sacrament of marriage and received its Little Russian name from the ritual of covering the newlywed’s head with a full cloth or muslin. This rite is performed like this. After the newlyweds leave their first bed and put on decent clothes, relatives lead them to the church to perform the rite of “hiding the newlyweds." At the same time, relatives and guests invited to the wedding feast, who spent the whole night in noisy and libation-rich orgies, accompany the newlyweds to the church in the same playful mood. Songs and dances, and sometimes music, which hitherto in Little Russia it is considered an integral part of any wedding, and does not stop until the moment when the newlyweds enter the church fence1). Always visit His Church with all reverence and fear of God, so that you may receive from Him mercy and grace before Him, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Having stood at the door of the priest, the bride before him, usually begins: “Blessed is our God,” the Trisagion and “Our Father,” “For Thine is the kingdom,” “Lord have mercy,” 12, glory and now, “Come let us worship” 3 times and Psalm 66 “God is gracious to us and bless us, Make Thy face shine upon us and have mercy on us. May the people of all nations confess Thy salvation, let the people confess to You. 1) See P. P. Chubinsky’s description of church fees. Labor ethnographic – stat. forwarding to the West-Russian edge, equipped Russian geographer society southwest dept. Mater. and research collected by Dr. P. P. Chubinsky, vol. IV. St. Petersburg 1877 pp. 460, 463, etc. 2) the manuscript from which we take the present rite belongs to the Nizhyn Greek Michael - Archangel Church. It is written in the very careful cursive handwriting of this century. People to You, God, let all people confess to You. The earth will give its fruit. God bless us, our God. God bless us and may all the ends of the earth fear Him.” And therefore the stichera from Psalm 5. “Inspire my words, O Lord, understand my title. Hear the voice of my prayer, O my King and my God. For I will pray to You, O Lord, in the morning hear my voice. In the morning I will appear to You and see me. And in the abundance of Your mercy I will go into Your house: I will bow to the Church Thy saint in Thy passion. Lord, guide me with Thy righteousness and straighten my path before Thee." Singers: “Lord have mercy” “O God, our God, who spoke as a prophet and foretold the illumination of your mind, to be in the last generation with all your tongue: do not want any of the people you created without the sacrament of your salvation, you have laid down laws for your chosen vessel, the Apostle Paul, in faith for living husbands and wives, all for your glory do and bring praise and glorification to the throne of your name with your unveiled head, and with your covered head in reverence and chastity do good deeds for yourself, by faith affirmed praises and prayers with thanksgiving to bring to your glory, O Lord Himself, who loves mankind, bless your servant (name of the rivers) and adorn her head. with beauty pleasing to you, for living according to your commandments, and in all the virtues according to your good pleasure, observing chastity for yourself, and together with your husband given to her, your eternal good will receive. Amen." Therefore, the priest blesses her head and places a veil on it, saying: “May the Lord cover you with His wing and protect you from all evil all the days of your life, and let you see the sons of your sons in peace and long life, even to the third and fourth generation together with your husband.” And he sprinkles both with sacred water, saying: “By sprinkling water sow the sacred blessing of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever and ever.” The deacon says: “Wisdom.” Priest: “Glory to you, God, our hope, glory to you.” Lik: “Lord have mercy” 3 times, “Lord bless.” The priest does. the daily usual dismissal and after dismissal he speaks to the bride, blessing her: “Go in peace and diligently keep all the commandments of the Lord in His passion all the days of your life, obeying your husband, according to the commandment of the Lord, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Therefore, the deacon says in the litany: “Grant, O Lord, to your newlywed servants (the name of the rivers) a prosperous and peaceful life, health, salvation and good haste in everything, peace, silence, love, an abundance of earthly fruits and many years.” The singers sing “many years” three times. And so they leave, thanking God. go home." “Having received a blessing from the priest,” says Chubinsky, everyone returns home, where on the road they meet the so-called pereima, that is, the young guys put a table on the road along which the newlyweds return from the priest; on this table they put bread, a bottle of vodka and a little each of rye, wheat, oats, buckwheat, etc. This is considered, Chubinsky concludes, a special honor for the young and for squad, that’s why the groom generously rewards those guys who arrange it for the change” (works of ethnographic-statistical expeditionary materials and research, collected by P.P. Chubinsky, St. Petersburg, 1877, p. 463). Dance and music accompany the newlyweds to the house, where they are greeted by their parents and closest relatives. The newlyweds sit under the icons in the front corner. The bride’s brother or one of her closest relatives removes her veil, or, as they say in Peter the Mogila’s Breviary, “the shroud.” In the homes of wealthy and intelligent people, this ritual is performed in most cases at home, more gracefully and decorously, and has the appearance of a common family prayer for the successful completion of the marriage celebration. The rite of “hiding the newlyweds” was almost entirely borrowed from the Trebnik of Peter Mogila, published in 1646, where this rite is inscribed as follows: “Prayer for the first-married bride who wants to be introduced into the church through marriage and receive the blessing of the first veil (p. 428). The difference between the same rite according to the Trebnik of Peter Mogila and the rite according to manuscript, which we described, is the most insignificant. In the Breviary of Peter the Mogila, the rite begins, for example, like this: “When the newlywed has come to the church, she will stand outside the door in front of the church.” After the priest reads the words: “Enter, child, into the courts of the Lord,” etc., it is said: “And the priest enters the church and the bride along with her friends. the church doors, the bride in front of him in the porch usually begins, etc. There is no addition at the end: “Therefore the deacon says in the litany: “Give, O Lord, to your newlywed servants,” etc. There are also small differences in the text of the “rite of concealment of the newlyweds” according to the Breviary of Peter the Mogila, but since they are unimportant, we omit them. These last differences can be attributed to the scribe's oversights; as for the rest, they were introduced into the present manuscript, without any doubt, consciously and deliberately. The later editor of the Mogila rite or “prayer to the first-married bride who wants to be introduced into the church by marriage and receive the blessing of the first veil of the head,” obviously wanted to destroy in the rite the customs recommended by the Trebnik of Peter Mogila for the bride to stand, upon arriving at the church, in front of the church doors, then in the porch, and for the priest - in the church doors, and to make the presence of the groom, who, according to The Breviary of Peter Mogila does not play any role in this case; this latter is achieved by the fact that the rite is called “hiding the newlyweds,” and not just the newlyweds, and in the end both newlyweds are entitled to many years. The rite we describe, practiced in some areas of the Southern Russian Church, is not known in the Northern Russian Church. In its entire present form, this rite, as far as we know, was not practiced in the Greek church, although its main prayer: “O God our God, the prophet who spoke and foretold" was taken by Peter Mogila with some additions from the Greek euchologies. In Goar in his euchology this prayer is inscribed: “εὐχὴ ἐπὶ τὸ ἀπαδήσασθαι κεφαλὴν γυναῖκα” and is placed after the rite of baptism (edit. Venet. 1730 an. pag. 309) There is quite a lot between the prayer in the Trebnik of Peter the Mogila and the prayer in the Euhogolia of Goara. a significant difference. The end of this prayer, according to Goar, reads like this: “Bless your servant (the name of the rivers), decorate her head with beauty pleasing to you, so that by living according to your commandments and directing your limbs to chastity, so that you may be worthy of (receiving) eternal blessings in Christ Jesus our Lord. Peter (Grave), leaving the main idea of ​​the prayer and most of the text, at the end changed it in relation to the circumstance for which he wrote the entire present rite. How, in the end, should one look at real rites? Should it be or should it not be among other rites of our Church? The answer to this question can be found in the remark that the ever-memorable hierarch of the Kyiv Church Peter (Mogila), the author of the rite we are considering, made about this prayer or rite. “Be aware,” says Peter Mogila, that this custom is not found everywhere, but rather in certain churches, and by the same token, every church contains its ancient custom in everything” (p. 428). Obviously, even in the time of Peter Mogila, this custom was not practiced everywhere, and if it was adopted in his Trebnik, it was only out of respect for him “to ancient customs” of famous churches, in which it was already firmly rooted and was considered a tradition of cherished antiquity. This is how, in our opinion, we need to look at it in our days. In itself, in its present whole form, as it is set out in the manuscript we examined, the “rite of hiding newlyweds" does not represent anything shameful, reprehensible and generally alien to everything that would insult the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage and profane the 6th church. On the contrary, this order is firmly rooted in the teaching of the Apostle Paul about the subordination of the wife to her husband, which submission is visibly expressed by laying on a veil or "shroud" on the head of the newlywed, who, being a maiden, was free, and having become a wife became subordinate and through this veil receives, according to the word of the apostle, "on her head a sign of power over her" (1 Corinth. chapter 11, 10). In addition, another thought of the same Apostle Paul, expressed in the same place of the same epistle, is expressed in the rite, namely: "Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered disgraces his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head: for it is also as if it were shaved. For if a woman does not want to be covered, then let her have her hair cut; and if a woman is ashamed to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered... Judge for yourself whether it is decent for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Doesn’t nature itself teach you that if a husband grows hair, then it is a dishonor for him? But if a wife grows hair, it is an honor for her: since hair is given to her instead of a covering “(vv. 4-6, 13-15), the Apostle Paul has a broader idea, of course, “every woman prays or prophesies,” and is fully expressed in the Greek prayer: „ εὐχὴ ἐπὶ τὸ ἀπαδήσασθαι κεφαλὴν γυναῖκα ", placed in the Greek euchology between prayers after baptism and read in the Greek church, in all likelihood, after the girl-child will grow up and begin to visit the church for prayer, whereas in the Trebnik of Peter the Mogila, of course, only a married woman. But in general, the thought of the Apostle Paul in this last one is sustained to the end and conveyed relatively correctly. Thus containing a detailed development of the two above provisions of St. Apostle Paul and connecting with the common family prayer for the successful completion of the marriage celebration, the “rite of hiding the newlyweds,” as the manuscript calls it, can have some very beneficial educational significance. Therefore, regarding the question posed above, the following answer can be made: where this rite is not practiced, there should not be introduced the real rite, as it has not been accepted in our modern Breviary, but where this custom has the force of prescription and is maintained as an “ancient custom,” it seems to us, and we should not throw the real order overboard: “Let, we say in the words of the famous Peter Mogila, let every church contain its ancient custom in everything.” But speaking in this sense regarding the rite of “hiding newlyweds” that we are considering, we nevertheless consider it not only useful, but even positively necessary to make several practical comments regarding it. Priests should perform this rite not in the porch or in the church doors, as indicated in the Breviary of Peter the Mogila, for the matrimonial bed, on which the blessing of the Church was only sprinkled the day before, is shameful and contrary to the teachings of the Church. To calm the weak conscience of the newlyweds and their “friends” present during the performance of this ritual, priests should recommend preliminary ablution to the newlyweds. The priests must destroy at the end of the rite the many years of newlyweds, where it is, of course, only practiced, not because it contains anything impermissible and indecent for the church or contrary to the teachings of the Church of Christ, but because it is not caused by the essence of the matter and has absolutely nothing to do with the rite itself. 3) Finally, it is the sacred duty and direct responsibility of pastors to zealously take care of the eradication of all those folk customs with which the celebration of this rite is currently associated and which insult the holiness of the performed sacrament and profane the very church, where everyone is obliged to come “with fear and awe,” and not with music, songs and dancing. The energetic word of the pastor of the Church, pronounced by him during the liturgy in one of the Sundays at the beginning of the wedding season, that is, at the beginning of the meat-eating season, when peasants mostly have marriages, and also before the ceremony itself “Hiding the newlyweds,” if circumstances require it, of course, can have a very beneficial effect on the peasants. If the shepherd of the Church does not achieve with this word the complete destruction of all folk customs that accompany marriage in general, then one can hope to destroy or at least significantly weaken those that offend religious feeling and the holiness of the church. The priest, as a spiritual father, can find other measures to destroy the described folk customs, except for the teaching word... You might be interested in: