Presentation of the Lord

The great holiday of the Presentation of the Lord is celebrated by the Orthodox Church annually on February 15, 40 days after the Nativity of Christ. This is a very ancient Christian holiday. Already in the 4th century, many theologians read the first Sretensky sermons; in Byzantium in the 5th century it was celebrated at the state level, and soon the entire Christian world began to celebrate it. On this day, Mary, following the ancient Jewish tradition, brought the baby Jesus to the Temple for the first time to perform the rite of dedication to God. In the Temple, Mary and her child were met by the learned elder Simeon, a 300-year-old resident of Jerusalem. According to the prophecy, the elder could not die until he met the Messiah. Seeing the child and taking him in his arms, Simeon immediately realized that the prophecy had been fulfilled, and now he could die in peace. An old widow praying in the Temple, nicknamed Anna the Prophetess, also saw the baby Christ. She approached him, bowed and went out to the people to tell about the coming of the Messiah. The Slavic word "sretenie" is translated as "meeting". This is the great day of the meeting of the Old and New Testaments, paganism and Christianity, light and darkness, the meeting of the entire human race, in the person of the righteous Simeon and Anna, with Christ. This is a symbol of great joy that this meeting has finally happened after a very long wait. This meeting was preserved in Sacred History and became an annual great Christian celebration. This day was not without folk traditions. In the celebration of the Presentation, Christian and pagan principles are intertwined, but even folk customs confirm that this day brought bright joy to people. The peasants celebrated the meeting of winter and spring, and cheerful festivities took place in the villages. The end of the winter cold and the beginning of the spring thaw were called Sretensky. After carefree festivities, the peasants began to have serious troubles: cattle were driven out of the barn into the corral, seeds were prepared for sowing, and garden trees were treated with whitewash.