On the difficulties of translation: The article is difficult to understand, since the Russian words "Православный" and "Правоверный" are translated equally into English as "Orthodox", with different meanings)))
Today, the speech was to go about the origins of the Shrovetide festival. But some comments about this holiday forced to write this text.
If you do not understand, then maybe this is not your problem.
"You can say whatever you like and say, prove, convince that it's Carnival, not Cheese Week"
Cheese Seven or Sjuroputnaya Week \ is a kind of "semi-fast", which helps Christians to switch from abundant food to the most severe sweat of the year. Identify it with the Carnival is not worth it, at least because this, as we see, is not a holiday and forms an integral part of the preparatory weeks, before the Great Lent: -
The Week of the Mytar and the Pharisee, The Week of the Prodigal Son, The Meatfed Week and The Sour week. From the "pagan" prototypes, only the dates remained in it, and those that were replaced by the dates of the lunar calendar are calculated according to the paschalia, and the idea of a correct fasting, which in modern times has lost the practical ancient meaning of the transition between different types of nutrition, in winter-conservation, in summer-fresh food.
Now the boundaries of seasonality in food products are absolutely blurred and the meaning in such posts has become more religious and is more often explained from the point of view of spiritual perfection. But in this case, periodic abstinence from certain types of food, in everyday life, in the form of various diets can be beneficial to the body.
Maslenitsa! On the table, pancakes are waiting for you. In the house the peace, comfot, coziness!
Well, Maslenitsa, as we have already figured out, is a folk festival of the meeting of spring, with festivities, hymns, abundant use of various dishes, and observance of certain "pagan" orthodox rituals. The truth of some is completely forgotten, some have been transformed and mixed, some have completely disappeared.
And so, the first thing you need to understand Pancake week and Cheese Seven is different holidays, if one can put it this way, considering that Syrophor is not a holiday.
"To be honest, I do not feel the rootedness of Maslenitsa in paganism." Most likely, it arose at the crossroads of a dual belief. "
Correctly, that there is no such sensation. The holiday "Carnival" was not in "paganism." He appears in an almost modern form only to the 17th century, after the persecutions caused by Nikon's reforms. If, under the "joint of the two-faith", to understand the transition from the "dual faith", the late Orthodoxy to the Orthodox Katholical Christianity, then the remark is absolutely correct.
Of course, Maslenitsa did not appear in an empty place, the prototype of it was Komoditsa, which I already mentioned, although the holiday was celebrated on the same dates and they are very similar, but these are different holidays. In the komodetice, more "pagan" rituals and fullness were retained by the original meaning.
And the second remark, running ahead, Komoditsa and Maslenitsa \ - different holidays. And what is important, both these holidays are not "pagan." At the same time, both festivals are popular, not religious. If Shrovetide can be called a Christian holiday, then Komoditsa is an Orthodox national holiday. And in both holidays there are religious elements of the Pravoslavna ("pagan") faith. And again, the question: can Pravoslavie be called faith?
Something like that. Perhaps not quite clear about these holidays because of the modern confusion in terms of "Paganism", "Orthodoxy", "Orthodox Christianity", uncle Nikon knowingly fired all the same, but later on sorting out the formation of Christianity everything will fall into place. In the meantime, one has to believe that the so-called "paganism" and polytheism, or rather Orthodoxy, existed in Russia until the middle of the 16th century, and according to the mentions of Western travelers, in the beginning of the 20th century pagan inclinations in Russia were very significant.
And the term "Orthodox Christianity" is not true, since from the middle of the 16th century in our country the "Greco-Catholic Church" or "Orthodox Catholic Church" existed until 1917. Orthodox means the Faithful. And only since 1943 there was "Russian Orthodox Church" which only in 1991 has received the status of the legal person.
But about this in more detail later ...