Holy Rivers and Holy Rituals: St. Jordan's Day in Bulgaria

If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Philip Larkin, excerpt from his poem, Water

New Year Greetings to all. I hope 2014 will be a great year.  The Alien Diaries is now going into its 4th year and this is the 200th post!

Many years ago, I read an article in the local newspaper about parishioners of a Greek Orthodox Church in New York City.  Every year, on the 6th of January, their priest threw a cross into New York Harbor, and a group of young men dove into the icy water to retrieve it.  It was good luck and good health for the person who found the cross, and a blessing on the waters as well.

I was fascinated by the ritual, and when I began to study Bulgarian folklore, I found out that was done in Bulgaria, too, since the majority of people there are Orthodox Christians.

Water and religion seem to go together.  And it's not just Christianity.  For example, in India, the Ganges is the Hindu holy river.  People go there to bathe, and go there to die, so they can be cremated and have their ashes strewn upon the waters.  It assures them of a good situation in the next lifetime.

According to a number of religious beliefs, even Pagan, water is used for purification rituals. Despite what you've been told, holy water is not clean and if you've read what I have about the Ganges, it is terribly polluted.

Moving water, also known as living water, is supposed to be especially powerful, magical, and holy. It is mentioned often in Christianity and Judaism. This web page has 47 Bible quotes from the Old and the New Testament that pertain to water.

Despite the irony of holy water being dirty, the faithful sprinkle, wash and immerse themselves in it.  Ironic?  Maybe.  But religious ideas have no logic.  They are taken on faith. I gave up religion many years ago, but I find the cultural aspect of it fascinating, especially when it pertains to folk beliefs.

Today's post is water-related and about the celebration of St. Jordan's Day in Bulgaria. This day is also known as Epiphany and observed on the 6th of January.  It commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. In this instance it's the Jordan by proxy.

This video is from the Bulgarian National Radio affiliate in Vidin. It begins in a church, with the priests chanting a blessing. At 1:45, two older women bottle water from the font in the church, and one of them sprinkles some on a girl. Then the group forms a procession, complete with brass band music, and walks towards the Danube, River of Many Names. The young men, who are probably on the verge of hypothermia, jump in the water (at 3:36) to retrieve the cross while the crowd watches and cheers.  The river has been made holy for another year.



Another instance of ritual purification took place on December 6 of last year, this time on a border police boat.  An icon of St. Nicholas was immersed in the Danube. 

By the way, St. Nicholas has many different personalities depending on where you live. Here in the States, he's known as Santa Claus, a totally different personage than was depicted on that icon.  In Bulgaria, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of bankers, traders, sailors, and fishermen. In this case, the icon was placed in the water in memory of fisherman and boaters who had drowned.

Finally, let's have a look at a very boisterous Epiphany celebration, this time in Kalofer, Bulgaria.  It involves another river, the Tundzha.   In this video, the priest throws the cross, one of the men catches it, then they start to dance, sing and play musical instruments, up to their thighs in icy water. The cold doesn't seem to bother them, and they're having a great time! This dance is called the Ice Horo. Notice the bonfire...it's there in case of emergency.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Bulgarian Fascination With Water: Evidence From Folklore, Music, and Proverbs

Some Interesting New Year Rituals and More Cross-Cultural Celebrations

Sometimes Lost In Translation: Bulgarian Proverbs

By the way, there is a program on the Bulgarian National Radio titled Жива вода (Living Water). In Bulgaria, living water is connected with folklore, not religion as it is here in the States.  You can listen to it from Monday-Friday at 18:30 (Eastern European Time, GMT +2).  Adjust for your time zone. Even if you don't understand the language, you'll enjoy it if you love Bulgarian folk music.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Some Interesting New Year Rituals and More Cross-Cultural Celebrations

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(photo from Wikipedia)

Today's post will be about some interesting New Year rituals.

In Bulgaria, the New Year is welcomed with a ritual called Surva. According to the Bulgarian National Radio website, "very early in the morning on 1 Jan. boys (survakari) tour the community with best wishes for the New Year. They use decorated cornel twigs gently beating neighbors on their backs, for the sake of health, endurance and prosperity."

The noise and the cowbells in this video serve to frighten away the evil spirits and the fire symbolizes the return of the sun in this very noisy Surva celebration. The fun doesn't end on New Year's Eve, at least not in Bulgaria!



Jumping into a frigid body of water in January seems to be the thing to do to stave off the boredom of winter, and in my humble opinion, you have to be either drunk or out of your mind to think about it. If you live in New England, like I do, the ocean is freezing cold even in mid-July, and I've compared it to taking the Kneipp Cure.

Sebastian Kneipp, a monk from Germany, was one of the first to popularize the cold water treatment. He claimed it cured him of tuberculosis, which was a very common ailment in those days. He may have been on to something. http://www.kisthydrotherapy.com/cms/history.php

The Polar Bear Club, founded over 100 years ago in Coney Island, New York, was one of the first organizations to begin the New Year by taking a dip in the icy ocean. Any hangovers from the previous night will certainly be obliterated in that 38 degree water.



For more on the Polar Bear Club, read: http://www.polarbearclub.org/

The Christian holiday of Epiphany falls on January 6th. In Latin America, Epiphany is Three Kings Day. It is said that this on this day the Kings arrived at the manger of the infant Jesus and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Three Kings Day celebrations involve lots of singing and dancing as you can see in this video from Puerto Rico.



Epiphany takes on an interesting twist in Eastern Europe. There, the focus is more on commemorating the baptism of Jesus. Another name for the holiday is St. Jordan's Day, and it involves a group of men plunging into freezing cold water to retrieve a cross thrown into it by a priest. This custom is practiced by those of the Eastern Orthodox faith, which is the predominant religion the Balkans and in Russia. In Russia, where lakes and rivers often freeze solid, a hole will be cut into the ice.

The cross throwing ritual accomplishes two purposes: the first one is to bless and purify the water, the second is for health and good luck, especially to the person who retrieves it. Here's a group of men (notice that all the participants are male) taking a dive into the icy Danube near the town of Svishtov. Snow flurries fall from the sky and the audience on the riverbank is bundled up in heavy winter coats.



In this clip from a news program, a bunch of people dance in the Tundzha River and several men play the gaida!  Either they have been endowed with supernatural powers that overcome the effect of frigid water, or they have been hitting the rakia :)



For more about water in Bulgarian folklore read: http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/03/bulgarian-fascination-with-water.html

For more cross cultural celebrations read:http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/12/bulgarican-christmas-cross-cultural.html

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.