Maslenitsa: the Cheese-fare Week

Many people think that Maslenitsa has nothing to do with the Orthodox Faith, that it is a national holiday of bidding farewell to winter and welcoming spring. Many people in Russia eagerly participate in all Maslenitsa’s rituals such as baking and eating pancakes, having fun at masquerades, participating in mock fighting and competitions, playing the capture of snow fortresses or sleigh rides down the snow slides.

In the Orthodox church calendar we read about the week before Lent: «The cheese-fare week is a fast-free week. For the entire 7 days, including Wednesday and Friday, it is allowed to eat milk and eggs». But why is this week called «syrnaya» (cheese-fare)? “Syr” is a Slavic word for curd, meaning, all dairy products.

According to the canons of the Orthodox Church, Cheese-fare Week is intended to prepare believers for the seven weeks of Lent, to which believers should come with bright thoughts and a pure soul, when everyone should be in a mood appropriate to the coming time of bodily abstinence and intense spiritual reflection.
Through divine services and ordinance of this week, the Church delivers us the message of these days are the «eve of repentance, a pre-celebration of abstinence, clear anticipation of the fast, the week of pre-cleansing».
Day by day, believers limit themselves in food, communication, unrighteous thoughts and actions, and comprehend the meaning of this restriction. The work on oneself begins long before the Cheese-fare Week. It starts with the week of the Publican and Pharisee. The parable of the Pharisee teaches us to repent correctly. It can be read in the gospel of Luke chapter 18 verses 10 through 14.

The week of Publican and Pharisee is followed by the week of the Prodigal Son, reminding us of a parable about the return of the repentant sinner to God. From this Sunday on, the services are conducted according to the Fast’s Triodion, and the 136th psalm On the rivers of Babylon is added to the singing. Sublime spiritual beauty of this psalm begets in us a delicate hope of finding the homeland of the Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Jerusalem.
In turn, it is followed by Memorial Saturday and Sunday of the Last Judgment, a narrative about the beginning and end of human history. During the Memorial Saturday the Сhurch commemorates all passed away Orthodox Christians. And on the Sunday of the Last Judgement begins the so-called 'myasopust' (meat-free) – it’s the day of parting with meat food.

Starting with the following Monday, Christians no longer eat meat, they eat only fish, eggs and dairy and vegetarian products.

Church Maslenitsa has its own history, rituals and its own meaning.

During this time the Сhurch condescends to our weaknesses, «for us, who are led from meat food and overeating to strict abstinence, not to be saddened, but little by little to retreat from tasty dishes and to undertake the reins of fasting». And gradually the Church leads us to the feat\attainments of fasting. Thus, the Church has decided that Christians should eat dairy food during the last week before Lent. According to saint Symeon of Thessalonica this was done to counteract some heretical opinion. This ancient decree of the church was even more firmly established and spread in the 7th century via the pledge of the Byzantine king Heraclius. He had been fighting for 6 years against Khosrow II, king of Persia, and being exhausted by the protracted war, he promised to God upon successful end of the war not to eat meat the last week before Lent. When the war ended in victory, respecting the king's pious vows and intercession, the church fulfilled his good wish by confirming the consumption of dairy food in the week before Lent.

So with the onset of Cheese state Week Monday, we remember the day of the Last Judgement and during this time we, Orthodox Christians, shouldn’t overeat, get drunk, and even more so, we shouldn’t jump over fires or burn scarecrows as it is done during Maslenitsa according to the pagan customs. Such customs do not befit Orthodox Christians, for this is the way the pagan Maslenitsa is celebrated. According to pagans, Maslenitsa falls on the day of the vernal equinox and has a second name, “Komoeditsa”. Pagans believe that on this day the sun awakens, the pagan god of light Hors becomes a young man and receives the new name Yarilo.

In accordance with the intention of preparing for Great Lent (the), on Cheese state Wednesday and Friday, the Church does not perform marriages, nor is the Liturgy served, but only canonical hours are read. On the Cheese-fare Friday, the suffering of the Savior on the cross is remembered, and on Saturday the memory of all venerable and God-bearing husbands and wives who have shined in fasting is celebrated.

The last day of Maslenitsa is Forgiveness Sunday. On this day the Church commemorates the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. People rush to attend Vespers. Sunday service begins as usual, with the reading of the Gospel and with the priests wearing their usual golden vestments. But suddenly everything changes. А new week begins, the first week of Great Lent. This moment is marked by the ritual of changing vestments, when the priests come out to the worshipers not in gold but in the purple color of sorrow and eternity. The service ends with the order of forgiveness. All the priests, including the rector of the church, come out to the solea (elevation in front of iconostasis) and bow to the ground, asking each other and the parishioners for forgiveness for all grievances, voluntary or involuntary, for inattention to sins, and the parishioners, in turn, come to priests, kiss the Gospel and say: «Forgive me, a sinner», and in response they hear: «God forgives and I forgive you». This is a very difficult ritual. The pride and vanity in us rear their heads, how is it possible to bow at someone’s feet and ask for forgiveness? It’s a very hard thing to do, but after that, a person feels light and joyful.
That’s how Christians celebrate Maslenitsa.

"But what about pancakes?" one may ask. Go ahead, eat and feast on them the whole week, but forget not to be moderate in consumption and do so without losing piety. Pancakes that are golden and round, and bread-flavored… Round pancakes that are for us to keep the memory of eternity, which we all face, yet know not what awaits us then… Golden and rosy pancakes that are like a little sun remind us of the Sun of our lives, of life-giving Lord Jesus Christ, the One Who can acquit us at Day of Judgement. What aroma pancakes have! Cereal aroma that reminds us of Holy Communion, without Which no Christian can be a truly Christian. Saint Theophan the Recluse teaches us, “Holy Communion is the task of our whole life. To take Holy Communion or not to take It means to be a Christian or not to be one. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of the Man and drink His blood, you have life in you (John 6:53)”. And of what awaits in the eternity those who love God, of milk and honey rivers of the Promised Land, let the rich aroma and golden butter flowing on pancakes remind us, as well as sour-cream, and all the deliciousness we would have for our pancakes!