Christian Trinity holiday is fused with ancient pagan festival, producing colorful display at Kyiv's outdoor culture museum
Before Christianity, pagans celebrated the Green Festival. Later Trinity, or Svyata Nedilya, which marks the 50th day after Easter coincided with the pagan feast. These days, people collect sedge, maple and oak branches called ‘klechannia’ and adorn their homes – an act that has become as traditional as putting up a tree at Christmas.
During the Green Festival, Kyiv’s outdoor museum of ethnography and culture called Pyrohovo, traditionally attracts amateur folk ensembles and ordinary pilgrims from all over Ukraine. This year the festivities were low-key and subdued, partially due to blustery weather.
Every part of Pyrohovo represents a region of Ukraine, such as the mountainous Carpathians, Podillya in the northwest, or Poltavshchyna in the northeast. Although Pyrohovo is merely a mock village, folklore celebrations have a feeling of authenticity mainly because people who come to Pyrohovo to sing and dance are real peasants who learned about Ukrainian traditions not from books but from their grandparents.
So on Trinity Sunday, the celebration at Pyrohovo started with morning
| The priest blesses the sprigs that protect a house from evil ghosts. |
liturgy at St. Michael’s Church. The church was decorated with green leaves and flowers as were all the cottages at Pyrohovo village. The liturgy was followed by a solemn procession, called Khresny Khid, in which a priest clad in a green robe led his congregation through the village. The priest then blessed the wells and green sprigs, which were used to ward off evil spirits.
In ancient times, the blessing of the wells was supposed to protect people from mermaids who, according to myth, were especially active during the Green Festival. Trinity is associated
| Khresny Khid from St. Michael’s Church at Pyrohovo |
with a rich history of folklore and rituals based on pagan beliefs. During pagan times, women were afraid to swim during Trinity because they feared mermaids would drown them. People also used to leave food in their fields for forest ghosts.
People who gathered at Pyrohovo on Trinity Sunday were hardly afraid of mermaids, yet all rituals were performed precisely and carefully – just as it used to be in rural Ukraine.
