Ivanjdan

A Photo Gallery

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist among the Serbs, by analogy with many other festivals, is called Ivanjdan.

In some places special church folk traditions are associated with it. Interestingly, not all Serbs know about them, and locals in some regions aren’t aware of their existence.

There is a tradition among the Serbs of Vojvodina when on Ivanjdan, girls and women weave large wreaths of grass and flowers, which then decorate houses and churches.

And in the village of Sivac even a whole festival of folk traditions takes place, and wreaths are woven in the evening, on the feast’s eve, right on the church grounds; and this event is blessed by the clergy. Before that, everyone young and old come to church in national costume to pray.

The festival of traditions and culture of the native Serbs of Vojvodina in Sivac is called “Ivanjsko Cvece”—that is, “St. John’s Flower”, and weaving wreaths on the feast’s eve is an integral part of it.

However, the church in Sivac is dedicated to St. Nicholas, which indicates that the Ivanjdan festivities are a wider tradition of local Serbs.

Photographs by Goran Vlahovic, Sivac
Hieromonk Ignaty (Shestakov)
Translation by Dmitry Lapa

14 июля 2022 г.

Comments
Eric Bell - Texas7/26/2022 7:19 pm
How wonderful that you keep both, the True Church and your National ways, dress, life, food... never become like the West - flee from it or its Babylon will devour you as it has us. God Bless you.
Victoria Trbuhovich7/15/2022 6:34 pm
I love to see these decorative wreaths! It's a faithful custom that I hope will never be lost.
Paul Mihailovich 7/15/2022 3:56 pm
Beautiful composition
Here you can leave your comment on the present article, not exceeding 4000 characters. All comments will be read by the editors of OrthoChristian.Com.
Enter through FaceBook
Your name:
Your e-mail:
Enter the digits, seen on picture:

Characters remaining: 4000

×