February 1 - what is the main holiday for you?

February 29, which happens every four years, due to its rarity - to everyone and everyone known Kasyanov day. But regarding the festivity of the first day of the last month of winter, not all are informed. Meanwhile, events correspond to him "for every taste and color." Looks your view of the West or the East, on February 1st, for almost everyone, there is a festive occasion.

Enlightenment of Uncle Sam

Let's see for a start on the calendar, February 1, what holiday celebrate adherents of American democracy.

Uncle Sam, the main DJ of the planetary disco, "breaks away" at the start of the month "to the full"! It is on the first day of this month that the National Day of Freedom, unofficially called "the birthday of all American presidents", is established. Not at all because historically significant personalities were born in February, Lincoln (on the 12th) and Washington (on the 22nd). It was on February 1 (what a holiday for African Americans!) Abraham Lincoln in 1865 initiated his 13th amendment to abolish slavery. It was ratified later, on December 18 of the same year, after the death of the President-Liberator on 15 April. Officially, the holiday was attributed to February in the post-war 1948 year by the head of state Harry Truman.

February 1 - what holiday is celebrated in Russia by Democrats

In one thing, we were ahead of the Americans: in comparison with the fall of the shameful slavery of the New World, serfdom in our Fatherland was abolished four years earlier. The Manifesto of the Emancipator's Tsar, by the way, also came in February of the old style, the 19th (in the modern Gregorian calendar - March 3), 1861.

But already in the XX century on February 1 (what a holiday for the adherents of democracy!) Was born in 1931 in the Urals village of Butka, the future first president of the Russian Federation Yeltsin. Whether he freed the citizens of the country from the bonds of the Soviet system or pushed them to destroy the great power, the history will judge impartially except in a hundred-two hundred years.

If you do not care much, who ordered the music to which the eccentric ambiguous president danced, you can pick up a glass of sparkling wine or a glass of Russian vodka in his memory with the first day of February.

The day of the enthronement of the Holy

Let's see in the calendars of the Moscow Patriarchate, under the date of February 1, which church people celebrate in our country. Traditionally, the day of enthronement of the ruling Patriarch is celebrated in our Local Church . The sixteenth primate of the Russian Orthodox Church was elevated to the highest level of the church hierarchy on February 1 in 2009.

Modern society is so uninhibited that even the slogan of "party in a new format" places the subject of the Patriarch in the place of the subject without blunders. To argue how the church life is "formatted" under the leadership of the Holy One is the matter of the conciliar mind. In the temples of the Moscow Patriarchate - somewhere with sincere love, and somewhere for obedience to the canons - a prayer service for the head of the Church is proclaimed on that day every day.

In the practice of divine services to judge, on February 1, what holiday should be considered the main holiday in the evening singing of the canons, the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel in the Liturgy, is given to the abbot. Naturally, in temples dedicated to Russian saints, in memorable places connected with their ascetic life, on the weekday the primacy of honor is given precisely to these lamps of Orthodoxy. So, in Zvenigorod on the first day of February, the memory of one of the disciples of St. Sergius of Radonezh, a strict ascetic of piety, is commemorated. Savva Storozhevsky.

Fiery Gehenna and Winter Thunder

For the full contrast, let's talk about February 1 - what a holiday the Orthodox world and pagans are doing on this day. Ecumenical Orthodoxy honors St. Macarius, called the Great (also known as Egyptian). The monk was remarkable for his amazing humility, as his life tells us. Of the special events of his life, it is worth noting the following: having met once in the desert the dried skull of a pagan priest, the saint was awarded an interview with the soul of the deceased. He told him that, according to the prayers of the Monk, even pagans in hell receive some relief. The priest himself abides in great fire, but at the same time he stands on the miter of the apostate bishop, who has sunk deeper into the lake of excruciating flame. It was revealed to St. Macarius from this conversation and the fact that during the lifetime demons have great power over the pagans.

It is noteworthy that the Druids celebrated on this day Imbolk (the name, according to some information, rising to the concept of "downpour"), and the eastern Slavs - Gromnitsa. According to legends, on February 1 - the only day of winter, during which a storm may occur. So it or not, each of us can try to make sure by own experience. After all, to meet the first of February with a favorable coincidence of circumstances living on Earth man will succeed several dozen times.