Badnyak
The Serbian Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, which is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian, so Christmas Eve (December 24) as celebrated by the Serbs coincides with January 6 on the latter calendar.
In Serbian Christmas traditions (Serbia, Republic of Srpska, Montenegro and Serbs in the Diaspora), the head of household goes in the morning into a forest to select a young, straight oak tree and fell it.
A log cut from this tree, up to 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) long, is called badnyak and has an important role in the celebration. It is in the evening ceremoniously taken into the house and laid on the fire that burns on the house’s fireplace called ognjishte, whose hearth is without a vertical surround.
The burning of the badnyak is accompanied by prayers to God so that the coming year may bring much happiness, love, luck, riches, and food. Since most houses today have no ognjishte on which to burn a badnyak, it is symbolically represented by several leaved oak twigs. For the convenience of people who live in towns and cities, they can be bought at marketplaces or received in churches.
The Serbs also take a bundle of straw into the house and spread it over the floor, and then walnuts on it. Before the table is served for the Christmas Eve dinner, it is strewn with a thin layer of straw and covered with a white cloth. The head of household makes the Sign of the Cross, lights a candle, and censes the whole house.
The family members sit down at the table, but before tucking in they all rise and a man or boy among them says a prayer, or they together sing the Troparion of the Nativity. After the dinner young people visit their friends, a group of whom may gather at the house of one of them. Christmas and other songs are sung, while the elderly narrate stories from the olden times.
The ritual includes Vespers, placing the badnyak on the open fire built in the church yard, blessing or consecrating the badnyak, and an appropriate program with songs and recitals. In some parishes they build the fire on which to burn the badnyak not in the church yard but at some other suitable location in their town or village. The festivity consists of getting together around the fire and socializing. Each particular celebration, however, has its own specificities which reflect traditions of the local community, and other local factors.
The family members sit down at the table, but before tucking in they all rise and a man or boy among them says a prayer, or they together sing the Troparion of the Nativity. After the dinner young people visit their friends, a group of whom may gather at the house of one of them. Christmas and other songs are sung, while the elderly narrate stories from the olden times.
The ritual includes Vespers, placing the badnyak on the open fire built in the church yard, blessing or consecrating the badnyak, and an appropriate program with songs and recitals. In some parishes they build the fire on which to burn the badnyak not in the church yard but at some other suitable location in their town or village. The festivity consists of getting together around the fire and socializing. Each particular celebration, however, has its own specificities which reflect traditions of the local community, and other local factors.
Table for Christmas Eve
Table for Christmas Eve and Christmas are different, the first ( Christmas Eve ) is the fasting and the second ( Christmas ) after forty days of fasting, a holiday and the fat. The menu for Christmas Eve has not changed for centuries. Of the dishes on the table, next to badnyak bread and salt, is to be found, and fish fried in oil, pickled cabbage, noodles with nuts, pickled foods, honey, wine and baked beans. Each part of the holiday table has a lean symbolism. on Christmas Eve on the table to find an odd number of dishes.
Fish also symbolizes Jesus Christ, for the Greek language, through which our ancestors had adopted Christianity, the fish Ihtis, which is a set of initials of Jesus Christ.
Salt symbolizes divine power, which preserves the work of God, such as bread and keeps the fish from the mold and rot.
Wine is the blood of Jesus which he gave at Calvary for the sins of God redemption of men, while honey symbolizes the sweetness of eternal life.
On the table is placed a Christmas candle and screen, or pan in which a housewife puts four large rosyapples, wheat, corn, money, prunes and walnuts. All that symbolically represents a good life in the house.
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| Table for Christmas Eve |
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