Mitrovden Saturday memorial honours the dead
Believers attend liturgy, visit graves with wheat and blessed bread and give alms on the Saturday before St. Demetrius (08 November).
Orthodox Christians in North Macedonia observe the Mitrovden Saturday memorial today, a day set aside for remembering and praying for the departed.
Church rites, graveside visits and almsgiving
The Church designates special days called zadusnitsi (memorial Saturdays) when believers pray for the repose of the dead. By church tradition, a zadusnica is always held on a Saturday, the day reserved for commemoration and intercessory prayer for those who have passed away.
On this Saturday worshippers attend the liturgy and a parastos (memorial service). It is customary to visit cemeteries where prayers are offered and memorial gifts are placed: wheat and a small loaf blessed with red wine, as a token of remembrance. The faithful also give alms to the poor and pray for the peace of the souls of the departed.
The Mitrovden Saturday always falls on the Saturday before the feast of St. Demetrius. The commemoration was instituted in the 14th century and originated in what became a Russian practice, later adopted by many Orthodox churches.
Initially the rite commemorated those Orthodox who fell in battle, among them the two monks Aleksandar Peresvjat and Oslabja from the Moscow monastery of the Life-giving Trinity, who died defending faith and homeland. After the victory at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, Dimitrij Jovanovich Donski visited their monastery and took part in the memorial for them. He proposed that the Church perform this remembrance each year on the Mitrovden Saturday — the Saturday closest to the feast of St. Demetrius (08 November).
From that time the Church counted this Saturday among the universal parental memorial Saturdays, and soon after expanded the commemoration to include not only those fallen for faith and fatherland but all the deceased in general.
Photo: press material from the event
