In the Orthodox Church calendar there are special parental days on which believers traditionally visit cemeteries. They visit deceased relatives to pray for their bright afterlife. There are several such days in a year, but only one of them is called Radonitsa. What date it will be celebrated in 2024 is easy to calculate, knowing the time of Easter. This Ecumenical commemoration always falls on the first Tuesday after Bright Week. All Easter week and the same amount of time before the Bright Resurrection of Christ, funeral services are not held.
Spiritual meaning of Radonitsa
Easter parental day in 2024, Orthodox Christians will celebrate on May 14th. As usual, the evening service or Liturgy will end with a full memorial service, including hymns of the Holy Resurrection of Christ. After the conciliar prayer, believers will be able to visit cemeteries to share Easter joy with the dead.
The Church calls on Christians not to indulge in excessive mourning for relatives who have gone to the next world, but to rejoice for them, because they have already been born into another life - eternal. Yes, everyone will have to die in due time, but the resurrected Christ conquered death, showing the way to Heaven, which every true believer is able to follow.
You can confess and take communion on Radonitsa. True, even on the joyful Paschal days one should not forget about careful preparation for the sacrament. It consists in attending the evening service and reading the necessary canons.
Parents Day Traditions
Commemoration of the dead begins with a prayer in the temple. Then it is customary to visit the graves - not only of parents, but also of relatives, friends, colleagues, to light church candles there and pray to God again. This is also appropriate in 2024, regardless of what date Parents' Day will be celebrated. You can read a litia for the laity or an akathist for repose.
Priests do not bless to arrange pagan feasts outside the cemetery fence, to eat and drink at the grave, and especially to drink alcohol. However, on Radonitsa, after visiting the temple and cemetery, it is not forbidden to gather at home at the memorial table. True, it is inappropriate to forget about the spiritual meaning of a joyful day, turning it into an unworthy feast.
It is much more correct to show mercy on such a date and give alms to those in need. It does not have to be money, things, food - it is equally important to lend a helping hand to someone who is desperate, has lost faith and needs a kind word or moral support.You can donate some funds for the maintenance of the temple - in memory of the deceased or leave food at the funeral candlestick.
What to bring on eve
Eve - a special memorial table installed in the temple near the Crucifixion. The products left on it are not consecrated, they are perceived as alms given on behalf of the deceased. It is distributed to those in need, dinners are prepared for church ministers, parishioners and guests. You can donate high-quality flour - they bake prosphora, vegetable oil, sweets, sweets, part of the crop from their garden or vegetable garden.
It is forbidden to bring raw meat.
How to maintain burial sites
Orthodox people try to keep the graves in order, not only out of respect for the deceased, but also thanks to a respectful attitude towards what is coming in the future. Before the Last Judgment, after their resurrection, the souls will return to the burial places. It is very important that cleanliness and order reign there.
In the cemetery, you need to behave quietly and calmly, not to speak in a full voice, and even more so not to shout. Quarrels and clarification of relations are absolutely inappropriate. You can't speak badly of the dead, even if they seem to deserve it.
Radonitsa - Easter of the Dead
So Serbian Slavs began to call her. They were convinced that Easter night is the time when the dead can leave their graves to join the celebration of the Holy Resurrection of Christ. According to them, they return to the other world after nine days, and this return coincides with the parent's day.
By analogy, Belarusian believers called this day of commemoration the Seeing Off. After the deceased ancestors accepted congratulations on Easter, they were honorably escorted to the cemetery fence.
It is fundamentally wrong to call Radonitsa the Easter of the dead. Orthodox Christians believe that Christ is risen, “trampling death by death”, and for him there are no dead, everyone is alive.
Parent Saturdays
Besides Radonitsa, there are other special days on which the Church commemorates all fellow believers who died in Christ. Such services are called universal. To know exactly what dates the parental Saturdays fall on in 2024, you need to check the liturgical calendar and the Lent-Easter cycle.
Universal meat-and-fare parental Saturday in March 2024 falls on the 9th. It is called so because it is the last pre-Sunday when you can eat meat products before the start of Lent.
There will be other parent Saturdays in 2024:
- on the second, third and fourth week of Great Lent;
- Trinity;
- Pokrovskaya (does not have the status of the Ecumenical, it is celebrated in those parishes where parishioners especially actively support this tradition);
- Dmitrievskaya.
Departed warriors are especially commemorated annually on May 9 in a new style.
The main thing for parents' day, celebrated on the first Tuesday after Easter, the holiday of holidays, is bright joy and a deep belief that those who have gone to the other world did not die, but seemed to fall asleep. The second coming of Christ will wake up everyone, so it is very important to behave piously and take care of the purity of the soul, so that after the Last Judgment you will be united with God - now forever.
