When is Angel Day?

In the Orthodox tradition, it is customary to calla Christian in honor of a saint. The name is chosen from the list of saints (Orthodox saints) or the church calendar, where every day is dedicated to one or another saint. The name is assigned after the rite of baptism. This day later becomes a holiday for a convert to Christianity and is called a birthday, Day of the names day or Angel Day.

How to determine Angel Day

If a person wants to know when Angel Day,he protects, but he does not remember or know the name of the saint, then the name of the saint is that which was given to man at birth. To determine your name day, you need to look at the Angel Days calendar and find your name there - so you will determine the day of memory of your patron saint, and hence your Angel Day.

If a man baptized from childhood grew up in a religiousenvironment, he usually remembers the name of his patron given to him at baptism. But non-religious people, after years, forget the name of their Angel. And the saints with the same names in the church calendar are often met: for example, the saints Alexandrov in it about thirty, and John - about eighty. Another saint may have more than one day of memory, but several. All this creates difficulties in determining your Angel Day, but people have developed a traditional solution to this problem.

If your name is Alexander, Ivan or you have anotherpopular name, do not despair: your Angel Day will be the one that in the calendar goes first after your birthday, or the one that corresponds to your birthday. So there was a church practice of determining the name day: if your patron saint has many days of memory during the year, the next after your birthday is your name day, and the rest are small names.

Day of the Angel: a holiday story

To celebrate the name-day in Russia began in the XVII century, anduntil the revolution, this holiday was considered more important and significant than Birthday. On Angel Day it was customary to go to church, pray to the patron and receive communion, order a moleben, and in the evening arrange a festive dinner. Tsar's name-day celebrations had the status of a nation-wide celebration and cared especially magnificently. The tsar gave the boyars birthday cakes, and people were given out on the streets to roll.

Often the name was chosen on the child's birthday bythe church calendar, and then the Day of the Angel coincided with his birthday. If the name was chosen before the birth of the child in advance of a particular saint who was prayed before the birth of the child, then the Angel Day became a more important holiday for a person than the birthday.

In the Orthodox tradition, every Christian shouldwas to know the life of his patron saint and in every way imitate him in his exploits and achievements. "By name and let your life be" - wrote the Monk Ambrose of Optina.

With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks and growthantireligious moods this holiday was lost to oblivion. Moreover, in the 1920s and 1930s, the celebration of the name-day was subjected to official persecution by the state. In our time, Angel Day matters only in religious circles and is inferior in popularity to Birthday.