An eventful Saturday

Yesterday I woke up thinking that I might eventually meander to the town celebration. My host family had other plans. We ended up going to Rila monastery, the biggest and most famous monastery in Bulgaria. So, my host dad drove me, my host mom and my host sister there. When we arrived, there was a service underway in the monastery church.

We went in for the service, which involves lots of chanting, incense, and blessing of the congregation by the priest. There are also parts of the service that are performed behind a screen in the front of the church, called the iconostasis, I believe. In any case, this is where the altar is located. The congregation stands, and crosses itself at appropriate junctures in the service (which seems to be rather frequent). Orthodox Christians cross themselves opposite the way that Catholics and Anglicans do, (forehead, stomach, right, left rather than left than right) and they also almost always cross themselves three times in a row. We also lit candles, a bit part of Orthodox liturgy. At the end of the service the congregation was allowed to come to the front of the church to venerate the icons, which involves kissing them, placing coins on them, crossing ones self, leaving small offerings of clothing (my host dad left socks I think) or simply touching them. It is up to the individual pilgrim. We also saw the bones of a saint. I am really glad that I got to go to the monastery with a Bulgarian family. I got to experience it from more of an insiders perspective rather than as a tourist.

Afterwards, I got to look around in the monastery courtyard, buy post cards and check out some of the artwork. The artwork is mostly in the form of frescoes on the walls. My favorite was a huge series of panels where angels and demons were duking it out. I was able to photograph some of it and will certainly post it when I am able to figure out the logistics of doing so. Then my host family bought bread from a bakery nearby, which is apparently pretty famous in Bulgaria. It is all handmade (and delicious).

After our return, I went downtown to meet with friends and mosey over to the village sabora (an annual celebration). Sabora was held outside with music and the ever present grilled meat stand. The main event of sabora is the preparation of a MONSTROUS amount of a soup called courban. Basically they slaughter a goat or lamb (or several from what I saw) and boil the meat in huge cauldrons over an open fire. Peppers, onions, tomatoes and spices are also added. When the soup is ready, the village priest says a prayer over it and sprinkles holy water over each cauldron (in this case about 25 cauldrons) and the people. Homemade bread is also blessed with holy water. After that, the attendees circle around the cauldrons with buckets, the corban is ladled into them and everyone takes it home with them. All the grandmothers (aka babas) distribute their blessed bread too. The idea (I think) is to bless the health of the community.

Basically, I experienced a lot of Orthodox Christian customs yesterday. It is so different from anything I have ever seen in terms of religion (even in terms of Christianity). I still have a lot to learn about this part of the culture, and to think, I haven't even seen any of the Muslim traditions yet!