No matter whether a person leaves in the city or in a village his life follows a path, common for everyone: birth-marriage-death. These events are compulsory; everyone has to pass through them, so they always were marked with rituals of laic or religious sort. The flow of life, unfurling between birth and death, represents a mentality transposed into the day-to-day life through a complex of practices called passing rites”. Some rituals precede even the moment of birth (the mother is wearing a shirt embroidered with the sign of the cross), and, together with those ones which are accompanying the coming in the world of a new life, has the purpose to earn the good will of the Fate, and a hope of the “better life” for the newborn child. The rites of the marriage offer opportunity for the community to share the joy of the newly married couple, especially by participating at the feast. The gifts offered to the bride and groom show the respect and the support for the new family. The ceremony of the funeral recalls the care for the “after life” and symbolizes the end of a road. According to the archaic concepts every end is a new beginning. DB
THE BIRTH AND BAPTISM
The birth is preceded by a series of rituals fulfilled by the future mother. The first bath of the child is regarded crucial: the sink must be of pine-wood, the water should be poured from an brand-new pot and in the sink is put a piece of coin, a leaf of sweet basil, bread, egg, milk, and honey or sugar. The custom is interpreted by the folklore in the following way: “As precious as the silver, as sweet as the honey, as good as the bread, as healthy as the egg, as desirable as the sweet basil, and as white as the milk.” The baptism is the most important moment of the post-natal cult, when, through religious rituals, the child is cleaned of sin and enters into the Christian Church. The priest’s role here is fundamental: he opens the way to the spiritual life. DB
THE MARRIAGE – THE WEDDING
Marriage is a major moment of the human life, marking the shift to another stage of life with multiple meanings in the social and individual level. Within “the flow of life”, this event marks the passing from maiden/boyhood to the married community, in the context of a succession of unifying rituals of the two social entities: the boy’s kindred and the girl’s kindred. The foundation of a new family implies many different marital and premarital manifestations where the involvement and support of the community help the young married couple to integrate in the society. The wedding ceremonial, preceded by a series of initiation rites, develops similarly to all ethnical societies in the county of Satu Mare: it starts with the wooing, followed by engagement, the announcement of marriage and the invitations, the preparations for the wedding (clothes, food, drinks), the holy confession, prayers made at both houses of the young couple, the civil and religious wedding, and in the end, the party. The main characters of the wedding are to be found almost at all ethnic-communities. Therefore, the groom and the bride are accompanied in the passing to their new status by: the godparents, the boys and maids of honor, the person carrying the inviting flag, the person who makes the announcements, the calls for the gifts etc, and, of course, the parents. Marriage is considered to be the step that brings completion to one’s existence. That’s why the rituals are so rich and complex, as well as the props (flag, knot-shaped bread, wheat seeds, towels, etc.) having profound symbolical values. DB
DEATH – THE FUNERAL
The last stage in man’s life, according to the traditional Christian thinking, is to pass the bridge between earthly life and eternal life. Also called the “great passing”, or the “great journey”, death means waiting for the “Day of Judgment” when the rightness of the person and his deeds are weighed. The first ritual action meant to mark the death of a person is to light a candle at the head of the deceased. This is followed by the announcement of the community by ringing the bells and raising the black flag in the tower of the church. The death-watch held at the home of the deceased, was the action witch separated the death from the burial. This ritual is considered the highest moment of a time unit: the life of a man. The participation of the community at the whole ceremony, escorting the deceased in his/her last journey, the alms, symbolize the social solidarity, the support given by the community for the family in grieve, and the ongoing of the individual life and of the community. DB
FUNERARY CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
The funerary ceremony involves a great number of ritual actions, considered as ways of expressing relations between the living and the dead, between the present and the after life. The weeping is not only the expressions of the pain, but also, it has, together with a set of rites, two tasks: to assure that the deceased will pass to the after life from the world and all the signs of death are destroyed; the second is to keep the memory of the dead mentioning him in the prayers. In order to assure, that the soul of the deceased will not return home, the family must keep the following ritual actions: to cover the mirror with a black cloth, so that the dead person “wouldn’t see his/her face and return as ghost”; to turn the vessels upside down, for “the soul of the deceased fulfilled because, according to the belief, the soul without body will not turn into a malefic power, but it will be integrated among the good spirits in the world of the after life. Some rituals of the funeral ceremony are fulfilled before the burial, engaging the presence of the deceased in the ritual. Therefore, everything that is for charity is passed over the coffin by the family: towels (to the priest, to the men carrying the coffin and to those carrying the flags), the baskets with knot-shaped bread and the handkerchiefs for children. All these objects and food are symbols of the offerings made for “the soul of the deceased”, so that “the soul reaches Heaven”. DB
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
The paintings from the wooden churches of Transylvania depict The Day of Judgment inspired by the work of Cyril of Alexandria: “About the soul after death”. These type of iconography is present especially in the churches of Codru Region of Satu Mare County, expressing the traditional beliefs on the life after death and on the punishments received by the sinners. They illustrate the “Torments of Hell”, which are done by the demons lead by Lucifer, to the soul for the sins committed during the life. The hope for the forgiving of the sins, the perception on the death, and the Christian belief in the eternal life are expressed in the deepness of the prayer: “I am waiting, death of fear and full with pain the last judgment.” DB
THE RESURRECTION – THE EVERLASTING LIFE
According to the archaic belief, the existence of man includes “this world” and the world “beyond”. The end of life on earth is accepted to the extent that the hope for resurrection assures the “after life” or God’s kingdom. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is regarded as the completion of hopes in the everlasting life. The way up to it, it is built by the deeds of man in his life on earth and it continues through the customs or purgatory up to Heaven. A ladder is the mean of transport that either leads or doesn’t lead the soul to Heaven. The ladder is the passage that connects “this world” to the world “beyond”. In the Christian belief it is the symbol of ascension or descent on a heavy way of purification with two destinations: Heaven or Hell. The ladder has similar meaning to those of the tree of life or “cross tree”. Christ Himself becomes the tree of the world, the “axis mundi”, the crucifix, getting major significance: “through death to life, through cross to light”. DB