Language:    

St.Valenitn and St.Trifon Zarezan together

Let’s transform the feast of Saint Valentine and the one of Trifon Zarezan in one common European feast – The feast of life

Today we are on the eve of one of the best feasts. The feast of love Saint Valentine is a day that excites all the people without distinction of age, sex and nationality. Love is the most desired experience, the most yearned frame of mind, a genuine bliss for body and mind. There is not a person that can resist this magic and that has never dreamed of pure, truly and eternal love. In Bulgaria Saint Valentine is attended by one typical Bulgarian festivity – the feast of Saint Trifon Zarezan – or the feast of the wine. We as Bulgarians celebrate on this day our admiration to the wine, as we generalize the essence of life with the ancient Romans’ sentence “In vino veritas”. We do accept wine not only as alcohol, but as a sacral drink. It is not a chance that Jesus Christ exclaims “I’m the real vine, and my Father is the farmer”. The Christian Sacrament is being accepted with wine, it is at our prayers in our greatest days.Is it by chance that the festival of love - St. Valentine’s Day and the festival of the wine - Trifon Zarezan are being celebrated under one and the same date every year – on February 14? The interesting thing is that both St. Valentine and Trifon Zarezan have lived at almost the same time, about year 255. They both were healers and died like martyrs. It is very likely, that they are one and the same person. Is this fact only a coincidenceor there is something else hidden in this chance, something beyond the Catholic and Orthodox calendar? The answer is to be found in the remote past, in ancient times, when the people on today’s Bulgaria land, the ancient Thracians /year 3500 B.C. /had performed ritual Bacchanalias in honor of the God of the Wine – Dionysos. Later the Romans devoted themselves to Bacchus with the same exultation. Even during the Middle Ages, already Christianized, the people in West Europe /Italy, France/had not dared to get angry the Old Gods. They devoted them all their energy during the carnivals in February in expectation of fertility and love as well as in honor of St. Valentine. A thanksgiving service for fertility was made at the same time in the middle of February on the sunlit Bulgarian lands in honor and glorification of Saint Trifon Zarezan. The people put their hopes of fertility of their crops – the wine as well as of the continuation and long living of their family and offspring, in the specific ritual of pruning the vines. Even to this day by tradition the Bulgarian gets up early in the morning, puts on a ritual national costume and goes to the vineyards. There the group of Trifon Zarezan led by a chosen substitute of him dressed like a king prunes for a first time and pours the vines three times with wine as a symbolic sacrificial beginning of the new vine-growing season. Thereby looking after the vineyard the men actually strive for bringing up their own family. Otherwise the vineyard will remain un-hoed, it will not yield and the whole male line of descent will die out. Thus the feast of the wine turns into a glorification of love and reproduction as well. The Bulgarians think for ages that the sacred mysterious knowledge is being received from the wine. Namely because of this they consider the wine a sacral drink.  Who possesses it has power over the knowledge i.e. over the past and the future of the world.

During the first year of Bulgaria’s membership in the EU, we as Europeans in “united home”, would like to join EU to our feast, with the hope, that one day it will become European too. PR Agency Image Advertising saw an opportunity in combining both feasts in one, having in mind the similarity of the celebrations of the European feast St. Valentine and the Bulgarian feast Trifon Zarezan, their common descent through the ages and the same sense and emotional intensity they have. For what is the wine without love, or the love without wine!? Let’s all together revive this millennial tradition and combine both festivities in universal festival of life and renewal.Dear colleagues, we send our suggestion to you, the respected by us Bulgarian journalists as well as to a number of West media so you can contribute for the creation of the new European feast – the Day of Life.

We expect your participation and support through your media in order to popularize this initiative and to announce an open competition for tomorrow – February, 14 in order to name the new common European feast –the Day of Life, embodying the magic of love and the coruscation of wine. The most interesting idea we receive will be awarded a special prize.

You can send your suggestions on: e-mail:  image.adv@rn-tv.com