A week before the beginning of Great Lent and a day before Mesni Zagovesni (the last day the Eastern Orthodox Christians are allowed to eat meat before Lent), Bulgarian Orthodox Church has assigned a day for the commemoration of the departed.

All Souls’ Day or Saturday of Souls is observed throughout the year. According to the Church, each of the Saturdays, dedicated to the dead, is of equal importance.

In the Church calendar, the Saturdays of Souls precede all the fasts - The Easter Fast, The Apostles' Fast, and Christmas Fast, and fall on Saturday which symbolizes the day Jesus Christ was laid in the tomb. People of faith should not work on a Saturday of Souls, so that all thoughts may be directed in prayer and gratitude to the memory of the departed.

Liturgy is celebrated for the eternal peace of the souls of the dead with special chants and payers. The believers bring ritual wheat, also called kolivo, and place it on a table in the temple before the service. The wheat symbolizes Christ rising from the dead, so the kolivo is a mandatory element of the offerings. In addition to wheat, bread and wine, representing the body and blood of Christ, must be present at the table.

• Kolivo-painting to honour the saints

The priest consecrates the food and wine on the table by first venerating it with incense. He draws with his hand a cross over the wheat, breaks off some of the bread and pours some wine on the floor “for the dead”. He commemorates the departed, reading a list with their names, written down by the laity before the service. At the end of the service, the faithful proceed to the table and distribute among themselves some of the food with the words "God forgive."

On this day the relatives of the deceased visit the cemeteries, where they plant flowers on the graves of their beloved ones, and make offerings to each other and to passers-by, who then must say "God forgive". It is also customary to pour red wine over the grave and leave a church candle burning - as a symbol of faith in Salvation and the immortality of the soul.

Author: Darina Grigorova

English: Elizabeth Radkova