Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #9


13 things about 14th Feb - St Trifun’s Day!


You probably think that whole Christian world is celebrating 14th Feb as Valentine’s Day. Indeed we are celebrating 14th February but celebrating the Day of St Trifun.

1. St Trifun (just like St Valentine) has lived in third century and was killed (just as St Valentine) because he refused to give up Christianity.
2. He was a poor man who kept gooses but also he had ability to cure many human and animal diseases and to liberate people from the demons. 3. That was time of Roman Imperator Gordian whose daughter Gordiana was mentally ill and the best doctors were unable to heal her. 4. One day (according to the legend) from inside her demon has spoken that no one could make him to leave Gordiana but Trifun. 5. Demon hasn’t told which particular Trifun so the emperor Gordian ordered to all Trifuns in the Empire to come in the Rome until the order reached poor goose keeper in the village Kampsada in Frigia on the Small Asia. 6. When (our) Trifun has successfully healed Gordiana he earned enormous award of course but Trifun on his way home has gave all those precious presents to the poor. 7. In his village St Trifun continued to live modest life in great piety keeping gooses and healing people.
8. New Roman Emperor Decius Traianus knew about the grace that was on Trifun and being huge enemy of Christianity he throw Trifun in the dungeon and tortured him. But Trifun was strong in his faith and didn’t gave up Christ. 9. On 1st February (Julian calendar) or 14th February (Gregorian calendar) year 250 St Trifun was killed.
10. St Trifun is patron of the city of Kotor which is part of UNESCO World Heritage. You can see photo of the St Trifun’s church in Kotor erected in the year 809 .
11. There is special religious act dedicated to St Trifun on the vineyards and fields after some damage: oil from the St Trifun’s icon lamp and sanctified water have been used and sprinkle on the fields and vineyards. In Serbia St Tifun is patron of vineyards and on 14th Feb people are going to prune vine and pour over with wine to give it new strength after long winter.
12. People say “Trisha (Trifun in affection) has stabbed live coal in the soil so the snow and ice are melting”. There is belief that if St Trifun’s Day is rainy coming year will be rainy and bumper year and if the day is clear the year will be arid.
13.Now when I look through the window I see semi sunny day with loads of clouds (yesterday and whole last night was incredibly rainy!) so I say spring and autumn will be rainy and summer quite sunny and winter will be ... cold I guess. How good I am!? LOL

In Vino Veritas!

PS
Sorry if I don’t reply right now but I have to go in bed (just look the clock on the left)

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::::: armywife ::::: Christine ::::: Sunflower ::::: Raggedy ::::: Celfyddydau ::::: Di ::::: Susan Helene Gottfried ::::: karen! ::::: Uisce ::::: jam ::::: sanni ::::: mike ::::: Imma ::::: Ryan Velting :::::


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16 comments:

armywife said...

being methodis, i don't know much about the saints and i'd never heard of him, but i'm glad to be more informed now. thanks for sharing
happy TT

Anonymous said...

I love the icon you've posted. My background is Greek Orthodox and I use iconography in my writing. A recent example of this on my blog is a piece called "the Spirit of God." I'm new to TT and this marks my 2nd posting - I love reading through all the blogs - as they open up an undiscovered country. Have a great TT.

Sunflower said...

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for stopping by my Sunflower blog and supporting me!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I will Exercise for Comments!
Sunflower

Raggedy said...

Terrific Thursday Thirteen!
My TT is posted.
Have a wonderful day!
Happy TT'ing!
*^_^
(=':'=)
(")_ (")Š
Raggedy

Celfyddydau said...

on number 12, it was dry yesterday! Good to hear about something other than valentines. Very interesting 13

Di said...

So I'm guessing that you don't exchange chocolates and flowers on February 14 there?

Cheers from South Florida...where it is a delightful 80 degrees and sunny...pretty much every day!

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

Happy TT, darling! This is cool; I'd never known such a person existed as St. Trifun.

And you're not the only person who posted and went right to bed. I know another one... *wink*

karen! said...

I'd never heard of St. Trifun. This may be a very silly question, but is there a big difference between the communion of saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church(es)?

Milan-zzz said...

Thanks everyone for stopping by :)

And Dino, we aren’t exchanging flowers and chocolates but drink wine (which is much better LOL!). However thanks to imported trend shops are using St Valentine’s Day to increase their profit and therefore people are unknowingly the background of St Valentine and the fact that it’s not part of our tradition are celebrating it.

Karen not silly question at all!
I think there is huge difference in, as you said, communion of saints in Orthodox and Catholic Church. As far as I know there are only few common saints.
There is some logic here, just remember crusades (under Roman Church) that have destroyed Constantinople which was centre of Orthodox Church. Goals are different and therefore merits too.

Uisce said...

how interesting! thanks for such an informative and educational post! and happy TT, mine's up!

JAM said...

This is a very interesting post. I had never known any of this. Roman emperors were sure rough on the early Christians.

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot for this interesting TT, Milan. I´ve learned a lot (as ususally when I visit you LOL)

So, it rained in my part of the world yesterday, looks like it´s gonna be a rainy year... =)

Mike said...

Another interesting TT. I always seem to learn something when I come to your blog. Very good.

Alice (in BC Canada) said...

I've never heard of St. Trifun, so I found this very interesting. Great T13.

Imma Learning

Anonymous said...

Hey Milan. So very cool and very very interesting to me. I did not know most of which you wrote. Thank you for taking the time to put this all together, as the curious among us (myself included) are always interested in reading about other cultures and traditions.

Thanks again, and thank you for stopping by Ryan's Calamity today.

Have a wonderful day Milan!

Ryan

JHS said...

That was very interesting. Thanks for sharing all that information with us!

I'm a TT'er. My list is up.