Many people think that Zoroastrianism is a religion from the history books, and painting eggs in the spring is a purely Christian custom. But not those who know about the people, who are also called the Children of the Sun - the Yezidis. Kurds by nationality, they differ in that they profess their own kind of monotheism, not very similar to Christianity, Judaism or Islam. They worship the sun.
Painted eggs and cakes
If a Russian person is brought to other parts of Armenia in one of the Wednesdays of April, he may feel as if he has fallen through time for several days. Around people with dyed eggs and pies, which are called "scraps" - almost "Easter cakes"! But Easter has already passed?
But people around and do not celebrate Easter. They have "Sarsal", New Year. Yazidis celebrate it on Wednesday, and therefore the second name of the holiday is "Charshama Sor", the red Wednesday. The shells of the dyed eggs are scattered around the fields and orchards before the end of the day to invoke a fertile force in them, and seven of the pieces of the pie-scoop will be dedicated to the seven angels of God.
In Sarsal, every house should be decorated with red flowers. The Yezidis treat their neighbors and the poor with pieces of a holiday cake, and refer eggs, painted in yellow, green, red, to family graves. It is believed that all these customs have survived to our days since the times of Mesopotamia.
Like any archaic holiday, Sarsal imposes a number of prohibitions on a person. On this day it is strictly forbidden to wash, shave and cut hair, divide the bed with the husband and sew. Instead of all this, it's better to gather and dance to the music in dances, rejoicing that God sent another angel to rule the land the next year. The new manager he chooses every time again before the next Sarsala.
Elderly Yezidi. Photos of
Rejoice in this day not only in Armenia. Yezidis live in Georgia, Turkey, Russia and Iraq. However, the Yezidis in Iraq are not particularly up to the holidays. Local Muslim fanatics destroy them, believing that they worship Satan under the name of the Peacock Angel.
The beliefs of the Yezidis are the evolution of Zoroastrianism, the same religion that is believed to be the first in Eurasia to look at everything that is happening in the world, as a struggle of some kind of light and dark beginnings, similar to the Christian God and Satan. The bright deity, the creator of the world Ahura Mazda, was incarnated in the fire and sunlight.
God is served by seven faithful angels, the main one being Malak Tavus, the Angel-Peacock, and he was created above all things. Seven bronze birds depicting these angels are one of the main shrines of the Yezidis. It is kept in Lalesh, the main Yezidi temple, which has been in Iraq for many centuries. Until recently, it was generally the only Yezidi temple on earth.
Traditions about the Peacock Angel are associated with representatives of the Abrahamic religions with the history of Lucifer. The Yezidis believe that when God created Adam and told the angels to bow down before the man, Malak Tavus refused. But he was not led by pride, but by faithfulness: for him there was only one master, the creator. However, God was first angry with the angel and "demoted" - placed in the Underworld to watch over the souls of sinners.
For seven thousand years the angel wept with pity, watching how human souls are tormented in hell, and flooded the Underworld with tears. Then the creator took pity and moved Malak Tavus to the heavens, where he became the very sun. Since then, Yezidis especially revere the angel as their intercessor and as the incarnated goodness of the creator.
However, despite the mention of the fall and the Underworld, it is not worth confusing Satan and the Angel-Peacock. Malak Tavus does not teach either cunning or cruelty, does not lead into temptation; rather, its role in the religion of the Yezidis is akin to the roles of the Holy Spirit and Christ, if we recall the concept that Christ is a manifestation of God's mercy.
Yezidis never preach their faith and find the strange idea that it can be accepted. Nevertheless, after mass genocide of Kurds, including Yezidis, by Muslim fanatics in Iraq, many Kurdish activists announced the transition to Yezidism and began to call on other Kurds to do the same.
The faith of the Yezidis and its symbols seem so fair to the Europeans that from a society that believes in hell flooded with tears of mercy, they await extraordinary softness. However, the rules of life of the Yezidis are strict.
The whole society of Yezidis is divided into castes. Above all, sheikh priests (elders, sages). Below all - murids, those of the Yezidis, who participate in the sacred services only in quality