Saw today a short text on "teletext" of the French language Belgian TV about "maslenitsa".
It seems to be a Russian feast frrom the pagan times to celebrate the returning spring, the sun, the new agricultural season...but the Orthodox Church has turned it into a Christian feast, as preparation to the Lent...I learned today that the tradition of Carnival is also such a thing, taken from the pagan times to change it to the preparation of the Lent by the Roman Catholic church...

Sorry, it is RT a Russian propanda channel, but in this case it seems not political motivated...or I guess so
https://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/maslenitsa/

And the more neutral? wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslenitsa




I think many can here give examples from pagan feasts encapsulated by the Churches into their traditions, but from my former background from learning the Russian language, I have still a little place in my heart for the Russian culture...
Although, what is it about carnival? I didn't know the context with religion...if someone can explain...
And clicking on another youtube I saw suddenly the head of Johnson speaking Russian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjvCK_tTMIk
OOPS I forgot he was once maire of London...

Kind regards, Paul.

The challenge is to find a Christian feast that hasn't got pre-Christian origins!

Was Boris Johnson speaking Russian ... or was he speaking what he thinks is Russian? Like his appalling French, which he always insists on speaking on French TV, but which usually leaves viewers and interviewers alike completely confused as to what he's actually trying to say.

Re Carnivale ... I've mentioned this here before but our local one is the Fête de l'Ours - the Bear Festival (on the first Sunday in Feb'). But however you dress it up to suit local culture and legend, they're all fundamentally about celebrating the arrival of Spring, coming out of hibernation, rebirth etc ... with a layer of Christianity about having a party with the last of the winter stores before 40 days of austerity that is Lent. But other than the timing there's nothing very Christian about the Fete de L'Ours, just a good old-fashioned pagan romp:

Thanks Meles meles for the link with your local pagan feast of the bear.
Was Boris speaking Russian?
Only a few words, but they were quite understandable for Russians...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjvCK_tTMIk


In fact he said:
zdravstvuy druzja (hello friends) Ja Boris Johnson (I am...) maire Londone...? I think it was a Russian genetif of "London"
But then he says to conclude: kak harasho (how well). We used it in the time nearly continuously in the Russian lessons as reply like "how well you are doing it". But I don't see immediately the context of "kak harasho" in the text of Boris. I did some nearly half an hour research on the mighty internet and had to give up, because no translator could translate "kak harasho" (as it is spoken out because the emphasis is on the last sylable. In Cyrillic it is written: "horosho". I looked frustrated in all my Russsian dictionaries, on the Cyrillic word and found only the translation of "harasho" as "well" adverb and "good" adjective, no examples of "kak harasho" as only the words are translated. But nevertheless this expression is a common one in the Russian language...

Kind regards from Paul.

Well, one character that I suppose dates from Pagan times has been about overnight, Jack Frost.  I don't know if anyone still says it nowadays but in my childhood before central heating people used to say "Jack Frost's been about" when the windows became frosted up in very cold weather.  Not that they really believed in Jack Frost in the 1950s.  I don't have central heating - not that works anyway - and I've just got the plug in (one of those radiator type ones with oil in the radiator) heater downstairs to work (it wasn't rocket science, just changing a plug) and the one upstairs now keeps cutting out - so whether it's a loose connection I'm not sure.  I got it working before but I could have done without that happening when the weather is bad.  I've not been having luck with my appliances of late - TV, radio and both computers (the laptop has been repaired) have gone down and now a heater.  If push comes to shove I suppose I will have to fork out for a new heater (I could see what they have on Gumtree first).

None of which has anything remotely to do with Mr Johnson's aptitude or not whichever may be the case in the Russian language.

MM wrote:

...there's nothing very Christian about the Fete de L'Ours, just a good old-fashioned pagan romp...

I really wish you hadn't posted that, MM. I am now having horrible images in my mind about what would constitute an official Christian romp. There is no suitable emoticon, so will have to make do with   to express my alarm.

EDIT: above was not a passive-aggressive comment - the whole thing just struck me as funny. Christian and romp is such an oxymoron, but then that's probably very unfair to Christians, past and present. I'm sure some of them can/have romp/romped with the best of them.

Back to watching the Heavens for signs of the snow-to-come now. It's like Austria here at the moment - glorious, bright sunshine and air like chilled champagne. Sort of day to go walking on Exmoor, except that would be an extremely foolish thing to do.

Temperance wrote:

MM wrote:

...there's nothing very Christian about the Fete de L'Ours, just a good old-fashioned pagan romp...

I really wish you hadn't posted that, MM. I am now having horrible images in my mind about what would constitute an official Christian romp. There is no suitable emoticon, so will have to make do with   to express my alarm.

EDIT: above was not a passive-aggressive comment - the whole thing just struck me as funny. Christian and romp is such an oxymoron, but then that's probably very unfair to Christians, past and present. I'm sure some of them can/have romp/romped with the best of them.

Back to watching the Heavens for signs of the snow-to-come now. It's like Austria here at the moment - glorious, bright sunshine and air like chilled champagne. Sort of day to go walking on Exmoor, except that would be an extremely foolish thing to do.

 Temperance,

"I am now having horrible images in my mind about what would constitute an official Christian romp. There is no suitable emoticon, so will have to make do with   to express my alarm."

First of all Temperance I had a horrible view of the word "romp". You English ones (I guess even MM with his nowadays French background isn't aware of it: "des faux amis"? words with a complete other concept in a foreign language as in the original one)
 "romp" in Dutch: a body without head or legs and arms, the fuselage of a plane without the wings...
English:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/romp
And yes you have also your part in English: a mostly illicit sexual coupling...

That said, Temperance, what do you think of the romp of the Catholic carnival...? Agreed it comes also from a pagan feast, but especially the Roman-Catholics of the South and the Orthodox church have made a romp of it. I am not sure if with Henry VIII the Anglicans didn't lost the exuberance and the joy of the Catholics, the Baroque and all that, really the joy of living. Although it is now a tradition separated from the Church? And for these austere Lutherian people of Nordmann country and these antiseptic Calvinists of the North (sorry Dirk Marinus) the romp of Carnival has perhaps quite another context...?

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul wrote:

And yes you have also your part in English: a mostly illicit sexual coupling...

That said, Temperance, what do you think of the romp of the Catholic carnival...? Agreed it comes also from a pagan feast, but especially the Roman-Catholics of the South and the Orthodox church have made a romp of it. I am not sure if with Henry VIII the Anglicans didn't lost the exuberance and the joy of the Catholics, the Baroque and all that, really the joy of living. Although it is now a tradition separated from the Church? And for these austere Lutherian people of Nordmann country and these antiseptic Calvinists of the North (sorry Dirk Marinus) the romp of Carnival has perhaps quite another context...?

Well, the word can have a sexual connotation, but it also has the sense of having a really rowdy, boisterous, good time. Victorian girls were warned never to be seen "romping" in public - very hoydenish behaviour which would most definitely put off possible suitors.

The Lutherans/Calvinists could indeed be a miserable lot, Sausagegate (Lent 1522) notwithstanding. I blame the Teutoburg Forest.  Henry's Anglicans weren't that bad, but things got very gloomy under Edward VI, his priggish little son. Modern Anglicans seem to be reverting to Edward's Protestantism: they are getting very serious and intense - almost neo-Puritan. I might cross the Tiber yet. I'm a great believer in cakes and ale, me. Romping, in moderation, is good for the soul.

I have never understood what the 'Shakers' sect was about nor quite what happened at an early Roman Agape gathering. But surely the annual village Parish tea in the village hall must have pagan roots - never heard so much ill feeling as the organisation of ours. My mother opted to do all the washing up to avoid it - and from meeting the Bishop which was what much of the fuss was about, but he also chose to visit the 'workers' in the kitchen which mum thought untoward of him. However he did not offer help in case he got his frock dirty, I suppose.