Ritual towels
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Transcript of Ritual towels
Ritual TowelsA currency of love
and a uniquely feminine phenomenon.
A Power Point presentationby Alvin Alexsi Currier
If you were ever in Eastern Europe
you have seen such towels
even if you didn’t notice them,
for from the White Sea
in the North to the
Black Sea in the South,
they are found
everywhere in Orthodox
Eastern Europe.
The White Sea
The Black Sea
You might first notice them
draped around icons in Eastern Orthodox
Churches,
especially in old or historic
Churches,like here at
Nicula Monastery,in Romania
or in this village Church
in Ieud, Romania
or even in this new village Church in Pintik, Romania
and in large city churchesfrom Finland (below)
to Poland (on the right)
as here on the Iconostasis of the Cathedral Church, in Sanok, Poland
or in a chapel
or hung around an icon in a home.
or simply hung up as decoration
As seen in these scenes
Towels are everywhere in Eastern Europe for in the villages over there weaving is still a part of the way of
life.
Woven woolen sacksremain to this day
the common carrier of the village.
So also, when the women wanted a carpet for their new Church, they collected bark and berries and boiled them to make dye,
The next day they brought wool, boiled it in the dye all day long, and then hung it to dry
and after a month of weaving the new carpet was rolled out in the Church.
Like the traditional clothes,most towels are made of linen.
Flax is cut and dried, then soaked and hammered into fibers before being combed and spun into linen thread.
Linen has a natural rusty hue, often found in northern Europe, while further south it is always bleached white.
Because such cloth woven by hand is so precious
it is almost always embellished with
embroidery,
especially when used for shirts, sheets, or
table clothes.
Wool is also used for weaving rugs and
embroidery.
The sheep are sheared, the wool is dried, and the women spin it into yarn.
Then it is made into coats,
bed coverings, and traditional
aprons.
But the amazing thing is that everywhere,
women,and only women,
weave towels.
The bride-to-be weaves them for her new home
The old women weave them
by the cupboard full,
as memorial gifts for their funeral.
From the Baltic to the Balkans,
from Romania to Russia, they hang in every icon corner.
along the way they hang
on roadside crosses,
churchyard crosses, village shrines, and crossroad crosses.
Before any feast day the clotheslines are
filled with them.
These facts invite us to explore their origin, purpose, meaning
and power.
A clue to the ancient use of these towels is the consistent appearance of
feminine figures.
All of the oldest symbols point to a feminine power associated with
the goddesses of pre-Christian times.
Thanks to the life long research of Dr. Mary Kelly
we have marvelous studies of the origin
of these symbols.
And thanks to women like Rita Korhonen of Finland
we have masterful modern reproductions.
Their cultural significance is seen in the fact that they were housed in
museums and displayed at exhibits.
Finland even created a stamp to honor them.
Of course in the very beginning the towels were
functional,they were used to dry, wrap
and protect things.
But weaving or embroideringwas never neutral.
A woman’s joys and sorrows entered into the work
that she created.
The towels held the hopes and
prayers of the weavers.
The signs, symbols and decorations, that were added
signaled these powers, and meanings.
Over time, unfortunately,
tasteless trends evolved
as did examples of
classic beauty.
But the most dramatic sign that these towels embody
power is the fact
that they are not for sale, they are given as gifts,
and they most often serve a ritual purpose.
As the Virgin Mary
came to radiate the power
once reflected by goddesses,
the towels came to her in the
Church.
There they blossomed and remain rooted
to this day.
Today as in ancient times they ritually serve
to protect precious, holy, or heavenly things
from earthly contamination.
.
In processions one can see this custom observed.
The bride and groom stand on a towel at their wedding,And towels are spread for the blessing of the waters.
Because they embody the women who wove them they are offered to honor the home
and the items
they adorn.
They adorn the home. On a feast day,
they adorn the cross, and on the night
of Easter they adorn the baskets
ready to be blessed.
Once in Russia two sisters demonstrated to me how the towels were ritually worn in a
wedding,
as seen in folk art
and old photos,
and observed here being worn by the Master of Ceremonies at this modern Slovakian wedding
and they explained how towels were
used when welcoming a guest with bread and salt.
In the Orthodox world
the Bishop is always
welcomed with bread and salt
carried on a towel.
One Russian woman showed us
a roll of 22 towels she had woven that winter
for ritual use in the next year.
The most beautiful towels
are given for the
ceremonial hand washing
in the Liturgy,
For the leave taking dances and the traditions of a wedding
the best towels adorn the house.
And towels adorn the Church and hall for the festivities.
But it is at the time of a death and in a funeral that the towels play their most moving role,
for they are given out to all the mourners as memorials of the deceased.
Towels even line the grave and weather on the cross to comfort
the departed.
At the funeral the towels given as memorials to the pall
bearers,and passed ritually over the
casket to the poor,carry the power of the deceased
who had created them.
Here at a feast following a funeral in Romania towels are being handed out
to the mourners.
Once in a seemingly abandoned Russian chapel we found an icon lovingly wrapped with a beautiful towel.The image on the icon,like the Russian Church,was bruised and faded, but the towel testifiedto a faithstill alive and vibrant.
Also in the Old World the old ways are weathering
but the towels testify to a currency of love that is still vital and strong.
The End.