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Traditions on Epiphany Feast concluding the Christmas liturgical season
Epiphany - when the priests bless the homes of the faithful with holy water - concludes the string of celebrations dedicated to the birth of Christ the Savior, which see the display of the richest and most beautiful traditions of the year.
"At the blessing of the water, the priest sends a believer to the river with a religious banner, and as the priest puts his hand in the Epiphany water in the barrel or in the caldron and utters the words 'this water is sanctified' and the bells are rung, the believer with the banner dips the tip of the cross three times into the village body of water, then returns with the banner to the church. The blessed water is kept all year in clean bottles, a part is taken to the people's estates and orchards, and as they sprinkle their assets, the troparion of Theophany is sung and the carol stick is placed on the biggest tree of the estate as a sign of God's blessing," Father Zaharia Peres, archpriest of the western Timisoara city told Romanian media.
Ethnologist Maria Mandroane from the Banat Region Village Museum says that in the local villages, certain customs that portend the well-being of the household are connected to the arrival of the priest in the respective home on Epiphany Day.
According to her, the priest must step into the house with his right foot and sit down for a few moments so that suitors come for the girls in the house and the hens go broody.
A special custom sees the girls go to a running water to wash their faces and then talk to the stream, transformed on this day into the "pure water of the Jordan", asking for the fulfillment of their wishes.