Liturgical Church Slavonic language can be incomprehensible to many modern people. Therefore, the names of individual Christian holidays, and therefore their essence, are not so easily acquired by the consciousness of a Russian person. The Event of the Presentation of the Lord is an example of this.
The word “meeting” from the Church Slavonic language should be translated as “meeting”. Accordingly, the feast of the Meeting of the Lord Jesus Christ can be thought of as a meeting of the Lord.
The Meeting of the Lord is one of the twelve holy days of the Orthodox Church, and therefore is one of the most important celebrations of the Christian tradition. This day is celebrated on February 15 in a new style. It is worth saying that the Meeting is the only twelfth holiday in February. This date falls on the fortieth day after the birth of Christ.
The gospel tells of the event of the Meeting of the Lord (the meeting of Christ). When the infant Jesus was forty days old, according to Jewish law, he was supposed to be brought to the Jerusalem temple for consecration to God. The Blessed Virgin and Joseph the Betrothed fulfilled this order. In the temple they were met by Elder Simeon, whom the Orthodox tradition calls the God-Receiver. Simeon was predicted that he would not die until he saw firsthand the born Messiah. Holy Tradition says that the elder waited 300 years for this event. Finally, it came true.
In the event of the Presentation of the Lord, not only the meeting of the baby Christ with Simeon takes place, but in their person the Old Testament and the New are connected, as it were, and already from that time the history of the new Testament of man with God begins.
In Russian folk tradition, it is customary to say that on February 15, winter meets spring. All these are echoes of the Orthodox consciousness of the Russian people, the historical memory of the meeting of Simeon and the baby Christ.
