Home Potato What is a religious rite? Religious rites and rituals

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What is a religious rite? Religious rites and rituals

Religious rites and rituals - what is it? Perhaps some believe that only those who are closely associated with religion experience such phenomena. However, in reality, such rituals have long been intertwined with everyday life. ordinary people. What can we say about a believing person, for whom religious customs and rituals are an integral part of life.

And yet, despite this, many interesting questions remain in the shadows. For example, even the meaning of the word " religious rite' causes some confusion. After all, how to understand which rituals should be attributed to them, and which not? Or what is the difference between Orthodox sacraments and Catholic? And after all, how long ago was the first religious ceremony? So, let's consider everything in order.

As always, you need to start at the root of the problem, namely with exact value given expression. So, a religious rite is a certain action based on a person's mystical idea of the surrounding reality.

I.e main task such a ritual is to strengthen the connection of the believer with his highest principle, or God. At the same time, it does not matter at all whether such an action is carried out individually or if it is a collective event.

What is a religious rite?

Yet it is not enough to simply know the meaning of the word. To fully understand its essence, it is necessary to look at everything from a special angle, relying on illustrative examples and arguments. That is why let's consider what a religious ceremony really is.

To begin with, let's take as an example finger baptism, which is common among all Christians. It would seem that there is nothing mystical, the usual manipulation of the hand in a given order, which is used during prayer. And yet it's a religious rite... Do you know why?

Because there are two important things here. First, the established ritual, which has not changed for all Christians for many centuries. Secondly, it is based on the belief that such an action can shed God's grace on a person.

Based on this, one can following output: any custom that combines these two points is a religious rite.

The first mystical mysteries

No one knows exactly when a person began to believe that he rules the world. higher intelligence. After all, for the first time this happened in those days when our distant ancestors did not yet know how to write. The only evidence of their intelligent way of life is the pattern and notches on the rocks. However, even this meager information is enough to understand what a religious rite is among ancient people.

In those distant times, a person's life directly depended on how favorable mother nature was to him. Just imagine how majestic it was for people who had no idea about the laws of physics and chemistry. Therefore, it is not surprising that over the years they began to attribute to her the presence of her own will and mind.

Therefore, to answer the question: “What is a religious rite among ancient people?” will be pretty easy. Almost all of their rituals were aimed at appeasing the spirits of nature, so that they would grant them their patronage.

This belief in the power of sacred rites has had a marked impact on the entire history of mankind. After all, it was thanks to the ancient sacraments that the first priests appeared - people who communicate with otherworldly forces.

Rites of the Slavs

Before the arrival of Christianity in Russia, our ancestors were pagans. They believed in the existence of many gods, forming the Slavic pantheon. So, warriors worshiped Perun, peasants worshiped Lada, and creative people worshiped Veles.

Rituals were originally conceived ordinary people in order to somehow appease the beloved deity. A little later, the priests themselves began to select the most favorable rites and insist that this was the will of a higher mind.

It got to the point that not a single holiday or significant event did not do without religious sacraments. And the more often and systematically they were repeated, the stronger they stuck into the consciousness of people. Over the years, they have become an integral part of Everyday life Slavs and were taken by the people as a matter of course.

For example, peasants always made a sacrifice to Lada before starting sowing. After all, if this is not done, then the goddess will not bestow her grace on the sowing, and then the harvest will be bad. The same applied to other aspects of the life of the Slavs: the birth of children, marriage, war and death. Each occasion had its own religious rite, aimed at strengthening the relationship between the deity and man.

But what about other countries and continents?

The most curious thing is that such a worldview was inherent in almost all nations and peoples. So, the Greeks believed in the gods of Olympus, the Egyptians - in mighty god Osiris and other equally powerful creatures. And the indigenous people of Africa did have so many different deities that there is not the slightest possibility to count them.

And they all practiced religious rites. For example, the Greeks made rich offerings to their gods in temples, and on holidays they organized festivities with a masquerade. The Egyptians built pyramids so that their pharaohs would live there even after death. And some African tribes they ate human hearts, hoping in this way to gain the strength and courage of a defeated enemy.

Religious practices in the modern world

Despite the fact that now the age of popularization has come scientific theories and atheistic views, religious rites have not gone away. Moreover, some of them are so deeply rooted in the minds of people that they have become a familiar norm. Let's look at the most popular rites of the two giant religions - Christianity and Islam.

So let's start with Orthodox baptism children. This religious rite is considered one of the most ancient in our history. According to his laws, small children are washed with holy water in order to cleanse them from original sin. In addition, Christians believe that during baptism, God will give a person a guardian angel.

Another ancient religious ritual that has survived to this day is the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. They believe that every true believer should make such a trip at least once in his life in order to show his devotion to Allah.

Loyalty bordering on fanaticism

However, not all rituals and rituals are harmless. Unfortunately, sometimes faith develops into fanaticism, and then the first victims appear. In particular, some religious rites require blood, sometimes even human. And a fanatic believer is ready to present such a gift. After all, this is the will of God, and human life Compared to her, she is nothing but dust.

At the same time, a bloody trail from religious rites stretches from the very depths of history, now disappearing, then reappearing. What are the Crusades of Christians or holy wars of Muslims against the infidels. Not to mention that the ancient Aztecs sacrificed hundreds or even thousands of people just to satisfy the mystical appetite of the sun god.

In this regard, it should be understood that religious rites can be carried out both for good and vice versa. At the same time, it is not God who creates evil, but people, because it is they who ultimately determine the essence and procedure for the ritual.

To restore the religious beliefs of the natives of Australia and Oceania, the following range of sources is used: archaeological materials, as well as diary entries and memoirs of travelers dating back to the 18th - 20th centuries. In many ways, modern expeditions make it possible to solve the problems of restoring the religious and mythological picture of the world of the natives. Due to the fact that colonization began in the 18th century, after it the process of Christianization of the natives began, which could not but affect the beliefs of the natives.

Religious beliefs, customs, rites and folklore

Aborigines of Australia. All the data at our disposal allow us to judge a significant homogeneity of the religious and magical beliefs and rites of the Australians. The predominant form of belief is totemism. Australia can no doubt be considered an area of classical totemism, this belief is also known in other regions of the world, but there it is mainly its remnants that have come down to us. It must be said that religious activities among the natives are a man's business. It is they who take the most active part in the religious life of the tribe. But women are also involved in mystical experiences. The fading role of women in religious life some scientists (Prof. S.A. Tokarev) associate it with the transition from a matrilineal to a patrilineal clan.

totemism - belief in the supernatural kinship between people, animals and plants, or even natural phenomena. It would be a mistake to consider totemism the worship of material objects. Word from came to English language from the language of the Algonquian Indians. The meaning of totemism is that each clan must necessarily have a totem, inherited through the male or female line. In totemism, it is necessary to distinguish between two members of the relationship: the human group (in Australia - a primitive genus, the so-called totemic group) and the totem.

In foreign (R. Smith, A. Van-Gennep, E. Durkheim and some others) and domestic (S.P. Tolstov, D.K. Zelenin, A.M. Zolotarev and others) the question of origin of totemism and in many respects can be considered solved. Here, scientists note two key points: first, superstitious people have blood ties within the hunting communities where they play huge role are transferred to the surrounding world and animals, plants and natural phenomena become native; and secondly, in totemism there is a special connection between the primitive community and the territory, each locality is filled with religious and magical associations.

The totemic group is always exogamous, and exogamy is often considered as one of the signs of totemism. The number of totemic groups (kinds) varies within a tribe from 10 to 30.

Totemism is also of two types (based on materials from the southeastern regions of Australia): sexual and individual. essence sexual totemism in that, in addition to tribal totems, all the men of the tribe consider one animal as their totem, and women - another. Individual totemism presupposes the presence, in addition to the same generic totem, of the presence of an individual one, inherited from the father or received at the time of initiation.

Of course, the choice of totems for each tribe was determined by the physical and geographical nature of the area. The predominant group of totems are terrestrial and flying animals: emu, kangaroo, opossum, snake, lizard, raven, bat, etc.

The closeness between the totem and the person was expressed in totemic taboo And in totemic myths(sacred traditions of the tribes), as well as in the sacred totemic emblems (churingas).

In totemic myths, one can see the birth of faith in a higher deity, the emergence of myths about a cultural hero who gave people knowledge and customs. The myths reflected the primitive life of the Australians, the age-sex stratification, the allocation of healers. There is no clear idea of the other world yet. There were no sanctuaries, no prayers, no pantheon of deities, no ancestor cult, no nature due to the absence of predators and earthquakes.

The attitude to the totem of different tribes was different. In some tribes of Central Australia, the belief was alive that a person is the living embodiment of his totem ( incarnation or totemic embodiment). One of these mythical incarnations is " ratapa». Ratapa- this is a supernatural creature, a child's fetus, supposedly left by mythical ancestors in various places (stones, rocks, trees, etc.). If young a woman will pass past such a center, she will become pregnant. There are no ideas about the reincarnation of the soul of the deceased in one or another totem in the mythology of the Australian Aborigines.

The notion of the supernatural properties of some material objects is associated with Thomism. These items are totemic emblems. The Aranda tribe has churingi. Churingi- stones or wooden plates of an oval shape, covered with symbolic drawings.

Rubbing churingi fat can propagate a totem animal. Churingas are stored in the caves of the elders, who tint and iron them. If churinga crashed - there is no person. Churinga like the body of a totem ancestor and a person at the same time. During the rites of reproduction of the totem, they also made “ vaningu” (nurtunja) from spears, feathers in the form of a cross and it was used only in totemic ceremonies and means a connection with a certain totem.

Of particular importance are also totemic centers located within the hunting territory of the clan near a rock, tree, reservoir, gorge, etc. Here, somewhere, there was a sacred cache, a storehouse of churing.

Several types of totemic rites are known:

“Intichium” - reproduction of a totem animal or plant.

“Kvabara”- dramatization of myths about totemic ancestors during initiation rites for educational and educational purposes.

In the rite intichium”only men participate in the main camp and sing songs-spells, arrange dances-pantonyms, pour blood over the rock, paint the rock with ocher, depicting on it the skeletons of a male and female totem animal, as well as the solemn eating of the totem, as if in confirmation of unity. The rituals ended with rain, the revival of nature and totem animals, which was the best statement of faith.

Rite of Initiation(in eastern Australia called "bora"). It is aimed at changing the religious and social status of the initiate and who plays a huge role in the life of the natives.

Rites of initiation are attributed by some religious scholars (see the works of M. Eliade) to rites of initiation, which are divided into several types: 1) rites of transition from childhood or adolescence to adulthood; 2) rituals for joining a secret society or brotherhood; 3) the calling of a healer, sorcerer, shaman.

In our case, we will consider only the transition from childhood or adolescence to adulthood. This ceremony took place in several stages.

preparing a sacred area where the men would be isolated for the duration of the holiday;

separating newcomers from their mothers and from women in general;

their collection in the forest thicket or in a special isolated camp, where they will be instructed in religious traditions tribe;

some of the operations that beginners are subjected to, of which the most common are circumcision, removal anterior tooth, dissection of the penis along the urethra, as well as a notch in the skin and removal of hair.

The initiation rites for young men were aimed at teaching tribal customs and norms of behavior and testing when moving into a social group of adults. The rite was a group one and lasted several days or even years. Initiated ( vurtya) were subjected to prolonged isolation from women and children, at which time there was a rapprochement with adult men. A kind of exam was held for the possession of weapons, the skills of hunting, gathering, and fishing. Boys were tested for endurance by circumcision, scarring of the body, smoking in the smoke of a fire, knocking out their front teeth, plucking their hair. Discipline was tested, subjecting them to abstinence from food and obliging them to get and bring food to the elders. The concept of sacred rites was conveyed by the demonstration of rites with dramatizations, the telling of myths about a cultural hero.

Initiated girls were simply raped, while defloration was, as it were, an atonement for the right to live in marriage. Then the body was smeared with fat, the chest was painted, and decorations made from opossum skins were attached to the back.

Magic . Malicious (witchcraft)- is directed at people from another local group using actions and spells. Available not only to healers and sorcerers, but to any native. Death has always been considered by the natives as the result of hostile sorcery on the part of the enemy. Therefore, the death of any member of the tribe entailed a series of punishments for "enemies". First, fortune-telling was arranged to find out the true enemies and their current location, and then a detachment of avengers was sent to them in order to kill the culprit. In addition, they could bewitch the enemy with a pointed stick, animal or human bone, waving it around the fire and sharply sticking it into the sand after the spell. Sometimes a witch's wand was thrown to the enemy as a sign. Religious ethnographers distinguish several types of magic:

initiative, the meaning of which lies in the fact that the initial action is actually performed, and its completion (defeat of the enemy) belongs to higher forces.

Homeopathic, Simile or Imitative magic - damage through the impact on the image of a person.

Partial or contagious- through an object that was in contact with the bewitched (hair, food or feces). The thing was smoked on fire, tied to a digging stick or conjured through a person's footprint on the ground, where an enchanted piece of quartz was placed.

Positive magic. Represented by several varieties.

love found in the elemental form among the Australian Aborigines. Young people using a headband chilars”, bleached clay and rubbed with eucalyptus bark, using a belt decoration “ lonka-lonka”, a wooden pipe-pipe, smoked in a fire and, of course, with spells, bewitched women.

healing magic(medicine) is the prerogative of healers using herbs, poultices, massage, bloodletting, hypnosis, sucking out the disease and spitting it out in the form of small pebbles. In parallel with healing magic, shamanism appeared among the Australian aborigines, which never left the embryonic stage. So, for example, the tribes kurnai And aranda the rite of initiation from the spirits was known, when the healer went to the cave and lay down to sleep near it, believing that at night a spirit would come to him, pierce him with a spear and make him a shaman. Such people were called birraarks(of the tribe kurnai).

Weather magic- inducing rain by sprinkling water from the mouth, bleeding and fluff. Higher sorcerers received the gift by inheritance and had a mark.

fishing magic manifested itself in burying stones wrapped in leaves in the fields. was developed mantle- predictions by signs. For example, the cry of birds, shooting stars, sneezing, the appearance of a snake. Before the start of the war, they always guessed.

Funerary cult . Burial rites in Australia are very diverse. Among these various forms are: burrowing in an extended and crouched position, burial in a side niche, air burials (on scaffolds or trees), endocannibalism (eating the dead), smoking a corpse, carrying it with you, burning.

Early tribal cult . It is of the latest origin. This cult is associated primarily with the birth of the gods. Each totemic group had its own spirits, myths and rituals. There were also special supernatural beings: founding spirits and patrons, and monster spirits.

Talk about spirituality Tasmanians seems very problematic in view of the circumstances already indicated. But, nevertheless, scientists suggest the presence in their midst of the rudiments of totemistic beliefs. There were quite complex burial customs. A characteristic feature of spiritual culture can be considered the fear of the dusk of the night, which, apparently, has an animistic origin.

Papuans and Melanesians . IN Melanesia remnants of the most ancient totemic ideas were preserved in the form of a tribal cult and the cult of leaders. In some parts of Melanesia, totemism dominates ( West Side). The system of age initiations has changed here. Here there is a strengthening of the religious side of the rites of initiation and a weakening of their physical side (long trials, painful operations, etc.).

There were healers, fortune-tellers, sorcerers, spirit-callers, sacrificers and guardians of sanctuaries, spirit-seers-shamans. Moreover, the quackery was inherited from the maternal uncle. In addition, there was a specialization of sorcerers - in water, land, etc. In New Caledonia there was a caste of priests-sorcerers, and in Fiji - court priests.

Among the Papuans, the belief in various magic (harmful, economic, healing, etc.) remained the most developed. Among the Melanesians, as well as among the Papuans, magical beliefs played a significant role.

Among the Melanesians, a magical practice associated with belief in mysterious power « mana».

Quite a few points of view have been expressed about the origin of this belief. Some saw the animistic origin of the idea of mana(L.Ya. Sternberg, R. Codrington, W. Rivers, etc.), others, deduced belief in mana from belief in spirits, and, finally, still others believed that mana much older than animism and is a more primitive form of beliefs (R. Marett, K. Preuss, etc.). Soviet historiography considered faith in mana as a phenomenon that has grown out of social conditions. The selection of privileged members of the community in different areas activities (leaders, sorcerers, members of secret unions, etc.) gave rise to a special attitude towards these people, expressed in strengthening the role of their social superiority, which is reflected in the religious sphere ( mana).

mana- a force that is different from natural force. mana for the Melanesians it is a way of explaining everything - it is success, good harvest etc. Moreover, mana in its meaning can act both for harm and for good.

Apart from mana the idea was known taboo as a prohibition serving to protect property through men's unions.

was developed and animism . With a significant development of animism in Melanesia, it has regional specifics. Thus, for example, northwestern Melanesia (the Trobriand Islands) shows us more archaic forms of animism, in contrast to Central Melanesia (the Bismarck archipelago, Solomons and New Hebrides), where animism reached more development.

Spirits in Melanesian animistic beliefs are divided into two main categories:

spirits of nature wui, spirits associated with famous areas, located in the mountains, water);

spirits of dead people tamate).

A distinctive feature of Melanesian animistic beliefs is that the Melanesians never believed that spirits were once human.

Spirits are visible only to healers, dogs and those who were born with open eyes by the night fire. Spirits steal things, wounded animals. Each group has its own spirits. They live like people, having their own totemic centers. From there in the form ratapa” move into new people. The soul-double can leave the body in a dream when snoring. Dreams are a journey of the soul around the world in different time intervals.

Animism also appears in funeral rites. People are buried lying down or sitting in the grave, they are burned, and ground burial and mummification were also known. There are known cases of mutilation of a corpse, heaping a mound of stones, leaving food, kindling a fire for heating, rubbing with cadaverous juice, smoking a severed hand for an amulet, eating the brain, kidney fat of enemies or relatives.

Unlike the Australians, the Melanesians had ancestor worship, which manifested itself with the custom of depicting the dead " uli» from wood and chalk, the use of sacred skulls during ceremonies and the storage of skulls in sacred huts. Sometimes in men's houses a real skull of a deceased ancestor was attached to a wooden figure. In addition, in men's houses - gamalah- they kept ritual masks in the houses of their ancestors, where women and the uninitiated were not allowed.

One of the manifestations of animism was cult of leaders. The leaders, according to the Melanesians, have a large and strong mana. The power of the leader is based precisely on this force. The spirits of dead leaders become a special object of reverence.

Magic and animism found their expression in male secret unions. Their most typical form is known in Central Melanesia. These are a kind of secret witchcraft societies that practice some types of magic (Bismarck Archipelago). These unions are of two main types: open unions (they are rather social institutions) and religious-magical unions ( tamate that letters. means "spirit of the deceased", see above). As a matter of fact, we can consider men's secret unions and men's houses as a rudimentary form of sanctuaries, most widespread in Polynesia.

Totemic beliefs have survived in a surviving form. Since social processes among the Melanesians have gone further than among the Australians, the totem is no longer a tribal, but a tribal deity.

The mythology of the Melanesians is rather poorly developed. There are mainly myths about cultural heroes, and a significant number of myths are associated with the ancient phratial division.

Due to the sharp social stratification Polynesia the most widespread was the cult of leaders. For the Polynesian, the leader is a sacred person. Therefore, often the leader could also combine the functions of a priest. The deceased leader was considered a deity.

Priests continued to remain as professional clergymen. There are two categories of priests: official (served at the sanctuaries, tohunga or kahuna) and freelancers (fortunetellers, soothsayers, shamans, taura or taula).

In Polynesia, the cult of sacrifice was known. They sacrificed fruits, chickens, pigs. Sometimes human sacrifices were made. Such a sacrifice was observed in 1777 by James Cook on the island of Tahiti.

A feature of the religious practice of the Polynesians is the presence of sanctuaries. As a rule, burial grounds (burials of leaders or nobility) served as sanctuaries - morai. Each family had their own moray, but there were also common ones. IN morai there was an altar with images of the gods. There were also those possessed in an epileptic fit transmitting the will of the priests. Everyone drank before and during the ceremonies kava. These concepts are connected with the regulation of communal production in antiquity, but in class society took on a new meaning.

There were quite a lot of ideas about mana- an impersonal supernatural force that brings good luck and happiness and o taboo- ban. By force" taboo”possessed only by sacred leaders and nobles. And the taboo here performs a protective function (protection of private property), as in Melanesia, and was a political tool. Taboo replaced royal decrees, legislation. Manoj priests who have their own categories and unite into castes govern.

The afterlife of the Polynesian was as socially heterogeneous as the world of the living. Leaders after death ended up on a happy island in the West, unlike commoners, whose path led to on- underground country.

There was a custom of embalming and placing the bodies of leaders in a crypt, cremation, burial in a men's house, secondary burial, burial in a boat. Sometimes the corpse of the leaders was dismembered, separating the head and placing it in a special hut in morae.

There was a pantheon of gods: Tanya- god of the sun, patron of fertility, vegetation, That- god of War, rongo- god of rain, earth, Tangoroa- the creator of all living things, is associated with all the elements of nature.

micronesia . Unlike the previous regions, it is the least studied. It is also not easy to determine the form of religious beliefs of the Micronesians. NN Miklukho-Maclay spoke about the existence of shamanism here. The main concept among the Micronesians was the concept of " kalit». Kalitami they could call priests, fortune-tellers, summoners of spirits, and this title is hereditary. In even more broad sense kalit called everything supernatural. After death gates(as clergymen) became gods. Often, kalit considered as a relic of totemism. Insofar as kalit, according to the Micronesians, every person has one that cannot be killed and eaten.

Oral and musical folk art , associated with religious and magical rites, was divided into a) totemic myths, mythological stories about the origin of the world, heavenly bodies and natural phenomena, about the origin of people, the flood, about the rainbow snake. The myths about the origin of the sun, which is associated with a woman, are interesting. There are also myths about cultural heroes in which they appear in a vague, half-animal, half-human form. All myths are filled with the idea of a special existence of totem ancestors. b) fairy tales told by everyone about half-animal people (rats, etc.).

The musical instrument was a 60x5 cm trumpet, with the addition of palm strikes, hip strikes, boomerang strikes, lizard skin drums, and a buzzer was used for initiation. The songs consisted of 2-3 sonorous melodies, repeated at the same level. Songs were sung about a wild dog, a white rat, an opossum. IN Melanesia a drum, a gong, rattles, a mouth flute made of pipes were often used. IN Polynesia- a shell pipe, a bamboo pipe for striking the ground with a bamboo stick, a bow flute, a wooden gong, a drum made of shark skin. Songs, sayings, proverbs, legends, hymns, spells, labor, military songs with collective dances, saturated with social religious and magical meaning and imitation of animals, are widespread, which could last up to 5-6 nights in a row. At the conclusion of peace, collective dances were obligatory carroboree. The dance was led by an elder with a spear. All dance movements were coordinated. Problems were solved during the break. carroboree passed down between tribes.

IN Melanesia There were separate dance floors for men and women. Dances of rowers, warriors, etc. with strict rhythm. Dancing sometimes in masks with body painting with rattles.

Sports games and entertainment . Playing with a ball made from a bubble or from leather stuffed with hair. Competitions sports boomerangs. Playing with a rope, spinning wit-wit, fighting jousting, guessing the tracks of animals, even playing with bark dolls and hide-and-seek. IN Polynesia they launched a snake from the inner layers of the bark of a silky tree in the form of a bird or a stylized person. In New Zealand, they competed with walking on stilts, throwing spears, wrestling in the water, wall-to-wall fistfights, riding the waves on a board or sleigh on a stone complaint in Hawaii. Ball game, checkers in 14 cells, riddles and a rope game.

Visual activity and the beginnings of art . Aboriginal australia shields, clubs, boomerangs, spears at the tip were ornamented. They also applied symbolic signs on rocks and stones. The drawings had a sacred plot, in addition, they also performed an aesthetic function. On cult objects, all drawings of a conventionally symbolic meaning are images of totemic ancestors or individual episodes from myths. Aboriginal artist Albert Namajira was very famous. Drawings were also applied to the body, weapons, utensils, churingas, vanings. According to the technique, drawings by burning, coloring with ocher, clay, charcoal, ornamentation with bird down. The conventionally schematic style prevailed with geometric figures, zigzags, circles, taking into account the relief of the body.

IN Polynesia and Melanesia scarring of the body, ornamentation of boats and weapons by burning is common. They carved wooden sculptures, ritual masks, carved flutes, and gourd vessels. IN Polynesia there were sculptures made of stone, bone, wood and rock carvings. Stone images gained worldwide fame moari on Easter Island and the Marquesas Islands. They made carvings on the bows of boats, stilts, bowls, fishing sinkers, wands of leaders and hairpins. Drawings were also applied with ocher using a brush with symbolic images of birds and fish.

Mausoleums for the monarch of Hota Matua were known on Easter Island. There were rudiments of messianism in religious beliefs - everyone was waiting for the arrival of the god Makemaki.

Religious rites and rituals - what is it? Perhaps some believe that only those who are closely associated with religion experience such phenomena. However, in reality, such rituals have long been intertwined with the daily lives of ordinary people. What can we say about a believer, for whom religious customs and rituals are an integral part of being.

And yet, despite this, many interesting questions remain in the shadows. For example, even the meaning of the word "religious rite" causes a number of bewilderment. After all, how to understand which rituals should be attributed to them, and which not? Or what is the difference between Orthodox sacraments and Catholic ones? And after all, how long ago was the first religious ceremony? So, let's consider everything in order.

The meaning of the word "religious rite"

As always, you need to start at the root of the problem, namely with the exact meaning of this expression. So, a religious rite is a certain action based on a person's mystical idea of the surrounding reality.

That is, the main task of such a ritual is to strengthen the connection of the believer with his higher beginning, or God. At the same time, it does not matter at all whether such an action is carried out individually or if it is a collective event.

What is a religious rite?

Based on this, we can draw the following conclusion: any custom that combines these two points is a religious rite.

The first mystical mysteries

No one knows exactly when a person began to believe that he controls the world. After all, for the first time this happened in those days when our distant ancestors still could not write. The only evidence of their intelligent way of life is the pattern and notches on the rocks. However, even this meager information is enough to understand what a religious rite is among ancient people.

Rites of the Slavs

Initially, rituals were invented by ordinary people in order to somehow appease their beloved deity. A little later, the priests themselves began to select the most favorable rites and insist that the higher mind.

It got to the point that not a single holiday or significant event could do without a religious sacrament. And the more often and systematically they were repeated, the stronger they stuck into the consciousness of people. After many years, they became an integral part of the daily life of the Slavs and were taken by the people as a matter of course.

But what about other countries and continents?

The most curious thing is that such a worldview was inherent in almost all nations and peoples. So, the Greeks believed in the gods of Olympus, the Egyptians - in the powerful and other, no less powerful creatures. And the indigenous people of Africa did have so many different deities that there is not the slightest possibility to count them.

And they all practiced religious rites. For example, the Greeks made rich offerings to their gods in temples, and on holidays they organized festivities with a masquerade. The Egyptians built pyramids so that their pharaohs would live there even after death. And some ate human hearts, hoping in this way to gain the strength and courage of a defeated enemy.

Religious practices in the modern world

Despite the fact that now the age of popularization of scientific theories and atheistic views has come, religious rites have not gone away. Moreover, some of them are so deeply rooted in the minds of people that they have become a familiar norm. Let's look at the most popular rites of the two giant religions - Christianity and Islam.

So, let's start with the Orthodox baptism of children. This religious rite is considered one of the most ancient in our history. According to his laws, small children are washed with holy water in order to cleanse them from original sin. In addition, Christians believe that during baptism, God will give a person a guardian angel.

Loyalty bordering on fanaticism

Many religious rituals, customs and rituals that exist today exist very long time, because they came to us from ancient times, when a person used them as a kind of energy support and help in various everyday situations.

Ancient rituals and ceremonies

It is no secret that in ancient times people were engaged in hunting, and in this way they obtained their livelihood. However, not every time the hunt was successful, and in order to avoid hunger, people tried to call for good luck with signs: for example, they painted animals on the rocks, and then hit them with spears, symbolizing a successful outcome.

At the same time, for example, the ritual of human burial began to take shape. It was supposed to put flowers, weapons and objects that a person used during his lifetime in the grave. As a rule, all rituals denote actions that connect a person with the other world.

Later, a special person began to appear in the tribe to conduct rituals and ceremonies, who was called a magician or sorcerer. They performed all the actions themselves and taught others to do them. Slavic rites and rituals may differ from the rituals of other peoples, since they all have their own specifics.

Religious rites and rituals: then and now

In each era, the rituals became more and more complicated. People found new ways to ask the gods for what they wanted. Nowadays, each religion has its own rites and rituals, which can be daily (for example,), calendar (for example, rites and rituals for Christmas) or single - for example, baptism.

As in our days, a person could pray alone, or by coming to a special temple. In those days, at home, each person had his own small altar, which was also supposed to pray.

Tribes have lived on Siberian land since ancient times. northern peoples, who had shamans in the tribe who were engaged exclusively in rites and rituals. According to myths, the shaman was chosen by the spirits themselves - the person who was supposed to become him was taken to another world, taken apart and created anew, already in a new capacity. Such a person knew how to walk between worlds, could heal people, put energy protection to influence the weather. Traditionally, their rituals used music - the ringing of a tambourine.

Interestingly, the Buryats and other peoples of the north, who have preserved their culture today, still have shamans who really know amazing abilities: Can cast and remove curses or tell fortunes.

Funeral rite, the content of which is established religious organizations, denominations. Can turn on integral part in a civil ceremonial. Source: MDK 11 01.2002: Recommendations on the order of burial and the maintenance of cemeteries in ... ... Dictionary-reference book of terms of normative and technical documentation

Religious burial ceremony- a funeral rite, the content of which is established by religious organizations, confessions. It can be included as an integral part in the general civil ritual ceremonial ... Source: Order of the Gosstroy of the Russian Federation of 10.01.2000 N 3 On the approval of the Instructions on ... ... Official terminology

RELIGIOUS- RELIGIOUS, religious, religious; religious, religious, religious 1. full only adj. to religion. Religious fool. || adj., by value associated with the observance of the precepts of religion. "Freedom of worship and freedom... ... Dictionary Ushakov

- ▲ symbolic procedure, public rite traditional actions accompanying important points human life. ritualism. etiquette. ceremony official procedure (# meetings). ceremonial. master of ceremonies. ceremonial. ritual. ritual…

rite- This article is about religious rituals. For the film, see The Rite (film). A rite or ritual is a set of conditional, traditional actions, devoid of immediate practical expediency, but serving as a symbol of certain ... ... Wikipedia

rite- 1) ♦ (ENG ordinance) (from Latin ordinans ordering) a religious ritual similar to a sacrament, which is performed more as a commemoration or an act of obedience than as having the effect of a sacrament. In non-sacramental Christian traditions… … Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms

rite- (general Slavic ritual - arrange, arrange) - 1. a culturally determined way of holding a certain ceremony (wedding, on the occasion of the birth of a child, etc.); 2. sometimes - a religious ritual ... encyclopedic Dictionary in psychology and pedagogy

CULT RELIGIOUS- RELIGIOUS CULT (from lat. cultus veneration, worship) in the broad sense of worship in general; in a narrow complex of religious actions, expressing the veneration of God or gods by the adherents of a particular religion. Every religion has its own... Philosophical Encyclopedia

HOUSEHOLD AND RELIGIOUS RITUAL- (lat. ritual): a historically established, stereotypical sequence of actions specific to certain circumstances. In every religion there is an ordered system of actions expressing a person's attitude towards God and other objects of worship ... Eurasian wisdom from A to Z. Explanatory dictionary

- ▲ religious rite appeal (to whom), to (object), God prayer appeal of a believer to a deity with a request to send down good and avert evil (perform a prayer. offer # to the Lord). prayer. pray. pray to God). pray. pilgrimage ... Ideographic Dictionary of the Russian Language

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