Divya, Goddess of the Moon, daughter of Rod, the Father of All That Is.” Divya

Volkh's wife. Her embodiment is the moon. Requires sacrifices of wild animal meat, sable and marten skins, pies and ribbons on hunting days, giving girls in marriage and matchmaking.

Mentioned in that part of the translated “Conversation of Gregory the Theologian on the test of the city (hail),” which is recognized as an insertion by a Russian scribe of the 11th century. Here, after listing the remnants of paganism, it is said “Ov Dyu eat, and the other - Divya...”. Apparently, Divya here is the female counterpart of Dyu, that is, the Greek Zeus from church texts.

In the “Tale of Idols” the goddess Diva is mentioned after Mokosh and before Perun, which also speaks of the important place occupied by this goddess in the pagan ideas of the Slavs.

Notes

Literature

• Rybakov B. A. Paganism of the ancient Slavs. Origins of Slavic mythology. Birth of goddesses and gods

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

• Lelya
• Svarog

See what “Diviya” is in other dictionaries:

Divya- (feminine) divine Ancient Indian names. Dictionary of meanings... Dictionary of personal names

divya- noun, number of synonyms: 1 goddess (346) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

krasta divya- @font face (font family: ChurchArial ; src: url(/fonts/ARIAL Church 02.ttf);) span (font size:17px;font weight:normal !important; font family: ChurchArial ,Arial,Serif;)    phraseol. (Greek ψώρα ἀγρία) scabies (disease), skin rash... Dictionary of Church Slavonic language

Diona- This term has other meanings, see Dione (meanings). Zeus and Dione on the Dione coin ... Wikipedia

Alalykins- Alalykins. The ancestor of this family should be considered Temir Alalykin, the Suzdal son of a boyar, who became famous in 1572 in the battle of Molodi, where the famous boyar Prince Mikh. Iv. Vorotynsky completely defeated and drove out the Crimean Khan... ... Biographical Dictionary

Alalykin, Temir- Suzdalian, son of a boyar, distinguished himself in the battle between Prince M.I. Vorotynsky and Devlet Giray near the village. Molodi in 1571 Alalykin killed the khan's son-in-law, Il Murza, and captured Diviy Murza of Nagai. "Russian genealogical book", part IV, page 233.… …

Alalykins Large biographical encyclopedia

Alalykins- The ancestor of this family should be considered Temir Alalykin, the Suzdal son of a boyar, who became famous in 1572 in the battle of Molodi, where the famous boyar Prince. Mich. Iv. Vorotynsky completely defeated and drove out the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray,... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron

Wild fruits, cucumbers- (according to Slavic divia apples) (2 Kings 4:39) from the pumpkin family, their leaves and branches resemble the branches of real cucumbers and spread along the ground. Their fruits, which have the appearance and size of an egg, taste very bitter, are harmful to health and can be dangerous... ... Bible. Old and New Testaments. Synodal translation. Biblical encyclopedia arch. Nikifor.

THE DAY OF IVAN- (Ivan Kupala), the day of the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24/July 7), the summer solstice, BC. XX century one of the main folk holidays, combining elements of the Christian worldview and the remains of ancient pagan rituals. Ancient... ...Russian history

Elder Goddess

Meaning: Look at the Sky.

The reason for the appearance of Reza in the reading: Reza of Divya-Moon allows the Questioner to harmonize his activity with the outside world.

Challenge (what needs to be done and what quality to show): flexibility and, at the same time, sensitivity, the ability to notice the emotional mood of others.

A word of caution (what you shouldn’t and shouldn’t do): don’t directly try to interpret the signs received, the knowledge gained, words and actions.

Indication (mandatory): for the Questioner, the time has come for magic, intuitive insights, and subtle perception.

Advice (preferably): listen to yourself, they show you something, but don’t insist on it.

Consolation (what circumstance should be kept in mind): everything has its time.

The appearance of Reza Diviya-Luna in a reading can say a lot about the situation if we consider it in combination with nearby Rezas, since the Moon carries both positive and negative predictions.

Dependence on time cycles is the main feature of the Goddess Luna.

If Reza falls during the waxing Moon, Reza recommends intensifying your activities. At this time, you need to start new things, you can achieve success in them. On the waning Moon, Reza advises you to sort out your inner world, take care of your family, and your favorite pastime. And show less interest in what is happening in the outside world.

In respect of health the appearance of the Moon means possible nervous overload, which can result in depression and insomnia. At the same time, the appearance of this Reza advises you to listen to your intuition; the Moon can reveal what is usually hidden in the subconscious. It is believed that the validity period of the Moon Reza is one lunar cycle - 28 days.

In the situation for business questions Same

The most important thing is to determine what period of business is now - decreasing or increasing, and be prepared for the fact that this trend will continue for another half a month.

ABOUT Whatever they don’t say, don’t ask about it! Don't trust someone else's secrets!

It is believed that Divya, the Moon Goddess, arose simultaneously with Khors, the Sun God, from the person of Rod, the Creator of the Universe, so that people learned to distinguish Light in Darkness. Night is a symbol of darkness, inertia, delusion, illusion and the rampant "dark forces; the night luminary with its reflected light helps to find a way out. Every night Divya appears in the sky with a golden crown on her head. According to one legend, a pair of snow-white horses rushes a chariot, according to another - she is slowly carried by steep-horned bulls.

On Reza 7, Divya is calm and majestic in her long white robe, with a crescent moon on her headdress, peacefully shining on the sleeping Earth, filling it with a silvery glow.

The Goddess has many responsibilities: she illuminates a person’s path in the night, protects people’s dreams, but most importantly, she keeps track of time. The moon became the first measure of time, which is not subject to anyone, but to which everything is subject. Since ancient times, the lunar measure of time has spread among many peoples and is still used today. When determining church holidays, the lunar calendar is used by Mohammedans and Jews; Christians use it to determine the onset of Easter. Women monitor their cycles by checking the moon. The moon is trusted with their secrets and inspires poets.

But Divya doesn’t just observe events taking place, they must meet Divya’s ideals - to make life more pleasant and interesting. The most decadent thoughts come precisely when the Moon is hidden from view by the shadow of the Earth. How dark it becomes in the soul when the Moon enters the dark Moon phase. It is not for nothing that these four nights are given over to the power of Morena, the Lady of Winter and Death. Everything that happens on Earth happens with the participation of Divya, the Moon Goddess.

Veda

Mysterious magic, fairy tales, dreams in which we fly - this is the manifestation of Divya-Luna, her gift of the wonderful and inexplicable. With such influence, there is no need to perceive something as a direct instruction, there is no need to present facts as the ultimate truth. All that we receive during the period while Divya hovers above us is a hint, a subtle non-violent hint, food for intuitive insights. The message that Divya brings with her includes the changing cyclical nature and the importance of harmony with the surrounding world.

The origin of the name of the god Diva can come from the Old Church Slavonic word “divъ”, which literally means something wonderful, capable of greatly surprising. This is where the Ukrainian “divo”, the Bulgarian “diven” and other words in related Slavic languages ​​came from. The meaning, regardless of variations in the original root, remains unchanged - this is a miracle.


There is a possibility that the name of this deity comes from the Proto-Indo-European word "deivos", which means "god". The ancient Indian word “devas” and the Latin “deus” are similar in sound and meaning. In both cases it is "god". Considering that the ancient Slavs and the Proto-Indo-Europeans not only have much in common in terms of linguistic understanding, but also in terms of religious beliefs. That's why
This theory may well correspond to reality.
If we turn to the extinct Avestan language, we can find a mysteriously similar-sounding word to Div, “daeva,” which means evil spirit. Similar creatures are found in the mythology of the peoples of the Caucasus, Siberia, the Urals, Central and Asia Minor. These are giants, with a humanoid appearance, or with the body of a man, but the head of an animal. Various atrocities are attributed to such giants, including the abduction of beauties for the purpose of cohabiting with them and continuing their family line. In Slavic mythology, Div is not characterized as a positive character, which raises some doubts. There is also no direct mention of Div being evil. Among the Eastern Slavs, Div acts as a spirit-predictor, capable of taking the form of a bird, in particular an eagle owl or an owl. The bird foreshadows war and accompanies the army in battle, and circles over the heads of those who will inevitably face defeat.

Who is Div?

Div is one of the mysteries of the pagan past. Who is this - a mythical villain, or a bright god? Unfortunately, we have not received direct evidence that could completely refute one of these options. Diva has several variations of the name. This is Dy and Dy. We have already talked about possible origins of this name. Let us assume that Div is, if not a god, then a mythical figure endowed with great strength and power from the Slavic pantheon of gods.
The source “The Word of Saint Gregory” indicates that Div is the god who rules in the sky, and his strength and power are in the light of the heavenly bodies. In another source, in the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” Div appears as a harbinger of troubles. Perhaps, over time and under the influence of different foreign cultures, the image of Diya changed and was perceived differently by different generations. Perhaps even his grandfathers revered him as a god, and their grandchildren considered the same Diya an evil spirit. The migration of nomads and the resettlement of different tribes inevitably brought with them the assimilation and merging of the local culture with the incoming one, which over time could dramatically change the original images of gods and other phenomena.
In another historical source, “The Discourse of Gregory the Theologian on the Trial of the City,” Div is mentioned as the god of the sky, and his wife Divia is the goddess of earth and fertility. The mythology of ancient peoples is imbued with the dualistic idea of ​​​​creating the world by merging the male and female principles. This is where one of the theories that exists among current researchers arises regarding the purpose of Div as a god. Perhaps Div was revered as the deity of heavenly waters - the source of primary power that flowed from the heavens and fertilized the earth's firmament and gave birth to life on it.

It is worth paying attention to another source, “The Lecturer of George Amartol.” In it, Diy is presented as the son of Cronus (Chronos), who reigned in Asyria, and was known as a cannibal who ate his own children. According to the traditions and foundations of the Persians, Diy was married to his sister Ira and had a brother Nina. The same source indicates that a certain Serukh instilled in the Babylonians the veneration of their ancestors and heroes as gods, which was common in the Hellenic states. Thus, those who made any discoveries, or were distinguished by their actions in society, were perceived as someone special, divine. Dyy is mentioned as the god of rain, which gives a reference to the assumption of his involvement in the celestial waters in Slavic mythology.

There is also a completely different version that Div was the god of the night sky. It is worth mentioning that Amartol, Dyyu, the same Diyu, ascribes two cavities, “the ov is dyyu to eat, and the other is divy.” In Slavic mythology, the wife of Diva is Divia, who was revered as the goddess of the night sky and the moon. It can be assumed that the Slavs split the original androgynous essence of Dyya into two deities: Diva and Divia.
Div, according to this version, also acts as the Bird-Div, and he lived in the primordial heavens, which was earlier than the sky bound by Svarog. Div was born from the union of the Great Family and the heavenly Goat Seduni, and he was the brother of Svarog. If we turn to Amartol, he points out that in honor of Dyi, in ancient Egypt cattle, including goats, were sacrificed. Perhaps this is where the idea of ​​kinship with the Slavic goat Seduni arose.
After Div touched the firmament of the earth with his spear, the mighty Indra was born. And from Divya, his sister, Diva gave birth to the beautiful Diva-Dodola and the handsome Churila. God Div is also credited with a secret relationship with the wife of the god Barma, Tarusya. According to legend, it was from this union that the people came that gave birth to the Divy people.
According to this theory, Dy lived in the Ural Mountains and sent rain to people in order to water fields and crops. In his service were giants, Divya's people, who were his great-grandchildren, from the children of Tarusya. He demanded too much tribute from them, and eventually the giants stopped honoring their ancestor. Then, in anger, Div called himself the god of the night sky and the wicked began to worship him: murderers, thieves and robbers. People who no longer received rain from Div asked for help from the wise Veles, who overthrew the dark Div ​​into the Navi world. But Viy helped Diva, and he returned to his monastery. Deciding to make peace with Veles, Div invited the sage god to his chambers, where he invited him to drink from a thicket full of poison. As a result, Veles was poisoned and cast into the Navi world, where he found his wife, daughter Viya - Yaginya. There are suggestions that Viy helped Div for a reason, they say he wanted to get Veles as his son-in-law.
At the same time, the son of Div, Churila, together with the giants, defeated the Svarozhichi. As punishment for their insolence, Svarog locked the giants in the very heart of the Ural Mountains, and took the repentant Churil, who presented Svarog as a gift of gold from secret dungeons, into his service. The feud between the Irian gods and Div was over, and he again became a light deity.

Goddess Divya was perceived by the Slavs as a symbol of well-being, fertility, and wealth. Slavic amulets with the Lunnitsa sign were believed to be able to heal people from illnesses and ailments and reduce pain during childbirth. The Lunnitsa amulet has such a meaning for a reason. After all, the Goddess is a talisman Divya was perceived more as feminine. But in any case, the symbols of the Slavic Gods, namely Divya, helped everyone - guaranteed success in business and respect.

This amulet grants the development of magical abilities, intuition and creative talents, and will also bring love and strong family relationships into your life.

Material: thick canvas, colored durable threads.

The size of the patch is 8 cm in diameter.

Do you want to show your belonging to the Slavic Family? And thereby establish a connection with our ancestors? The symbols of the Slavic Gods will help with this! And the Goddess Divya especially! Possible Slavic stripes buy and sew it on a visible place - on a shirt, on a jacket, attach the patch to a sleeve, to a bag or to a headdress! Don't want to demonstrate your beliefs? Slavic chevrons can be easily hidden by sewing on the inside of sleeves, hems, bags, or wallets. In any case, you receive a patch made by a northern master entirely from natural materials and filled with the fresh power of native Slavic symbolism.

Slavic amulets with the sign of the Goddess Divya They have the shape of a moon, with their horns facing downwards, which symbolizes the connection with cosmic energy.

How to care for stripes on clothes?

When washing Slavic chevrons, you should first of all take into account the recommendations for washing the item on which the chevron is sewn. If you just carry the Slavic patch with you, then you can wash it in warm soapy water, rinse and dry thoroughly. Ironing is recommended only if the chevron is heavily wrinkled and using a damp cloth.

DIVYA/DIVA

Goy, the earth is damp,

The earth is maturing,

You are our dear mother!

You gave birth to us all,

And endowed with land;

For the sake of us, your children,

You gave birth to potions

And she gave all sorts of grains to drink...

Spell for collecting medicinal herbs (32)

(Maikov, 1998, No. 254)

The name Dyy had a feminine form. Dyya’s wife is probably the goddess of the earth: “Create a demand on the staudenci, waiting for claims from him, forgetting that God is waiting to give from heaven. To eat the bearer of God, and to antagonize the God who created heaven and earth. I call the river a goddess, and the beast living in it, like naming a god, I demand to create. Ov Dyu eat, and the others Divi. And honor the city. Open up the shit, laying it on the head, take the oath; to create oaths with human bones. Ov kobeni petit look. The ov of the meeting is doubtful. Ov muschn cattle, creating kill. To do it a week and on holy days, he came to himself, creating his own destruction, and as much as he did in this week, the day he would destroy. I swear to swear to lies” (The Word of St. Gregory, Conversation of St. Gregory the Theologist about the beating of the city - Anichkov, 1914, p. 93).

Since in almost all Indo-European mythological systems there is a symmetry of “female and male”, the pair “earth - sky”, it is natural to assume that Div (Dy) and Diva (Diya) are just such a pair. That Div correlates with the sky (the Upper World) etymologically and thematically is clear from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”: “Div is beating, calling to the top of the tree - commanding the unknown earth to listen” (does this mean the World Tree?); “I have already exchanged blasphemy for praise; The need has already burst into freedom; Diva has already thrown herself to the ground.”

According to the same Galysovsky, before the Greek scribes, the Slavs never had such a goddess - Diva. However, we would venture to suggest that there was still a goddess, they just began to call her in the Greek way. Or Divya is a proper name that goes back to the Indo-European root. Let us recall that in Lithuanian mythology it is known about the marriage of the highest male deity Dievas and the proto-goddess Deive.

Deiva, or Zhemina, is what Latvians call Zemes mate- Mother Earth. Dievs is her husband. In other words, Diva, Divia, is the goddess Mother of Cheese Earth, Slavic Gaia, who is fertilized by the heavenly waters of Dyya-Diva.

Protesting against the Christianity being introduced among them, the Prussians tell their missionaries that because of them (since they came with their own, alien rituals), the Prussian land will stop producing harvest, trees will stop producing fruit, animals will stop producing offspring (Lavvis, 1897).

Let us turn again to the teaching “The Word of St. Gregory was invented in masses about what kind of filth the Gentiles worshiped before idols and made demands on them,” where, as it seems to us, the name of Diva is also mentioned:

“... Those who rage more than the mothers of the demonic aphrodite goddesses. Corone. The crown will be destroyed and the mother of the Antichrist. and ArtemiDe. curses. Diomisee. stagnation and premature births. and the god of husbands and wives... requires the same god to store and create. and Slovenian language. Vilam. Mokoshya. diva, perounow. harsou. Rodou. and giving birth..."

When translated for some reason, Diva is often written as a maiden, although between a maiden and a diva, as well as between a maiden and a Diva, the difference is significant, magical, we would even say. And it turns out that such translators are like “Mokoshi-deve”, but this does not fit into any gates. At the same time, researchers, even the most blinkered, agree that the cult of Mokosh/Mokosh has been reincarnated in Orthodoxy as the veneration of Paraskeva Friday. This saint, of course, is not a boy, but not a virgin either; she seems to be a very respectable matron.

“Everything in nature has its own unique properties that can be known by those who are willing to look for them. Above all else in the Northern Tradition is deep respect for the earth, which appears in the guise of the goddess, Mother Earth. This idea is the same in all versions of the faith, although the goddess may be called differently. She is the personification of the Earth, viewed as a sacred entity, and not as a huge inanimate stone, and is the basis of the worldview. As a result, all manifestations of the natural world should be revered, as well as places of power - places where the gods are present... The Northern Tradition sees in planet Earth not an inanimate (cosmic body), but a living entity with a spirit, "ond, which appears in various forms corresponding to the fundamental qualities of the elements to which it belongs" (Pennick, 1989).

We salute you, O mother earth,

Mortal haven,

Be blooming and fertile

By the grace of the gods,

Full of food

What feeds our people.

Anglo-Saxon prayer (Ibid.)

The barren land spell in good old England was performed by taking seeds and putting them on the plow:

Erke, Erke, Erke,

earthly mother,

may the all-giver give you,

eternal sovereign,

rich lands,

flowering meadows,

fruitful fields,

multiparous, multiparous,

millet grown,

good grain,

barley too

excellent grain,

also wheat

The grain is good.

May he give

eternal sovereign,

and his saints,

mountain people,

master's lands

protection from ruin,

field and arable land

salvation from misfortune,

from an evil word

from an earthly spell.

Protect, all-giver,

Creator of the world

from a slanderous wife,

from an evil husband, -

my speech is strong

Yes it will be strong.

(Old English Poetry, pp. 23–24)

The pagan identity of the early Middle Ages in Rus' is also revealed as the cult of the Earth.

He, like the cult of the Family, in the opinion of the same V.L. Komarovich, “was in that era not only the lot of everyday or personal superstition of individual “neveglas”, but also a rather formidable social force. Its involvement, like the cult of the Family, in inter-princely relations is beyond doubt. Both cults were closely related in the views and experiences of their adherents. The denunciation against those who believe in the birth of children on earth also concerns their faith in the Family. Other denunciations that speak less clearly about Rod, however, invariably call women in labor next to him, or, as is read in the most ancient lists of monuments, Rozhanitsa (in the singular)..." (Komarovich, 1960, pp. 103–104)

The author makes the undisputed assumption “that the “Rod” and “Rozhanitsa” of our incriminating monuments will exactly correspond to the pagan cults of the Rod and the Earth, which were just as firmly united in ancient Russian life itself.” Taking into account the identification in teachings against paganism of one of the Mothers in labor with Artemis, it is precisely such a Mother in labor that is unlikely to be correlated with the giving birth Earth, although she undoubtedly performs midwifery functions.

But if V.L. Komarovich’s constructions are not entirely correct, he is right in the following: “If we look at all those places in the chronicle where more or less stable formulas of their customary law were put into the mouths of individual princes, then here too we will meet the same two concepts and even terms: clan and land. In particular, the cult of land was connected with princely ownership through the ancient Russian customary right to land ownership in general. The oath by the earth, which attracted the attention of Pavlov-Silvansky in this last one, is exposed as a forbidden relic of paganism already in the same “Word of how the trash of existence bowed down to an idol” (11th century): “O, tear up the turf (cut out) on the head, laying it down, to take the oath." The long dominance of this custom is also evidenced by its numerous later survivals collected by Smirnov (33). The pagan cult of the earth clearly appears in some of the surviving features of the princely life and rule. For example, Rurik of Smolensky had a son - on the way from Novgorod, in the city of Luchin; at baptism he was given “the grandfather’s name Mikhailo, and the prince Rostislav, the grandfather’s name”; what it meant to assign a grandfather's name - we already know in part; but this is not enough: where the princess found herself giving birth, “I erected the Church of St. Michael in the place where she gave birth.” Why it must be “in that place”, and not somewhere nearby - which would, of course, be easier and simpler - is again clarified from international data on the veneration of Mother Earth: how the dying were certainly laid on the ground “ut extremum spiritum” redderent terrae“ in the belief that the soul, exactly where the dying person is laid, will return to the mother’s earthen womb, so the exact opposite transition to the newborn of the soul of a deceased ancestor - most often just a grandfather - from under the earth was again imagined possible only where the birth took place.

In a random slip of the chronicler, precious everyday details reveal, as we see, both the veneration of the family and the veneration of the land at the same time, one with the other in an indissoluble connection. The earth is doubly honored: both for the fact that it receives deceased grandfathers, and for the fact that it gives back the souls of their newborn grandchildren; this family is doubly honored, as it has now become clear, an ancestor passing from generation to generation, now returning to the earth, now from it, with the first cry of a baby, emerging again for further above-ground life, like an epigone; in the exact sense of the word, or, if you prefer, like grass, tree or grain. Finally, one can see the extent to which the views inherited from pagan antiquity came into close contact with the sphere of princely customary law: having given his son both his grandfather’s names, marking the place of birth with a church building, the father of the newborn, Prince Rurik, in conclusion “gives him the city of Luchin, in which born"; that is, before us is one of countless examples of the princely “series,” happily distinguished from the rest only by the visual evidence of the circumstances that gave rise to it; but they, as we see, do not put up with either the presumption of the patrimonial theory, or the presumption of the theory of “ladder ascension”: from neither one nor the other can one derive the prince’s right to own the city as a “grandfather” only because he was born in it; A happy accident helped to derive such a right from the pagan cult: the momentary loquaciousness of the chronicler. But how many similar other customary rules remain unrecognized due to its annoying laconicism? ( Ibid.).

Having given a number of striking examples of this view, Dietrich notes: “Such a relationship (of a child with the soul of an ancestor) must have had a very deep basis in the once very specific views regarding the afterlife (Weiterleben) of ancestors, if grandchildren, according to the ancient customs of so many peoples, were consistently endowed the name of the grandfather... In our language, even the word “grandson” (Enkel) actually means nothing more than “little grandfather”” (see: Dieter ich Al Mutter" Erde, p. 25).

The cult of the Earth-Mother persisted for a very long time and is correlated by many researchers with the course of Strigolism:

“In the middle of the 14th century. under the Novgorod Archbishop Moses, who built 13 churches in Novgorod at the expense of the Sophia treasury and was forced to leave the department twice at a time of popular unrest, the church launched an offensive against all types of deviations from Orthodoxy, both towards the paganism of his great-grandfathers, and towards the newly emerged humanistic heresy of the Strigolniks . It was not for nothing that the Strigolniki celebrated the second passing of Lord Moses in 1359 by installing the famous Ludogshchin cross in one of the city squares, outlining the main theses of their teaching” (Rybakov, 1987).

“In the summer of 6884... the Strigolnik heretics, the deacon Nikita and Karp the simpleton and a third person with them were beaten in Novegrad, throwing them from the bridge, the libertines of the holy faith of Christ,” reported the “Piskarevsky Chronicler” (PSRL, vol. XXXIV. M., 1978 ).

The famous collector of teachings against paganism N.M. Galkovsky writes (Galkovsky, 1916):

“...The universal ancestor earth, nurturing in its bosom the flora and fauna, including humans, was in the minds of our ancestor a mother waterer and nurse during life, and after death she sheltered him in her depths. As such, she aroused reverent veneration, was a shrine, “The Earth is a holy mother.” According to popular belief, a foul speaker who utters “swear words” will not be forgiven, because with such words the mother of the damp earth is vilified. They swore by the earth in disputes about land ownership; the arguer put turf on his head and walked around a piece of land to prove that this land belonged to him. This is a very ancient custom, noted in the Slavic translation of the word St. Gregory the Theologian: “the shit is cut open (cut) on the head, laying down the oath.” The Church fought against this pagan way of swearing in, trying to replace the turf with an icon; As a result, they began to use both turf and icons in boundary disputes. We personally heard that even in recent times, robbers, having robbed travelers, but not wanting to kill them for any reason, took an oath of silence from the robbed, forcing their victims to swear with a lump of earth in their hands, and then eat this lump. Usually, those who swore in this way remained silent all their lives about what happened to them and only before death they opened up about the terrible event they had experienced. We believe that this method of swearing with earth in hands, which was then eaten, is an echo of hoary pagan antiquity. Equally ancient must be recognized the belief that it is easiest for a person to die on earth; It is especially difficult to die on a feather bed (for a rich person). If the patient was “difficult” (suffering seriously), but could not die, he was lowered to the floor (peasants used to always have an earthen floor; now, when the floor is usually made of planks, straw is laid under the patient). The touching custom of washing the dead and dressing them in everything clean is well known: in addition to natural respect for the deceased, there is also the old concern not to disturb the purity of the earth. We consider the confession to the earth to be an important proof that in prehistoric times the earth was an object of veneration. It is known that the Strigolniki heretics (14th–15th centuries) repented not to the priest, but to the earth. Prof. S.I. Smirnov pointed out what elements are included in the Eastern Christian custom of confession without a confessor, before shrines: the pagan cult of the earth; the popular idea of ​​the earth as a judge and the idea of ​​the earth as the redeemer of sin, developed in Eastern folk Christianity. Prof. Smirnov means Strigolniks. Confession to the earth still exists today among some schismatic sects and among the common people in general: if there is no one to repent, repent to the earth. It cannot be argued that the current confession to the earth is an echo of the Strigolnik heresy. But one might think that the psychological foundations of the Strigolniks and the schismatic-bezpopovtsy are the same. Close to confession to the earth is the ritual of farewell to the earth before church confession, when the speaker asks for forgiveness from the sun, moon, rain, wind and especially from the earth. Prof. S.I. Smirnov believes that this forgiveness with the earth before church confession is nothing more than a people’s confession to the earth, complementing church confession.

From the above we can conclude that the cult of the earth was inherent in our pagan ancestors. This was the most ancient cult, over which was layered a new formation of gods, personifying the sun and natural phenomena: Perun, Dazhbog, Stribog, etc., just as among the Greeks the most ancient Uranus and Gaia were replaced by a younger generation of gods. But the worship of the universal mother earth never fell into complete oblivion. The ancient Russian scribe instinctively felt the pagan element in calling the earth mother and saw in this a departure from Orthodoxy; denouncing the Latins, he reproached them for “swearing mothers at the earth.” We believe that the cult of the earth has been preserved in its most ancient form: it is veneration without temples, rituals, and even without a clearly expressed idea; at the basis of this cult is the consciousness of closeness and dependence on the earth, hence the reverent veneration of the earth, its universal mother. This consciousness is inherent in all people. Under the influence of a pure Christian worldview, this consciousness has its, so to speak, legitimate dimensions. But where there is no pure Christianity, the ancient cult of the earth expands, as we see among the Strigolniks and our schismatic-bezpopovtsy. This veneration is not alien to the modern peasant, as we see from the following fact, personally known to us. One peasant in Dorogobuzh district, Smolensk province, had no livestock and was dying. One good friend of the peasant, in great secrecy, advised the loser, secretly from everyone, to go out into the yard at sunrise and bow to the ground three times without a cross or hat. The peasant did this, and from that time on he began to keep livestock. But then he realized that he was bowing not to God, but to the earth, and, considering his act a sin, he repented of it. - This incident clearly shows us that the ancient cult of the earth secretly continues to live; this is precisely a remnant of paganism: it was necessary to bow without a cross and in secret.”

The Ust-Tsilma Old Believers, when invited by Orthodox priests to confess, responded: “We confess to God and to Mother - the damp Earth” or “I will put my ear to the damp Earth, God will hear me and forgive me.” They also asked for forgiveness from the earth in case of illness or approaching death. In the spiritual verse “The Unforgivable Sin,” the Earth appears as the bearer of moral truth, a special law of tribal life. According to the beliefs of the Eastern Slavs, dating back to the era of Ancient Rus', the righteous bosom of the Earth does not accept sorcerers, suicides and those who were cursed by their parents (Toporkov, 1984).