concept
Twelve Great Feasts
the twelve great feasts
also: двунадесятые праздники, dvunadesyatye prazdniki
The twelve principal feast days of the Orthodox liturgical year after Easter itself (including the Annunciation, Nativity, Transfiguration, and others); Matvei recalls holding an extended, ten-to-twelve-hour vigil service of his own devising on the eve of each one during his period of self-declared sainthood.
Reading notes
- The Murder §31 especially venerated twelve great feasts
The dvunadesyatye prazdniki (twelve great feasts) are the principal feast days of the Orthodox liturgical year; extending vigil services to ten or twelve hours on their eves, as Matvei describes, went well beyond ordinary parish or even most monastic practice.