Kreshcheniye (Epiphany)

By Jonathan J. Kalmakoff

The holiday of Kreshcheniye (Крещение) or ‘Baptism’ in Russian was traditionally celebrated by Doukhobors on January 6 (new calendar) or January 19 (old calendar) each year. Known in Western countries as Epiphany, it commemorates Jesus Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist and his manifestation as the Son of God.

Scripture

 Kreshcheniye is a major event described in three Gospels of the New Testament (Mathew, Mark and Luke), wherein Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, after which the Spirit of God is depicted as descending upon him accompanied by a voice from Heaven, which addresses Jesus by saying “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased.”[i]

Orthodox Tradition

Since the introduction of Christianity in Russia in 988 AD, Kreshcheniye was one of the great feasts of the Orthodox Church calendar, one considered more special and holy than other days.[ii] According to Orthodox belief, it commemorates Christ’s revelation to the world as the literal Son of God, the Divine physically embodied in human flesh, God become man, during his baptism.

On the evening before the feast, Orthodox Russians traditionally attended the local church to drink holy water blessed by the priest, which according to Orthodox belief, became incorruptible and did not spoil.[iii] This kreshchenskaya voda (‘Epiphany water’) was stored by parishioners for the rest of the year. After taking water, they attended a church service marked by choral music and chanting. Afterwards, the priest would lead the procession outside the church building, carrying icons to consecrate the occasion.

Since the 16th century, it was also customary for Orthodox Russians on the eve of the feast to cut holes in the ice in rivers and lakes – dubbed Iordan (‘Jordan’) for the occasion after the Biblical river – and submerge themselves three times in the icy waters as the priest recited a prayer.[iv] The Orthodox believed this practice purified and protected them for the year ahead.

On the morning of Krescheniye, parishioners again attended the village church to take water blessed by the Orthodox priest.[v]

Doukhobor Observance in 19th Century Russia

Throughout most of the 1700s, while the Doukhobors were still living clandestinely among Orthodox Russians, they continued to outwardly celebrate Kreshcheniye in the traditional manner, attending church services and taking holy water for appearances’ sake only.

After Doukhobors openly rejected the Orthodox Church and were permitted to settle along the Molochnaya River in the Melitopol district of Tavria province from 1802 on, they ceased to celebrate most Orthodox feast days. However, local Tsarist and Orthodox authorities reported that the Melitopol Doukhobors continued to celebrate Kreshcheniye.[vi]

It may seem counterintuitive that Doukhobors continued to observe the holiday, since they rejected the sacrament of baptism as being unnecessary for the salvation of the soul,[vii] and rejected the belief that Jesus was the literal Son of God,[viii] considering this to be an artificial embellishment introduced by the Orthodox church in order to mystify and confound its followers as to his true nature. However, Doukhobors by this time had reinterpreted the holiday and imbued it with their own religious meaning and belief.

According to Doukhobor belief, Christ was born an ordinary mortal man to ordinary parents and was physically no different from other men.[ix] Kreshcheniye, to Doukhobors, symbolized when God chose to reveal Jesus to the world as his anointed one through his spiritual endowment of the divine quality of sovest’ (совесть) or ‘Reasoning Conscience’ of the highest degree.

Doukhobors understood Christ’s endowment of ‘Reasoning Conscience’ as a transformational experience of the soul that could only occur through an awakening by the Holy Spirit. Possessing extraordinary spiritual intelligence through the shift in consciousness in his soul, lucid and enlightened beyond that of his fellow men, Christ manifested the highest possible understanding of God’s Law.[x]

Since Jesus attained the highest, purest and most perfect form of ‘Reasoning Conscience’ possible for a man through his soul’s awakening of the Holy Spirit, and since ‘Reasoning Conscience’ was equated with ‘God the Son’ in the Doukhobor metaphorical sense of the Trinity, Doukhobors thus believed that Jesus was the Son of God.

Local authorities reported that the Melitopol Doukhobors observed Khreshcheniye by holding an early morning moleniye (‘prayer meeting’), by singing psalms, and by having a special meal or feast to mark the occasion.[xi] The holiday continued to be marked by the Doukhobors following their exile to the Caucasus in 1841-1845 and is expressly mentioned in their psalms from that era, Prazdniki (‘Festivals’) and Skazanie o Dvenadtsati Pyatnitsakh (the ‘Twelve Fridays’),[xii] while Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan is referenced in several others.[xiii]

Russian writer and historian Vladimir D. Bonch-Breuvich, who sailed with the Doukhobors from the Caucasus to Canada in 1899 and spent a year among them, recorded that the Doukhobors recited the following psalm during their prayer meeting to celebrate Kreshcheniye:

“К водам Иорданским, Господи, пришедша, Дух Святой на него нашедши: свыше глас глаголет: в сей день возъявленный креститься хощет сын мой возлюбленный. Гряди же, Иоанне, скоро крестити меня крещением; хощет землю просветити. Речет же Иоанн: Не смею, владыко, понеже тебя знаем Бога превелика. Как возложу руку на Господа моего? Ты еси содеял знамения многа; от тебя все трепещет, небо и земля, весь род человеченский от роду Адама, увидевший море бедствий, обратися. Тогда же Иордан-река вспять возратися, счастливые струи реки Иордана, в оной же крестился Бог от Иоанна в водах Иорданских, в струях престоящих. Иоанн, славя Бога, крещаша. Склонил свою главу предтече под руку. Мы молим тебя, блаже, не пошли нас в муку; просим тебя, Господи, всещедрого тут пекло отбыти, роду христианскому в царствие прибыти.”

“Then came the Lord to Jordan’s waters, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. A voice from heaven sayeth: on this day appointed by Me, my beloved Son shall accept baptism. Come, John, and baptize me speedily, for I wish to bring light to the earth. Sayeth John: I do not dare, O Lord, for we know Thee as our Almighty God. How shall I place my hand upon my Lord? Thou hast made many signs. All tremble in front of Thee, heavens and earth, all the mankind, beginning from Adam, all mankind turns to Thee, engulfed in a sea of calamity. At that moment the River Jordan overflowed, for glad were the waters of the River Jordan in which God was baptized by John in its waves. John performs the baptism, singing glory to God. He bent his head, lowering it under the Precursor’s hand. O blessed one, we beseech Thee, O Lord, do not send us to suffering. We entreat Thee, O Lord, the most generous One, to us, Christians, to go through adversities here, in order to deserve Thy Kingdom. Glory be to God.”[xiv]

According to oral tradition, 19th century Doukhobors also retained the Orthodox custom of taking ‘holy’ water, and even immersing themselves in it to some extent.[xv] However, this ‘holy’ water was not blessed by an ordained priest, but rather by the Doukhobors themselves, since they believed that any person could become a priest by carrying out Christ’s work, and could consecrate the water by making a direct connection to the Holy Spirit through prayer and spiritual practices.

Observance in Canada

As Bonch-Breuvich observed, when the Doukhobors arrived in Canada in 1899, they continued to celebrate Kreshcheniye in their customary way. Evidently, during their first several years of Prairie settlement, they held the holiday according to the old calendar (January 19th), while after 1903, they shifted the holiday to the new calendar used in Canada (January 6th).[xvi]

This practice widely continued until December 1908, when at an all-village congress of the Doukhobor Community held in Nadezhda village, Saskatchewan, Doukhobor leader Peter V. Verigin, endeavoring to modernize and simplify their worship, discarded many of the traditional rituals, psalms and feasts observed by the Doukhobors, including Kreshcheniye.[xvii] Thereafter, the holiday ceased to be officially observed by most Doukhobors in Canada.

Despite Verigin’s efforts, however, some Doukhobor families in Canada continued to observe Kreshcheniye privately amongst themselves, in small localized pockets, well into the 1950s and 1960s and beyond. Lorraine Saliken Walton, whose grandparents William M. and Laura G. Arishenkoff and William W. and Jenny S. Podovennikoff of Krestova celebrated the event well into the 1980s, describes their practice as follows:

“On January 6th, we would go at the light of dawn to the frozen Goose Creek, with a tapor (‘axe’), make a hole, they would pray and wash themselves from the ‘holy’ water… they would bring back buckets as the water was blessed. We would than say a prayer thanking God and wash our faces and hands and drink a cup the water would make us healthy, and protected by God, my baba and dedas drank the blessed water for a week…. as they got older my baba would get up at the break of dawn pray and run the tap during that time and then fill her bucket with the freshest water.”[xviii]

Garry Tarasoff, whose grandparents Fred E. and Helen Saliken of Krestova also observed Kreshcheniye, recalls, “we went to Goose Creek retrieved water and had a short moleniye on the creek shore. We washed our hands and faces in the creek and then went home and made tea with the water.”[xix] Evelyn Markin also recalls her grandfather Nick N. Perepelkin (1870-1965) of Lebahdo sitting with a jug of water drawn from the local creek at Kreshcheniye, reciting a prayer of blessing.[xx]

Observance in Russia and Post-Soviet Republics

 Despite strict anti-religious policies of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) intended to suppress religious belief and institutions, Soviet Doukhobors in the Caucasus continued to secretly observe Kreshcheniye from 1917 to 1991 in their remote localities.[xxi] Following the break-up of the USSR, many older generation Doukhobors in Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and other Post-Soviet states strove to maintain observance of the holiday according to traditional Doukhobor custom.

Raisa Ryazantseva, a Doukhobor raised in Troitskoye village, Bogdanovka region, Georgia in the 1980s and 1990s who today lives in the Kootenays of British Columbia, recalls the holiday ‘blessing of water’ during her childhood:

“After midnight, (in the early morning hours) we usually collected water from the tap or from a well (if one had one), and when we collected it, we recited Otche Nash (‘The Lord’s Prayer’). Afterwards, it was sprinkled and showered over those assembled. When I was little, I helped my mother collect water in glass jars and we stored them and used this water throughout the year, and if there was water left, we poured it under a tree or a bush, (returned it to the ground), but in no case did we pour it down the drain.”[xxii]

Daria Strukova, a Doukhobor raised in Gorelovka village, Bogdanovka region, Georgia in the 2000s and 2010s, recalls how Kreshcheniye was commemorated as follows:

“On this holiday, they would go to bow and pray at Sirotskoye (the ‘Orphans Home’). At home at night, they put out salt, bread and water on the table. They hung rushniki (“decorative folk-embroidered towels’) on the windows of the house. During the day, they celebrated with family and prepared holiday dishes. They also collected and stored the holy water.”[xxiii]

Today, however, many younger generation Doukhobors living in Post-Soviet states observe Kreshcheniye much as ordinary Orthodox Russians do, and no longer fully understand or appreciate the religious and customary differences that made the holiday distinct within Doukhobor society.

Conclusion

Today, the observance of Kreshcheniye among Doukhobors has almost waned completely. By learning about this centuries-old celebration, we can develop a better understanding of the common faith that united our Doukhobor ancestors, the customs and traditions that arose in their society and gain a deeper appreciation for their way of life.


End Notes

[i] ESV Bible, Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–23.

[ii] Dmitry Volodikhin, “Kak Rodilsya Prazdnik Kreshcheniya Gospodnya, Zelenye vody reki Iordan” (January 18, 2016) in Pravoslavie.ru; “6/19 Yanvarya – Kreshchenie Gospodne. Bogoyavlenie” in Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ Zagranitsey” mcdiocese.com; Daria Mangusheva, “O Kreshchenskoy Vode”, January 13, 2025 in https://berezkihram.org.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Orest Novitsky, Dukhobortsy: ix istoriya i verouchenie (Kiev: Universitetskoj Tipografii, 1882 at 46.

[vii] Ibid at 249.

[viii] Psalm Nos. 1 (Q/A 3), 7 (Q/A 10), 12 (Q/A 6 and 8), 64, 71, 73, 85, 88, 94 and 375 in: Bonch-Breuvich, Vladimir Dmitr’evich, Zhivotnaya Kniga Dukhobortsev (St. Petersburg: V.M. Volf, Sib. Nevskiy Pr., 1909); and Bonch-Breuvich, Vladimir, (V.O. Buyniak, trans.), The Book of Life of Doukhobors. Translated Version (Doukhobor Societies of Saskatchewan, 1978).

[ix] Ibid

[x] Psalm Nos. 2 (Q/A 14, 15, and 16), 4 (Q/A 7), 5 (Q/A 17), 7 (Q/A 11 and 12), 8 (Q/A 24, 25, and 26), 9 (Q/A 24), 47 (Q/A 1), 59 (Q/A 4), 185, 373 and 374: ibid.

[xi] Novitsky, supra, note 6.

[xii] Psalm Nos. 379 and 383: Bonch-Breuvich, supra note 8.

[xiii] Psalm Nos. 162, 301, 339, 345, 373, ibid.

[xiv] Psalm No. 345, ibid.

[xv] Vasily Slastukhin, Gorelovka, Georgia. Correspondence with Jonathan J. Kalmakoff re: Kreshcheniye, January 1, 2021.

[xvi] Swan River Star, January 9, 1901; Winnipeg Free Press, April 6, 1903.

[xvii] Minutes of Community Meeting, 1908 December 15, Nadezhda village. SFU Item No. MSC121-DB-025-002; “Letter from Peter Vasil’evich Verigin to Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy dated Febraury 2, 1909 in Gromova-Opulskaya, Lida, Andrew Donskov and John Woodsworth, eds. Leo Tolstoy-Peter Verigin Correspondence (Ottawa, Legas: 1995) at 87-88; Letter from Ivan Evseyevich Konkin to Vladimir Dmitr’evich Bonch-Breuvich dated February 12, 1909, supra, note 8.

[xviii] Lorraine Saliken Walton. Correspondence with Jonathan J. Kalmakoff re Kreshcheniye, January 6, 2021.

[xix] Garry Tarasoff. Correspondence with Jonathan J. Kalmakoff re Kreshcheniye, January 6, 2025.

[xx] Evelyn Markin. Correspondence with Jonathan J. Kalmakoff re Kreshcheniye, January 18, 2022.

[xxi] Slastukhin, supra, note 14.

[xxii] Raisa Ryantseva. Correspondence with Jonathan J. Kalmakoff re Kreshcheniye, January 6, 2025.

[xxiii] Daria Strukova. Correspondence with Jonathan J. Kalmakoff re Kreshcheniye, January 15, 2025.