Paraskeva Friday

Paraskeva Friday is a figure from Slavic Eastern Orthodox folk Christianity, blending the personification of the day Friday with the cults of two saints: Paraskeva of Iconium and Paraskeva of the Balkans. In popular belief, she is linked to Saint Anastasia of the Lady of Sorrows and Saint Nedelya, who personifies Sunday. Similar day-personifications appear in other cultures, like the Tajik Bibi-Seshanbi, or "Lady Tuesday."

Etymology

The name paraskeva comes from Greek, meaning "preparation for the Sabbath."

Image

Folk depictions of Paraskeva Friday differ from her iconographic image, which shows an ascetic woman in a red maforiya. A well-known carved icon from the village of Illyeshi is kept in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg and is revered as a miracle worker in the Russian Orthodox Church. Wooden sculptures of Paraskeva were common among Russians and neighboring peoples. In 1903, folklorist A. F. Mozharovsky noted that chapels in "foreign areas" held "roughly carved wooden images of Saints Paraskeva and Nicholas," both called Pyatnits ("Friday").

A 1908 historical sketch by Svyatsky described these statues as painted wooden figures, sometimes dressed in oriental attire, sometimes in a poneva skirt and lapti bast shoes, kept in church cabinets where people prayed before them. Popular imagination could also give Paraskeva demonic traits: tall stature, long loose hair, and large breasts thrown over her back, linking her to figures like Dola, Death, and the Rusalka.

Depictions and traditions

For East Slavs, Paraskeva Friday personified the day of the week. She was known as Linyanitsa, Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, Paraskeva Lyanyanikha, and Nenila Linyanitsa.

Her feast days fell on October 27 (Paraskeva Muddyha Day) and November 10 (Paraskeva the Flaxwoman), which in the church calendar commemorate Paraskeva of the Balkans and Paraskeva of Iconium. On these days, spinning, washing, and ploughing were forbidden to avoid "dusting" Paraskeva or "clogging her eyes." Breaking the ban was thought to bring disease. The Stoglav Synod of 1551 condemned such superstitions, noting that "false prophets" – men, women, maidens, and old women – went about naked and barefoot, with loose hair, claiming to be Saint Friday or Saint Anastasia and commanding people not to work on Wednesdays and Fridays.