{"id":62686,"date":"2014-01-06T23:17:27","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T19:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=62686"},"modified":"2014-01-06T23:22:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T19:22:45","slug":"bulgarians-celebrate-epiphany-with-an-icy-dip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=62686","title":{"rendered":"Bulgarians Celebrate Epiphany With an Icy Dip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Bulgaria-Orthodox-Epiphany.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-62683\" alt=\"Bulgaria Orthodox Epiphany\" src=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Bulgaria-Orthodox-Epiphany.jpg\" width=\"606\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Bulgaria-Orthodox-Epiphany.jpg 606w, https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Bulgaria-Orthodox-Epiphany-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Bulgaria-Orthodox-Epiphany-460x300.jpg 460w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of young men are plunging into icy rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to retrieve crucifixes cast by priests in an old ritual marking the feast of Epiphany.<\/p>\n<p>By tradition, a crucifix is cast into the waters of a lake or river, and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy through the year.<\/p>\n<p>The celebration of Epiphany, or the Apparition of Christ, as Bulgarians call it, began on Monday in Sofia with a water blessing ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>The head of Bulgaria&#8217;s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Neofit, said a prayer for the prosperity of the people and blessed the colors of representative army units \u2014 a tradition abandoned in 1946 and re-established in 1992.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/\">\u00a0\u0531\u0576\u056f\u0561\u056d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Thousands of young men are plunging into icy rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":62683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,221,146,224,137],"tags":[3243,5315],"class_list":["post-62686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news","category-editors-choice","category-europe","category-news","category-world","tag-bulgaria","tag-epiphany-with-an-icy-dip","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}