Memorial Week

A woman near the grave of her relatives on the cemetry in Stoyanka village (Kiev region), on Sunday, May 1, 2011. Radonitsa is a holiday in the Eastern Orthodox Church which falls on the Monday or (more commonly) Tuesday of Saint Thomas Week—eight or nine days, respectively, after Easter. The day is a general memorial for the departed.The Slavs, like many ancient peoples, had a tradition of visiting family members' graves during the springtime and feasting together with them. After their conversion to Christianity, this custom transferred into the Russian Orthodox Church as the festival of Radonitsa, the name of which comes from the Slavic word radost, meaning "joy." Photo by Aleksandr Sinitsa / UNIAN