Part the Fourth.
Muscovy.
Book VII.
——
Sect. I.
First Day of the Year.—The Plague.—Funerals.
On the first day of Ilôl, the opening of the year seven thousand one hundred and thirty-six of the world, being the first day of the new year, and the commemoration of Saint Simon the Stylite, of Aleppo, a great concourse, both on the eve and on the following morning, took place, amidst the ringing of all the bells; for the Muscovites have a great love for this Saint. They placed his image on a reading-desk; and from the earliest hour of the morning all the people hastened to the church, drest in their finest clothes; the dignity of this day, as the first in the year, being greater with them than even Easter. The whole of the clergy of the town, having met and put on their copes, performed, in the first place, a Παράκλησις for the Emperor, with the usual prayers, accompanied with a supplication that this might be the beginning of a year of blessings to him; and afterwards they chaunted a Πολυχρόνιον, for length of life to him, to his infant son Alexius, the Empress, and all the Imperial family. In like manner, they congratulated one another with wishes for the happiness of each in this new year. Then they made an Ἁγιασμός, blessing it with the reliques of the Saints, and aspersed the whole congregation.
When the Emperor is present in the capital, they told us an immense assemblage takes place, and a great festivity, during which the Emperor, attended by all his court, and wearing his princely robes and crown, goes forth from the great church, with the Patriarch. In the inner area of the palace his Holiness performs for him a Supplication and a Πολυχρόνιον; and the Emperor, in like manner, offers up his prayers for the long life of the Patriarch. Upon this, all the Grandees step forward, to pay their gratulations
