Trifon Zarezan - or how Bulgarians celebrate St. Valentine’s

Ironically, we, Bulgarians, celebrate Trifon Zarezan (a.k.a. St. Trifon the Pruner) instead of St. Valentine on 14th February. This is a great excuse for all of us to avoid the love propaganda and cheesy merchandise that has recently flooded all stores in the world and focus on wine tasting and drinking.

Why do we celebrate St. Trifon Zarezan instead of St. Valentine in Bulgaria and why is St. Trifon called the Pruner? Read for yourselves:

“The Bulgarian holiday of vine-growers and wine-makers, Trifon Zarezan, marks the dividing line between the dying winter and the onset of spring. Women make special round loafs often decorated with a vine-leaf, a symbol of the fertile field, and hand them out to friends, neighbours and relatives. Vineyard owners cut down the fruit trees did not bear fruit.”


“St. Trifon is honoured as the patron saint of vine-yards. He apparently once had a vineyard himself and would prune it. One day, the Virgin Mary passed by and Trifon laughed at her, so she condemned him to cut his nose with the pruning shears, which he promptly did! From then on people would call him Trifon the noseless!”


Read more about Trifon Zarezan here

Source: somewhereintheworldtoday.com

7 Notes/ Hide

  1. xcookielover reblogged this from riyanova
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  4. whathappenedtonia said: Nice tradition! Now I now were to travel the next single Valentine ^ ^ haha It’s great to know that other traditionts exist today n.n
  5. danielavivanova posted this