Kupala Night

Pre-Slavic pagan festival celebrated originally between the 20th and 22nd of June at the time of summer solstice.  Kupala Night is a celebration of apotheosis of life.
It is a celebration of the time when the sun is shining for the longest time, giving the most warmth and energy and revealing its miraculous powers for the world of man, animals and plants, stimulating and boosting to life. Love and its tangible dimension – fertility – was the emanation of that. Two main elements used during the celebration – the opposing elements of fire and water – marked the poles within which man functions as a part of nature and in which he must find his way. The festival had an extensive rite with a wide spectrum of attributes with a symbolic meaning. The form was diverse, depending on the region, but fire and water were the dominants everywhere. Floating wreaths of grasses and flowers, burning fires, ritual plays, mantric chants introduced magic character of the celebration.
The festival had yet another dimension – it introduced a one-off dispensation from norms and social prohibitions. During the night everyone came back to their primordial nature, were equal one to another and free. Nudity and unfettered attitude were an expression of that, as well as the sing of reproductive, life-giving nature of the festival.
In Christian times pagan rituals, including Kupala Night, were fought against. Perhaps because of the positive and vital dimension of the holiday it proved difficult to eradicate it. Over time it has been so annexed by the church which transformed it into a the religious festival of the Christian foundations associated with the eve of Saint John the Baptist.
From that moment it is celebrated by Catholics on June 23rd and on July 6th by the Eastern Christianity world which operates with the Julian calendar.