Four weeks before Christmas; from the Sunday nearest St Andrew's Day
Winter
Waiting for Christmas, recollection, fasting, Rorate Masses, Andriejinės, evening work gatherings, Advent songs, leliumoj refrains, Aukštaitija markets, Lithuania Minor wreaths, wolf days
Advent in Lithuania is a season of waiting for Christmas that joins church recollection with older customs of the dark part of the year. It includes fasting, avoiding weddings and loud entertainment, Andriejinės divinations, Advent-Christmas songs that survived longest in Dzūkija and eastern Aukštaitija, weekly Advent markets, wreaths in Lithuania Minor, and beliefs about wolf days.
When Does Advent Begin?
Advent is the four-week period before Christmas. VLE defines it as the Catholic liturgical season of waiting for Christ's birth, and the first Sunday of Advent opens the church year. The word comes from Latin adventus, “coming”; preparation for Christmas is traced to the fourth century: in 380 the Synod of Zaragoza urged people to attend church and do penance from December 17 to Epiphany, while Advent Masses appear in the eighth and ninth centuries.
EKGT connects the folk-calendar beginning of Advent with St Andrew's Day, especially the Sunday nearest November 30. In ethnographic memory Andriejinės and Advent stand very close together, even though the exact calendar start moves each year.
Fasting, Quiet, and Avoiding Weddings
Advent was a time of restraint. VLE mentions that meat was not eaten on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and that noisy entertainment, weddings, and large celebrations were avoided. EKGT emphasizes Friday fasting, including abstaining from meat and dairy foods.
This should not be turned into a single rule for all Lithuania. EKGT separately notes Lithuania Minor, where the Protestant setting did not require the same fasting and withdrawal from merriment; sixteenth- and seventeenth-century references there still mention matchmaking and weddings during Advent.
Andriejinės at the Threshold
On the eve of St Andrew's Day, a custom known across Lithuania was to set a cherry or plum twig in water and wait to see whether it blossomed by Kūčios. In some places blooming meant that a wish would come true; elsewhere it more clearly promised quick matchmakers.
Other Andriejinės divinations bring Advent close to Kūčios fortune-telling: walking backward around a well, scattering hemp or poppy seeds, eating something salty, and waiting for a dream of the future groom. This was not a universal Advent rite for every family, but a youth and especially girls' marriage-divination layer.
Evening Gatherings, Songs, and Games
Advent was not only silence. People gathered in the evenings to do quiet work such as feather stripping, harness repair, rope twisting, net knitting, and spinning. While working they told stories, chanted, and sang.
EKGT distinguishes the regions clearly. Old Advent songs with refrains such as leliumoj, leliumai, aleliuma loda, and kalėda were sung in Dzūkija, less in Aukštaitija, and most rarely in Sūduva. The customs lasted longest in Dzūkija and eastern Aukštaitija, while Samogitian examples are sparse.
Advent Markets in Aukštaitija
In Aukštaitija, especially around Kėdainiai, Panevėžys, Rokiškis, Zarasai, and Ukmergė, EKGT records weekly Advent markets. The first was called Šeškaturgis, the second Skaistaturgis, and the last Saldaturgis.
Šeškaturgis sold warm clothing, fur coats, mittens, and other winter goods. Skaistaturgis was more of a gift market, while Saldaturgis gathered what the festive table would need: honey, cranberries, poppy seeds, dried mushrooms, and other winter-holiday foods.
The Advent Wreath in Lithuania Minor
The Advent wreath is not only a modern city decoration. EKGT notes that in Lithuania Minor it became popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Lietuvininkai wreaths were woven from twigs, covered with fir branches, and decorated with cones, nuts, dried fruit, and berries.
Four candles were set in the wreath. One was lit in the first week, two in the second, three in the third, and four in the fourth. In some homes the Christmas tree was lit from the final candle, turning the wreath into a sign of gathered light.
Wolf Days and Images of the Dark Season
Nijolė Marcinkevičienė's Alkas.lt essay connects the opening of Advent with wolf days and the wolves' rut. Sayings from Utena, Merkinė, Molėtai, and Endriejavas show the wolf as a forest animal moving closer to homesteads at the start of winter.
This layer should not be presented as a single holiday ritual. It matters as a field of stories, fears, and images: in Šeduva, beliefs mention wolf tracks and avoiding the wolf's name, while Dzūkija and eastern Lithuania connect the wolf with dreams, groom imagery, journeys to Rorate Mass, and night danger.
Remembering Advent Today
A living Advent begins not with a noisy Christmas season but with a changed rhythm. You can set an Andriejinės twig in water, give one evening to songs or handwork, ask where your family's Advent customs came from, and choose gathered light over sheer decoration.
At events, look for more than a concert: evening gatherings, Advent-Christmas songs, storytelling, straw crafts, candles, or presentations of regional customs. Then Advent remains a time of waiting rather than only an introduction to commercial December.
