SYMBOL OF FAITH AND REBIRTH
The Christian holiday of Christmas, both in the past and today, cannot be imagined without the decorated oak tree – badnjak – which burns brightly on the hearth, warming the home on Christmas Eve. This ritual embodies the entire symbolism of ancient beliefs and Christian religion.
Despite globalization, which has eroded many national cultures and traditions, badnjak stubbornly persists in homes, even if only as a small oak branch adorned with red ribbons and wheat stalks.
Today, many who bring badnjak into their homes do so without much thought about its ancient symbolism, even though the traditions surrounding Christmas Eve are incredibly old, merging humanity's earliest symbols.
The badnjak combines the strength of the oak tree with the Promethean flame that broke the darkness and warmed humanity.
From a Christian perspective, badnjak symbolizes the wood that Joseph brought into the cave in Bethlehem to light a fire and warm the Virgin Mary and the newborn Christ child. However, ethnologists and anthropologists remind us that the reverence for sacred trees predates Christianity and is deeply rooted in ancient Slavic customs and beliefs.
The ancient practices and religious understandings originating from the proto-Slavic community have endured among the South Slavs more than among other Slavic peoples because they blended seamlessly with Christian mythology and ritual practices.
Even ancient travelers described the Slavs as a people who venerated forests and waters, identifying the oak as their most sacred tree imbued with divine spirit.
Modern scientists note that this ancient belief has stubbornly survived to the present day in the veneration of sacred oaks (zapisi) and especially the badnjak.
In rural areas, even today, the head of the household often talks to the badnjak, sprinkles it with wheat, and pours wine over it before cutting it, while family members sing to the sacred tree, chanting, "Badnjače, rođače" as they bring it into the home.
The familial relationship with the badnjak was illuminated by ethnologist Veselin Čajkanović, who, in his research, identified Christmas customs as the most enduring preservation of the indestructible core of folk religion: the reverence for ancestral spirits. According to him, the festive Christmas Eve dinner was dedicated to the founders of the family and lineage, whose spiritual sustenance in the afterlife was the joy of seeing their numerous descendants gathered together, as countless as the sparks of the burning badnjak.
The sweets and dried fruits that children eagerly search for in the straw scattered across the floor serve as a reminder that nothing is born without roots and that the fruits we enjoy owe their existence to our ancestors, who from the underworld push seeds to sprout and grow into bountiful harvests.
Thus, the burning of the sacred oak, the badnjak, in the middle of winter – a time when nature appears to die – is not an act of destruction but a promise of the world’s rebirth. It heralds the arrival of the holy ancestors’ spirits, who, on Christmas morning, visit the home in the form of the položajnik to greet their descendants and bless the future.
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