Feast of St. Janyl

The Feast of St. Janyl (formally the Feast of St. Janyl; Iradi: Janyl Mairamy) is the principal feast of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church, held on August 24 in honor of St. Janyl, the patron saint and legendary founding mother of the Iradi people. Its center is the Church of St. Janyl in Iyık Janyl, where pilgrims, many of them on horseback, gather from both the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) and the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR). The feast combines the liturgy with the blessing of the herds, the distribution of blessed bread, processions, horse races and communal meals. The pilgrimage season continues into September.^[1][2]

History

Little is known of the cult of Janyl before the eighteenth century. The church built at Iyık Janyl in 1727 under a charter of the Khan of Kokand was dedicated to her, and its foundation made the town the center of her feast. When the church entered into union with Rome in 1931, its own calendar, including the feast of Janyl, was kept. Under Soviet rule public celebration was banned from 1937. Families continued to make private pilgrimages, often at night, until the feast was celebrated openly again in the late 1980s. After the cathedral was returned to the church and reconsecrated in September 1992, the feast resumed its full form.^[1]

Since the partition of 2007, Iyık Janyl has lain within the ISEZ, close to the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line. Pilgrims from the tribal regions cross the line at the feast under arrangements agreed each year in the Joint Liaison Committee of the United Nations Mission in Irad. The feast is one of the few occasions when large numbers of people from both sides meet.^[3]

Observances

The main events are:

• a vigil on the evening of August 23, with a candlelit procession from the old town to Cathedral Hill;
• the liturgy (Holy Qurbana) celebrated by the Archbishop of Iyık Janyl on the morning of August 24, broadcast by IradOne, with large quantities of juniper incense (arsha);
• the Blessing of the Herds, in which priests, some of them mounted, sprinkle spring water on horses and sheep assembled on the cathedral esplanade;
• the distribution of blessed but unconsecrated kümöch to pilgrims;
• horse races, archery contests and communal meals of beef and mutton, with kymyz, in the afternoon.

Rural churches hold their own blessings of the herds on the same day.^[1][2]

Attendance and pilgrimage

The archbishopric's attendance estimates in recent years have exceeded 150,000; no independent counts are available. Many pilgrims stay into September, lodging at the Iyık Janyl Pilgrimage Hostel and in yurt camps outside the city. Many also visit sites associated with Janyl, such as the Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl (Shar-i-Kuhna), a cave chapel in the Kara-Suu Canyon and springs in the Chatkal range, each proposed as the location of the First Church of Janyl.^[2]

References

1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
2. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Sacred Toponymy and Ecclesiastical Monasteries of Iyık Janyl, pp. 78–95.
3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Humanitarian Access across the Qara-Chik Line: Annual Review. Kara-Oi.