Žolinės: the history and the customs

Published 2026-08-13.

Why do people carry bunches of plants into church on August 15? Why is the day off work? And what is Žolinės really — a church feast, or something older? The short answer: one day with two layers, and neither crowds the other. This page collects what is known about August 15 from sources that can be checked — and where the researchers themselves disagree. Every claim comes with a link. The page describes and gives no advice.

Two feasts on one day

For the Church, August 15 is the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the countryside it was the day the new food began: from Žolinė the first fruits of the new harvest could be eaten, and bread was baked from the new grain — the custom as the Kaunas Centre of National Culture describes it. Both happened on the same day, in the same church, among the same people.

The day is still off work: August 15 is listed in point 10 of Article 123 of the Labour Code. In 2026 it falls on a Saturday — and the usual question follows, whether it moves to the Monday. It does not. The State Labour Inspectorate states that the Labour Code provides for no transfer of a holiday that coincides with a rest day.

Where the name comes from

The easiest reading of the name is the literal one: žolynai — herbs and plants. They are blessed at Mass, and the day is named after them. That the blessing really is part of the day's rite is stated both by the liturgical calendar and by the Kaunas Centre of National Culture.

A second explanation lives beside it, and it is the more vivid of the two. The Universal Lithuanian Encyclopaedia traces the name to a legend: Mary's coffin, once opened, held no body but fragrant flowers. Both readings are repeated about equally often, and neither has displaced the other.

The day has local names too. The ethnologist Libertas Klimka records two: in southern Lithuania it was called Kopūstinė, and in the Vilkaviškis area and the Lithuanian districts of Belarus, Kanapinėlė. Why Kanapinėlė he says only cautiously: perhaps because, of all the late-summer work, only the hemp was still left standing. Other names sometimes attached to this day we did not find in reliable sources — so they are not here.

The church solemnity

In the Church this day holds the highest rank, and that is not just a label. In the Lithuanian liturgical calendar August 15 is a solemnity, and an obligatory one. During the rite the year's harvest and the žolynai are blessed, and the Magnificat is sung as they are.

Which means that what people bring in from the garden is not a folk element merely tolerated. The blessing of the plants is written into the rite itself.

The dogma is much younger than the feast. The Assumption was defined as dogma by Pope Pius XII in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus on 1 November 1950. A dogma declares a truth of faith; it does not found a feast.

How much of the day belongs to the farmer

Now the hard question, and the one the researchers answer differently. Where does the church feast end and the farmers' feast begin?

Klimka writes about what the day was for: a year's work has an end, and an end is not marked by one person — it is marked by everyone together. He quotes a proverb too: "Kas neateina per Žolinę, tas bus neturtingas" — whoever does not come at Žolinė will be poor.

The ethnologist Jonas Vaiškūnas weighs it differently. In his assessment the older nature-facing layer of the feast is the stronger one, and he links the day to Žemyna. That is his assessment, not a settled consensus among researchers.

The ethnologist Gražina Kadžytė enters a warning here, and a blunt one. The idea that Žolinė is the day where summer meets autumn is, in her words, nothing but the newest inventions and poetic embellishments. So what follows is only what the sources actually record.

What went into the bouquet

The bouquet was not an arrangement but a summary of that year's harvest. What was carried to be blessed was various plants, medicinal herbs, garden flowers, ears of grain, and the first fruits and vegetables of the year.

Regions differed, and sharply. The encyclopaedia records that Dzūkai added vegetables and Samogitians a thistle; the thistle brought home was planted roots upward, so that weeds would not grow. In Dzūkija Vaiškūnas recorded three weeds: usnis, kietis and balanda — thistle, mugwort and goosefoot.

Where the bouquet went afterwards

A blessed bouquet then lived in the house for a full year, and it was kept busy. The encyclopaedia lists where it ended up: in the place of honour beside the holy pictures; burned as incense through the house during lightning, and over people or animals when they fell ill; in parts of Dzūkija and Samogitia placed in the pillow of the dead; the grain from the blessed ears added to the seed, in the belief that the crop would be better for it. Klimka adds two more addresses: the first course of logs of a new house, and the corner of a new beehive.

The ending was planned for too. The Krekenava entry in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage records that before Easter the remains are burned with reverence together with the palm.

Visiting

What holds most firmly in the sources is not the objects but the people. The day was a day for calling on people, and Kadžytė quotes a proverb that says so without hedging: "Kas per Žolinę neviešės, nesusitiks su giminėmis, kaimynais, bendradarbiais, nepasidalins naujo derliaus vaišėmis, tas nugyvens gyvenimą skurdžius ir vienišas." — whoever does not go visiting at Žolinė, does not meet their relatives, neighbours and workmates, and does not share the new harvest's food, will live out a poor and lonely life.

Work-parties are associated with the day too, and the custom of giving part of the harvest to the beggars at the church doors. The best-known Žolinė atlaidai — the multi-day parish festivals — are, by the encyclopaedia's account, held in Kaišiadorys, Krekenava, Pivašiūnai and Zarasai.

Krekenava and Pivašiūnai

Two of those four have a history of their own. The Krekenava atlaidai have been known since the end of the 15th century, and the tradition of celebrating them is entered in the Lithuanian inventory of intangible cultural heritage values (certificate NKPVS-39). That is a national inventory, not an international list. The inventory's page could not be opened while this was written, so no link to it is given.

At Pivašiūnai the image is the centre of it. The present church was built in 1825, and the 17th-century image it holds is considered miraculous. On 14 August 1988 cardinal Vincentas Sladkevičius crowned it with crowns gifted by Pope John Paul II, and the shrine received the title "Nuliūdusiųjų Paguoda", Consolation of the Afflicted — so writes the Diocese of Kaišiadorys.

In 2026

Where it happens this year. This part goes out of date fastest; checked 2026-08-13.

  • In Krekenava the great Žolinė atlaidai run 14–21 August — the basilica's programme.
  • In Pivašiūnai, 14–22 August; the principal day is 15 August, and that day's Mass will be broadcast from the shrine by Lithuanian television — the diocese's announcement.
  • At Rumšiškės, in the Lithuanian Museum of Ethnography, on 15 August: Mass at 12:00, a festive procession at 13:00, the fair from 11:00 to 17:00 — the museum's programme.

Why the day is off work

The law puts it briefly. August 15 is one of the holidays listed in Article 123 of the Labour Code: "10) rugpjūčio 15-ąją – Žolinę (Švč. Mergelės Marijos ėmimo į dangų dieną)".

It reached that list in 2000: Article 1 of the Law on Public Holidays was supplemented on 27 June that year by law No. VIII-1761, as recorded in the Seimas index of adopted legislation. The text of that law itself could not be opened, so its wording is not quoted here.

Sources