Beautiful Romanian tradition - all traditions are beautiful, unless evil

Had Hitler made International Women's Day an official holiday it would not be celebrated but since Lenin did the BBC marks it with enthusiasm. A much more beautiful and important celebration is today, 9th March, which in the Orthodox Calendar is "Mucenici", the saints' day of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. Their martyrdom in 320 for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies. For catholics their day is tomorrow.

They were Roman soldiers killed near the city of Sebaste, in Lesser Armenia (present-day Sivas in Turkey), victims of the persecutions of the Emperor Licinius, who persecuted the Christians of the East.

Romanian housewives, or wives since housewives are very rare, prepare pretzels in the form of the number 8, then they make a kind of soup with a lot of sugar, nuts and cinnamon and of course the pretzels. Traditionally 44 glasses of wine should be drunk on this day, but I do not know whether by one person, which seems unlikely, or a team.