On this day the Orthodox Church pays tribute to the Reverend Euthymius the Great (377-473) as well as to the memory of the Bulgarian Patriarch St. Euthymius of Tarnovo (about 1327-1402). People call the feast Euthymius’s day, Iztim, Itima, Petlyovden or Petlarovden (literally, Rooster’s day). It is dedicated to health and the adolescents’ reaching sexual maturity. On the feast’s eve mothers take their children to church to kiss the icon of St. Euthymius. Under it they leave fresh round bread or 40 small ring-shaped buns (called “kolacheta”) – an offering to the saint.

Roster’s day is associated with the ritual slaughter of a rooster in every household with a male child. It is performed on the threshold of the street gate aiming to spatter blood all around. The blood is used to make a cross sign on the boys’ foreheads in order for them to be healthy during the year.

In some villages there is a practice of killing a rooster for so that an old bachelor gets married.

This is the name day of everybody called Evtim.