Easter is the most famous Orthodox religious holiday dedicated to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now Easter is a transitional holiday that does not have a clear date, since the calculation is made according to the lunisolar calendar. This holiday has many religious and cultural traditions and rituals.
Preparing for Easter
The last week before Easter is called passionate; people who are believers devote it to various religious activities. On Thursday, which this week is called clean, it is customary to put things in order in the soul and house, and to cleanse the body. According to the established centuries-old traditions, this day should be devoted to worldly, everyday work in order to free from it the days to prepare for the holiday - Good Friday and Saturday. But the main task of Maundy Thursday is still spiritual cleansing, getting rid of fears that interfere with life. Good Friday is the day that believers devote to thoughts and memories of the death of Christ. It is believed that it was on this day that the Lord Christ sacrificed himself for the salvation of all mankind. On this day there should be no worldly affairs, only spiritual ones. On Good Friday, divine services begin, the shroud is taken out and kissed, which is in the temple for 3 days, the same as Christ was in the tomb. On the night from Saturday to Sunday, an all-night prayer is held, after which the consecration of traditional Easter foods begins. Sunday is the Great Easter Day.
Christians celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the full moon, which occurs no earlier than the vernal equinox on March 21st.
Traditions, traditions and rituals
Before Easter, housewives not only prepare food, but also decorate the house with fresh bouquets of flowers and napkins, symbolizing new life and resurrection. Easter morning begins with an Easter meal, which must include red-colored eggs. Traditionally, it is with eggs that you should start your Easter breakfast. According to legend, the emperor Tiberius was holding an egg in his hands when Mary Magdalene came to inform him of the resurrection of Christ. He did not believe Mary, saying that it was impossible, as well as the fact that a white egg in his hands would never turn red. The egg turned red in front of the astonished Tiberius - this is how the tradition was born.
In addition, it is customary to beat eggs for Easter. There are several versions of the appearance of this rather fascinating ritual.
The first is that good and evil compete with each other. An egg that did not break is the winner and it is kept in the house for a whole year, the defeated brothers of the winner were declared evil and eaten.
According to the second version, there was a Christian custom prohibiting public kissing on this day. Therefore, people congratulating on Easter, kissed by beating eggs. Like kisses, the blows were done three times.
In Russia and other Orthodox countries, after the silence of the bells during Passion days, the bell rings especially solemnly on Easter.
The third option says that when an egg is broken, Jesus Christ himself comes out of the coffin, repeated beating of eggs helped him to completely free himself and resurrect. The egg in this case symbolizes the tomb of the Lord, in shape resembling the stone with which the tomb was filled up in ancient times.
There is also a 4th version - erotic. According to which, on Easter, the Slavs, among other things, also celebrated the beginning of field work. On this occasion, they baked cakes in the form of a genital organ that poured out semen, the role of which was played by grain. Easter cakes were placed on a tray and covered with painted chicken eggs. With this tray they went from house to house and asked the owners: "Is your seed strong and are you ready to sow?" Then the eggs beat, from different sides, each family has its own, the one whose egg broke was considered the owner of a weak seed. The winner nobly gave his egg, with the words: "Your weak seed, take ours!". This tradition was carried out in a humorous manner and was quite funny and entertaining.
