Easter holidays

Eggs History

An egg has a symbolical meaning in many centuries. It’s well known that eggs had a special significance even in the times of ancient Romans. Eggs were their first disk during meals (“ab ovo”) and they were also in the center of competition as a memory of Zeus’s sons, who hatched from eggs.

Such competition took place in France, Germany, and Switzerland. Eggs was a sign of hope, life fertility even in the early epoch. In Christianity, the Lord’s gift, which has begun in Jesus Christ. Eggs’ spreading as the Easter symbols turned to be possible because they sewed as an original rent or as a tax. The Easter was one of the days when this pay could be accomplished.

Easter in England

Easter it is a time for the giving and receiving of presents which traditionally take the form of an Easter egg and hot cross buns. The Easter egg is by far the most popular emblem of Easter, but fluffy little chicks, baby rabbits and spring time flowers like daffodils, dangling catkins and the arum lily are also used to signify the Nature's awakening.

Nowadays Easter eggs are usually made of chocolate or marzipan or sugar. True Easter eggs are hard-boiled, dyed in bright colours, and sometimes elaborately decorated. Colouring and decorating the festival eggs seems to have been customary since time immemorial They can be dipped into a prepared dye or, more usually, boiled in it, or they may be boiled inside a covering of onion peel Natural dyes are often used for coloring today. They are obtained from flowers, leaves, mosses, bark, and wood-chips.

Easter in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Easter is called Velikden (The Great Day). It has been celebrated over a long period of history and has many rich folk traditions that are no longer fully preserved. The last Sunday before Easter (Palm Sunday) is called Willow Sunday (Verbna nedilia). On this day pussy-willow branches are blessed in the church. The people tap one another with these branches, repeating the wish: ‘Be as tall as the willow, as healthy as the water, and as rich as the earth’.

The week before Easter, the Great Week (Holy Week), is called the White or Pure Week. During this time an effort is made to finish all fieldwork before Thursday, since from Thursday on work is forbidden. On the evening of ‘Pure’ (also called ‘Great’ or ‘Passion’ [Strasnyi]) Thursday, the passion (strasti) service is performed, after which the people return home with lighted candles. Maundy Thursday, called ‘the Eater of the dead’ in eastern Ukraine and Russia, is connected with the cult of the dead, who are believed to meet in the church on that night for the Divine Mass.

An Easter Prayer

An Easter Prayer (Adapted from The Book of Common Prayer)

O God, who for our redemption gave your only begotten Son to death on the Cross, and by his glorious resurrection has delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant that we who celebrate with joy the day of our Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit. Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection, empowered and transformed by your grace in and among us.

O Lord, so stir up in your church, indeed in each of us, that Spirit of adoption and reconciliation that is made possible by your grace revealed in Jesus the Christ, that we being renewed in both body and mind, may worship and serve you in sincerity and truth. We pray this in the name of the same Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Easter Bunny - Symbol of Easter

Easter Bunny

That a rabbit, or more accurately a hare, became a holiday symbol can be traced to the origin of the word “Easter”. According to the Venerable Bede, the English historian who lived from 672 to 735, the goddess Easter was worshiped by the Anglo – Saxons through her earthly symbol, the hare.

The custom of the Easter hare came to America with the Germans who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

From Pennsylvania, they gradually spread out to Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, New York, and Canada, taking their customs with them.

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