Interesting Easter Facts You Didn't Know About Yet

Easter is not far off, one of the oldest and brightest holidays for all Christians. According to a poll conducted last year, 80% of residents in Ukraine consider this day important and significant. Ukrainians make the Bright Resurrection of Christ one of the three main holidays of the year, and celebrate it along with the New Year and Christmas. Each of us from childhood knows the main traditions of Easter: painting eggs, baking cakes, going to church and commemorating the dead. However, in fact, there are many more such traditions. Among them there are common Christian customs, and there are unusual beliefs characteristic of different countries.

Why the date of Easter is different every time

Easter is always linked to the lunar calendar / istockphoto.com

Many people wonder why Christmas and Epiphany are celebrated on a specific date, while Easter falls on a different date every year. The priests explain it this way: most Christian holidays are celebrated according to the solar calendar, and therefore are "stationary." Easter is one of the few holidays that has long remained tied to the lunar calendar adopted by the ancient Jews. The lunar calendar, unlike the solar one, has only 354 days. Therefore, the day of Easter is constantly changing in relation to the calendar year we are used to.

At the same time, there are clear rules for calculating the date of Christ's Resurrection. They were adopted by the Alexandrian Church back in the 3rd century at the first Ecumenical Council, and since then they have been strictly observed:

• Easter never comes before the vernal equinox (March 20)
• Easter is celebrated strictly on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
• Christians cannot celebrate Easter before Jews
• Easter is not celebrated later than April 25 (May 8 Gregorian)

According to these rules, the date of Easter is calculated by Catholics and Orthodox Christians. And on different dates the Bright Day falls because the Catholic Church in its calculations uses the Gregorian calendar, and the Orthodox calculates Easter according to the Julian calendar (the so-called "old" and "new" styles chronology).

Earliest and latest Easter

Late Easter has always marked the late arrival of spring / istockphoto.com

This year, Orthodox Christians celebrate almost the latest Easter in the last hundred years. Later, Bright Day was celebrated only in 2013, when Easter fell on May 5. On the very last day possible for celebration (May 8), Easter fell only once: in 1983. Once again, we will celebrate a record late Easter in 2078.

The earliest Easter according to the Orthodox calendar was celebrated only once: on April 1 in 1668. Also, once the Bright Day fell on April 2 (in 1600). On April 3, the holiday fell twice (1611 and 1763), and on April 4 - as many as 9 times (the last in 2010).

A folk sign about the weather is associated with the date of Easter. Meeting this day from year to year, our ancestors noticed: the later the date of the Bright Sunday of Christ falls, the later the climatic spring comes. Believe it or not, everyone's business. But this year seems to have been written off from the national weather calendar: forecasters predict that real warming will come to Ukraine after May 5.

What does the word "Easter" mean in translation

“Passover” is a slightly modified “Passover”. This is the name of the Bright Day among the Jews. The Jews themselves, the meaning of this name lead to the word "pass", which means "passed, bypassed, passed by." It recalls the day of the deliverance of the Jews from Egyptian slavery, when the Lord destroyed all the firstborn of Egypt, bypassing the Jewish houses (Book of Exodus). In the Christian tradition, the meaning of the word "pasach" has been transformed and means the transition of the human soul from death to a new, heavenly life. There is also a version that the word "Easter" came from the ancient Greek "Easter", which meant "to suffer". It reminds us of the torment Jesus Christ endured on the cross.

Why eggs are painted on Easter

According to legend, the Virgin Mary entertained baby Jesus with dyes / istockphoto.com

Painted eggs, along with Easter cakes, are one of the main attributes of the Bright Resurrection of Christ. They are believed to symbolize resurrection and new life. In the Christian tradition, the egg resembles the Holy Sepulcher: on the outside there is a dead shell, from which life can come out at any moment. Why do you need eggs for Easter? paint? There are many legends associated with this. The most common of these is the story of how Mary Magdalene came to the emperor Tiberius. In those days, it was imperative to visit the emperor with a gift, and poor Mary brought Tiberius a chicken egg as a gift. When she told the emperor about the Resurrection of Christ, he exclaimed: “I don’t believe! If so, let your egg turn red before my eyes. " At the same moment, the egg changed color, confirming the veracity of the words of Magdalene.

Another legend says that it was with painted eggs that the Virgin Mary entertained the baby Jesus instead of toys. According to the third version, the custom of painting eggs arose earlier and is associated with the birth of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Before Aurelius was born, one of the hens of the imperial court laid an unusual motley egg. This was considered a happy sign, and since then it has become a tradition for the Romans to congratulate each other with colored eggs. Christians interpreted this custom in their own way, and began to paint eggs in honor of the Easter holiday. Initially, the dyes were red, in memory of the fact that Christ atoned for the sins of mankind with his blood.

What beliefs are associated with Easter eggs

Previously, Easter eggs were kept in the house for a whole year / istockphoto.com

Since ancient times, dyes not only brought each other as a gift. The Slavs had a custom to "roll out the earth": to roll Easter eggs across the field so that the soil was fertile and the harvest lasted until next Easter. To the deceased that day, one egg was necessarily put in the hand, so that in the next world he would bring it to the Lord as a gift from all mankind. People believed that eggs painted for Easter had a special power, so they kept them in the house for a whole year, as protection from diseases, from fires and from the invasion of parasites.

One of the main entertainments for children on Easter were "pokatushki": the children gathered on a gentle slope and rolled their eggs down. Whose egg rolled the farthest in the competition, he was considered the winner. By the way, "pokatushki" are popular not only among the Slavs, but also in America. In the US, children also roll Easter eggs on the sloping lawn. The American president often takes part in this "popular" competition: a lot of spectators always gather for "pokatushki" near the White House on Easter.

What does Easter cake mean?

Easter cake symbolizes the Holy Sepulcher and the temple with domes / istockphoto.com

Easter cake (in many regions of Ukraine it is called "paska") is also considered a symbol of the Holy Sepulcher. Traditionally, when baking, its top is watered glaze and decorated with dried fruits, candied fruits or confectionery powder. This symbolizes the domes of temples - church domes that rise to the sky. However, the tradition of baking Easter cakes itself came to us not from Christian rituals, but from paganism. The Slavs baked "spring bread" long before Easter, and brought it as a gift to the earth in order to appease it for a bountiful harvest.

The world's largest Easter cake was baked in 2019 in Yekaterinburg - it weighed almost 4 tons and got into the Guinness Book of Records. In Ukraine, a giant cake was baked in 2011 in the village of Yalta, Donetsk region: this miracle of confectionery art weighed 2 tons and reached a height of 2.4 meters.

How Easter is celebrated around the world

Easter bunnies came to us from Germany and Austria / istockphoto.com

Each country has its own special traditions associated with Easter. Sometimes they are fundamentally different from how we celebrate the Bright Resurrection of Christ.

• IN Sweden all little girls on this day must become Easter witches. Witches dress in black rags and go home with copper teapots and collect food in them.
• IN Bulgaria on Easter it is better not to walk under the windows: from the very morning Bulgarians throw down painted clay pots on the ground in honor of the victory of good over evil. You can take the shard for yourself for good luck - it is believed that it will bring good luck to the finder.
• One of the main characters of Catholic Easter - easter bunny - from Germany. Before the holiday, the Germans hide eggs and gifts "from the rabbit" in the house, and the children in the morning must find them and collect them in an Easter basket.
• IN USA For Easter, it is customary to give each other baskets of eggs and sweet treats. Among the usual dyes, an artificial egg with a question or a good wish must be hidden
• In countries Latin America for Easter, it is customary to make a stuffed animal of Judas. He is hung on a gallows or on a cross and solemnly burned. Sometimes the stuffed animal is “stuffed” with fireworks from the inside, and the ritual of burning turns into a festive fireworks.

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