Customs and History of Easter

"Christ is Risen!" - with such joyful words we begin to meet the bright holiday of Easter or the resurrection of our Savior Christ. On the bright Sunday of Christ, it is customary to rejoice and break fast after a strict seven-week fast. The tables are full of delicacies, among which the invariable dishes of the holiday - cakes, Easter from cottage cheese and dyed eggs. People are having fun and Christos, the children are playing. But how many of us remember what the story of Easter really is?

If we turn to the Bible, we will see that Easter is a holiday of the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery. The story of Easter mentions how the Egyptian king, despite the predictions of Moses, God's chosen prophet, did not want to release the Jews from slavery. Then God helped the Jews free themselves, punishing them to anoint the doors of their houses with the blood of a young lamb. At night the angel passed through Egypt and killed all the first-born, but did not touch the dwellings marked with blood. Frightened, Pharaoh expelled the Jews, but quickly came to his senses and started after them, but God pushed the waters of the Red Sea and led the Jews along its bottom, and the Pharaoh drowned in the abyss. Since then, Jews have celebrated Easter.

Today each of the directions of faith has its own Easter: Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish. However, this holiday has not lost its strength and solemnity.

It is noteworthy that this holiday does not have a certain date, but every year it passes on one of the spring sundays. A week before the holiday, people pick pussy-willow branches and put their houses in the water, so this Sunday is called a pussy-willow. It is believed that the way of the savior of the human race to Jerusalem was laid by the willows. Starting with the Palm Sunday, every day of the week is the Passion Week. At this time, Christians are preparing for a great holiday, bring cleanliness in homes, bake cakes and paint eggs. It is believed that all this must be done before Friday, which is preceded by Pure Thursday. Today, many see Clean Thursday as a day in which it is necessary to wash the house and all family members, but the Easter story reminds that Pure Thursday serves primarily to purify not the body, but the soul, for confessions and prayers, for repentance and communion . Good Friday - marks the death of Christ, crucified on Mount Calvary. Great Saturday is a special day, when believers can come to the cave of the Holy Sepulcher and see the blessed fire that arises every year at this time in itself. On the same day, the consecration of Easter food takes place in the church, and at midnight the procession is performed. And on the day of Easter, the bell-shaped Blagovest sounds sonorous in a special way.

The story of the Passover of Christ shows that on Sunday, the third day of Jesus' death, the cave in which the son of the Lord was buried, and which was guarded by the guards, was empty. In some sources, it is mentioned that the doctor Hermidius, who came to the cave on Sunday morning, saw the luminous figure of man above the earth, according to another version, the bodies of Christ were found missing women who came to the cave with incense for the body of the savior. One thing remains unchanged: Jesus rose from the dead. And since then people celebrate his resurrection, calling him "Easter." The history of the holiday served as the origin of many traditions and customs.

So, for example, it was a custom to paint eggs. The story of Easter mentions that when the Emperor Tiberius, who doubted the words of St. Mary, exclaimed that man can not rise again, just as a white egg does not turn red, the Lord performed a miracle and the white egg colored red. There is a simpler explanation for this tradition. The ban on eating eggs during fasting led to the fact that people who kept chickens noticed that if eggs were dyed in a peel from a bow, they could be stored for one or two weeks.

From the very morning people Christos, exchange eggs, thrice kiss. Arrange contests, beat the painted eggs and the one who has the egg left whole, takes his "beaten" eggs. The kids arrange skating eggs from the hill. The egg that went further than all belongs to the winner. Everyone believes that you can see a miracle at Easter. They say that in the early morning you can catch a moment when "the sun is playing".