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Easter traditions Babes DavidCatalin
Easter Easteris a Christian festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection ofJesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion at Calvary as described in the New Testament. Easter is the culmination of the Passion of Christ, preceded by Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. The last week of Lent is called Holy Week, and it contains the days of the Easter Triduum, including Maundy Thursday (also known as Holy Thursday), commemorating the Last Supper and its preceding foot washing, as well as Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter is followed by a fifty-day period called Eastertide, or the Easter Season, ending with Pentecost Sunday.
Easter eggs Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide. The oldest tradition is to use dyed and painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jelly beans. Eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility, and rebirth. In Christianity, for the celebration of Eastertide, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus:[3][4][5] though an egg appears to be like the stone of a tomb, a bird hatches from it with life; similarly, the Easter egg, for Christians, is a reminder that Jesus rose from the grave, and that those who believe will also experience eternal life.
The Thursday before the Easter is called “the Great Thursday”, “the Thursday of sufferings” or “the black Thursday”. Girls and women must finish sewing the new blouses for the Easter until this day. Otherwise they will be punished by Joimarita, a mythical woman who beats or burns them. She is believed to take the laziest girls at her home and eat them. Another (not so cruel) version goes that Joimarita spells those girls, so that they wouldn’t be able to work all the year. According to the Romanian tradition, skies, graves, doors of heaven and hell open this day. The dead return to pass the Easter near the loved ones. They will remain at their old houses until the Saturday before the Rusalii, when pies and bowls are doled for their souls. It is believed that the spirits sit on the roofs or in the yards. As it is still quite cold, fires must be lighted in the morning and in the evening, so that the dead could have light and heat. The fires are lighted for every soul or it is only lighten a fire for all the dead souls. The brushwood can only be gathered by children, pure girls and old women, a day before and only by hand (they must not be cut). On the way home they must not be let down and will be placed on a fence or on another object until morning, when the fire will be lighted. Chairs with blankets are also put near the fire, as it is believed that some souls will sit on chairs and other will sit on the ground. Girls and women carry water buckets to the graves or to the fire, for the dead that will sit there. Most of the women paint the eggs on the Great Thursday. In Walachia the eggs are painted on Wednesday and taken to the church on Thursday. They are let there until the Easter, as it is believed that they won’t alter. In other regions, twelve red painted eggs are taken to the church until the Easter and they are buried then at the village boundaries, so that the hail wouldn’t come upon it. Laundry can not be done this day, so that the dead won’t receive the dirty water, but the things that had been doled in their memory. Great Thursday
Cozonac (Romanian pronunciation: or Kozunakis a traditional Bulgarian and Romanian sweet bread. It is usually prepared for Easter in Bulgaria, and mostly for every major holiday (Christmas, Easter, New Year, Pentecost) in Romania. A similar dessert can be found in the Italian cuisine, panettone. Cozonac is a sweet bread, to which milk, sugar, eggs, butter and raisins are added. In Bulgaria, the kozunak is prepared by adding lemon zest to the dough mixture, just as the Romanian version. The Italian Panettone is very similar to the basic cozonac, the most visible difference being their shapes. In Romania, the recipes differ rather significantly between regions in what concerns the trimmings. The dough is essentially similar throughout the country: a plain sweet bread made with flour, eggs, milk, butter, sugar and salt. Depending on the region, one may add to it any of the following: raisins, lokum, grated orange or lemon rind, walnuts or hazelnuts, vanilla or rum flavour. Cozonac may be sprinkled with poppy seeds on top. Other styles dictate the use of a filling, usually a ground walnut mix, ground poppy seeds mixture, cocoa powder, rum essence and raisins. The dough is rolled flat with a pin, the filling is spread and the whole is rolled back into a shape vaguely resembling a pinwheel. In the baked product the filling forms a swirl adding to the character of the bread. It was the sweet chosen to represent Romania in the Café Europe initiative of the Austrian presidency of the European Union, on Europe Day 2006. Cozonac
Good Friday Good Friday is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Black Friday, or Easter Friday though the latter properly refers to the Friday in Easter week. Based on the details of the Canonical gospels, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most likely to have been on a Friday (the day before the Sabbath) (John 19:42). The estimated year of the Crucifixion is AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon. A third method, using a completely different astronomical approach based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (consistent with Apostle Peter's reference to a "moon of blood" in Acts 2:20), points to Friday, 3 April AD 33.
