Tell all about Easter. Description of Easter briefly. Easter. History and traditions of the celebration of Easter. On which channel to watch the live broadcast of the meeting between the national teams of Russia and Sweden
History of Easter. The true meaning of the holiday. Pagan and Christian traditions in the celebration of Easter. Easter symbols, rituals and beliefs. Modern Easter Traditions.
Easter is the most joyful and most revered holiday in the Orthodox world. It is preceded by a severe forty-day fast, and people prepare for it in advance: they clean houses, prepare a festive meal, and bake Easter cakes. It is associated with many traditions, rituals and beliefs. But do we know what this holiday is, Easter? How did it appear and what does it mean? What is the history of Easter?
History of Easter
The holiday in honor of the Resurrection of God existed among different peoples long before the rise of Christianity. On the eve of April, the Egyptians held festivities in honor of the resurrection of the god Osiris. The ancient Celts and Germans worshiped the goddess of spring and fertility Ostara, marking the arrival of spring with colored eggs and small wheat buns. And in ancient Greece, the goddess of fertility Demeter was glorified.
Slavic Spring Festival
The Slavs also celebrated the feast of the awakening of nature. Our ancestors had their own patroness - the Tsar Maiden or Zorya. The Slavs believed: when two spring months meet - March and April, the Tsar Maiden appears from behind the sea and with her glance makes plants bloom wildly, chickens - rush, cows - give more milk. Yarilo, the God of the Spring Sun, who wears white clothes and a wreath of first herbs, falls in love with the beautiful Zorya.
Men lit fires on the Spring Festival, trying their best to imitate the Sun: if the fire burns until the dawn goes out, all wishes will come true. Burning bonfires also symbolized the victory of spring over winter. And for the beautiful half of the population, Easter was more exotic. Women at the dawn gathered in a designated place, chose a goddess for themselves, stripped her naked and doused her with icy water. Girlfriends decorated the girl’s body with herbs, wild flowers and harnessed her to the plow: in this form, she had to go around the whole village. The meaning of this custom is very simple: Zorya (Tsar Maiden, she is also Spring) called the earth to fertility and awakened plants to life.
Upon returning home, tired but satisfied villagers set the festive table, and after the meal they poured water on each other, danced in circles and jumped over the fire.
History of Easter. Origin of the word "Easter"
Among the Jewish tribes, 5 thousand years ago, Easter was a holiday of calving cattle, then it was associated with the beginning of the harvest, and later with the liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery. It was after Moses brought the Jews out of Egypt that there was an established holiday called Easter, which means “deliverance” in translation. Just as the Jews escaped death in slavery and found the promised land thanks to Moses, so Orthodox Christians gained eternal life thanks to faith in their Savior - Jesus Christ. The New Testament Christian Easter is celebrated after the Old Testament Jewish one: it so happened that Christ was crucified on the very evening when it is customary for Jews to slaughter a lamb for Easter, and resurrected after the onset of the Jewish holiday.
christian easter
Every year we celebrate Easter at a different time. In the Gregorian calendar, this holiday is not tied to any particular day, since since 325 its date has been calculated according to the solar-lunar cycles: Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon, which comes after the spring equinox.
Christian or New Testament Easter is a holiday filled with new meaning: the joy of the resurrection of the Son of God, the victory of Life over death, light over darkness. It is very symbolic that Russians celebrate Easter on Sunday: it serves as a reminder to us that it was on this day, Sunday, that Jesus Christ was resurrected.
History of Easter in Russia. Orthodox Easter
The traditional Orthodox Easter came to Rus' along with baptism, and the people accepted a new God - Jesus Christ, transferring to him the functions of the Tsar Maiden. But the traditions of the celebration remained the same. For a long time, Easter looked like a pagan festival.
Easter traditions and rituals
Over time, the Orthodox Slavs also had new beliefs, rituals, and customs. Many are timed to Passion Week (Passion Week), preceding the Great Day of the Holy Resurrection of Christ.
On Maundy Thursday, before sunrise, they swam in an ice-hole, a river or in a bathhouse, on this day they took communion and received the sacrament, they cleaned the hut, whitewashed stoves, repaired fences, put wells in order, and in Central Russia and in the North they fumigated dwellings and barns juniper branches. Juniper smoke was considered healing: people believed that it protects loved ones and the “animal” from diseases and all evil spirits. On Maundy Thursday they blessed salt and put it on the table next to bread, baked Easter cakes, Easter bread, honey gingerbread, cooked oatmeal kissel to appease the frost.
Easter meal
From time immemorial, on Sunday morning, the whole family gathered at the festive table. After the solemn service in the temple, they returned home, covered the table with a white tablecloth and laid out on it the ritual food brought from the church. The family meal began with a consecrated egg: everyone who sat at the table got a piece of it. After that, everyone was supposed to have a spoonful of Easter cottage cheese and a piece of Easter cake. And only then other dishes prepared in honor of the holiday were put on the table, and a joyful feast began.
On this day, they decorated houses with wreaths of green twigs and fresh flowers, invited godfathers and friends to visit, arranged magnificent feasts, christened with each other, exchanged eggs, Easter cakes and triple kisses, rested and talked all day long.
For the holiday, lamps and candles were lit in the houses. Priests in festive clothes, girded with white towels, made a procession around the temple, and then walked around the yards. Violins were played in the villages at dusk. Throughout Bright Week (it was also called Red Week, Bright Week), they walked and had fun, and the remnants of food consecrated in the church were buried in the field so that the harvest was rich.
Easter beliefs
There are many myths associated with Easter. People believed that this day was so holy and pure that with the Easter Annunciation, demons and devils fall through the ground, and in the church, during the Easter service, you can see a sorcerer with horns and a witch with a small tail.
On Easter Sunday, it was allowed to ask God for whatever your heart desires: prosperity in business, a generous harvest, a good groom. On Easter night, they collected water from a spring, brought it home without uttering a single word along the way, and sprinkled dwellings and barns with this water - for happiness and well-being.
There was also such a belief: if you eat eggs laid by chickens on Good Thursday for Easter, you will protect yourself from ailments, and if you bury their shells in the ground in a pasture, you will save cattle from any misfortune.
Easter symbols and related ancient rituals
Easter fire, spring water of a stream, a wreath, eggs, hares, Easter cakes - all these symbols of the Great Day have roots in the distant past. The Easter holiday itself embodies the ancient beliefs of different peoples. Water cleanses and protects from disease and misfortune. The fact that on Maundy Thursday you need to wash yourself so that you don’t get sick for a whole year is the embodiment of ancient beliefs about the power of stream water.
Fire protected our ancestors from predatory animals and evil spirits, people made fires to drive away winter and meet spring faster. The Easter fire embodied the power of the hearth. The fire of a hot candle is, in the church's understanding, a symbol of the Resurrection.
The Easter wreath is the personification of eternal life. Even among the ancient tribes, the egg symbolized a small miracle of birth, among many peoples, hares have long been considered a symbol of fertility and prosperity, and the prototypes of Easter cakes are grandmothers, the Slavs baked from time immemorial.
There are many customs associated with the egg. On them, our ancestors wrote prayers, magic spells, they were laid at the feet of the gods and asked to send down prosperity and fertility. In the first Slavic cities, lovers gave colored eggs to each other in the spring, thus expressing their sympathy. And the favorite Easter entertainment in Rus' was the rolling of painted eggs.
In Russia, there has long been a tradition of making glass, wooden, chocolate, sugar eggs, as well as silver and gold, decorated with precious stones. Temples, icons, genre scenes, landscapes were painted on Easter eggs.
Modern Easter Traditions
The bright holiday of the Resurrection of Christ has its own special traditions and customs. Painting eggs for Easter, christening, solemn morning services at which candles, water and food for the Easter table are blessed, a festive dinner with the family - these customs are very old, they have been preserved not only in Russia, but also in many other countries.
Egg fights are popular among the Slavs at the Easter meal, or "choking" eggs, as the people say. This is a very simple and fun game: someone holds an egg upside down, and the “rival” beats it with the nose of another egg. Whoever's shell has not cracked continues to "clink glasses" with another person.
In Europe and America, one of the most popular Easter traditions is "egg hunting" - a children's game that consists of hiding, looking for and rolling on a sloping lawn of toy and chocolate eggs. Every Easter they arrange such a holiday in Washington - right on the lawn in front of the White House.
Sweet pastries are also traditional for Easter: baba in Poland, babobka in the Czech Republic, babki and poppy seed rolls in Ukraine, muffins and sweet buns in the UK, Easter cake and Easter in Russia, cakes with chocolate filling in France, sweet hot buns and meringue cake, garnished with tangerines, pineapples, kiwis and strawberries in Australia.
History of Easter is a journey through the millennia. Leafing through its pages, you can discover something new every time, because the history of the origin of Easter is an interweaving of pagan and Christian traditions, beliefs of ancient tribes and customs of different peoples.
In our country, approximately 90% of Orthodox Christians have never read the New Testament (not to mention other Holy Books), but many of them sacredly honor all religious traditions and observe fasts. And absolutely everyone celebrates such holidays as Easter or Christmas, without having the slightest idea about their meaning and history of occurrence. Therefore, when you ask almost any of them a seemingly elementary question: "Why do you paint eggs and buy Easter cakes every year for Easter? What does it all mean?"- in 99% of cases you get something like this:
What are you, some kind of fool? That's what EVERYONE does. It's a holiday!
- Whose holiday? What is this all for?
After that, your Orthodox interlocutor starts mumbling something incomprehensibly, getting angry and brushing you off. And further questions and clarifications introduce him into the state of the wildest bathhurt and popobol.
But our grandmothers can still be understood and forgiven - they do not use these Internets of yours, and indeed they grew up in another state where atheism dominated. The obscurantism of younger generations is more difficult to justify. In addition, few of them know that until relatively recently the church itself banned all these eggs, Easter cakes and other today's Easter attributes, considering them ungodly paganism.
In general, for all those interested in these issues, I wrote this small review post.
Old Testament.
Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, originates from those distant Old Testament times, when the Jews were in slavery to the Egyptians.
Once Gd appeared to Moses the shepherd in the form of a fireproof bush (Ex. 3:2) and commanded him to go to Egypt in order to bring the Israelites out of there and resettle them in Canaan. This had to be done in order to save the Jews from starvation, because for 400 years of being in Egyptian slavery, their numbers increased seven times. And the pharaoh, in order to cope with the population explosion, even had to arrange a real genocide for them: at first he exhausted the Jews with hard work, and then he ordered the "midwives" who take birth to kill Jewish male babies. (Ex. 1:15-22) .
But the pharaoh did not agree to the requests of Moses to let the Jews go. And then God-Yahweh, in modern terms, arranged a mass terror of the indigenous Egyptian population, in the form of pogroms, arson, murders and doomsday. All these disasters were called in the Pentateuch "Ten Plagues of Egypt":
Execution No. 10: the killing of the firstborn of the pharaoh.
First, Aaron - the elder brother and accomplice of Moses - poisoned fresh water in local reservoirs (Ex. 7: 20-21)
Then the Lord arranged for them the wildest invasions of insects and amphibians (execution with frogs, punishment with midges, dog flies and locusts (Ex. 8: 8-25).
Further, He arranged a pestilence for the Egyptians, caused dermatological epidemics, brought down a fiery hail, plunged the population into darkness for three days. And when all this did not help, he resorted to extreme measures - massacres: killing all the first-born (with the exception of the Jews). (Ex. 12:29) .
In general, the next day, the frightened pharaoh, whose firstborn also died, released all the Jews with their livestock and belongings.
And Moses ordered to celebrate Easter every year in memory of the day of liberation from slavery.
Exodus of Jews from the devastated Egyptian lands.
But what about colored eggs and holiday cakes?
New Testament.
It was in memory of those events that Jesus Christ celebrated Easter for the last time in 33 AD. The table was modest: wine - as a symbol of the blood of the sacrificial lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs in memory of the bitterness of the former slavery. This was the last supper of Jesus and the apostles.
(By the way, I will talk about one more ritual associated with the massacres of artiodactyl mammals before Eid al-Adha).
The Last Supper: The last meal of Jesus Christ with His twelve closest disciples, during which He established the sacrament of the Eucharist and predicted the betrayal of one of the disciples.
However, the Bible says that on the eve of his arrest, Jesus changed the meaning of the festive dishes. The Gospel of Luke says the following: “Then he took bread, gave thanks to God, broke it and gave it to them, saying: “This means my body, which will be given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Similarly, he took the bowl after supper, saying: "This cup signifies a new covenant based on my blood that will be shed for you."(Luke 22:19,20) .
Thus, Jesus foretold his death, but somehow He did not order For His disciples to celebrate Easter in honor of His resurrection. There is not a single mention of this in the Bible.
The apostles and early Christians commemorated the anniversary of the death of Jesus every year on Nisan 14 according to the Jewish calendar (end of March / beginning of April in our opinion). It was a commemorative supper at which ate unleavened bread and drank wine.
Thus, while the Jews celebrated their Pesach as liberation from Egyptian slavery, the first Christians celebrated Pascha as a day of mourning. Because over the next two centuries, Christianity successfully gained popularity, rapidly increasing "its own electorate" - the first contradictions began to appear both in the celebration of Easter and in the very date of its celebration. But more on that later.
First Nicaea (Ecumenical) Council.
Long before the advent of Christianity, the Romans worshiped their own God, Attis, the patron saint of plants. An interesting coincidence can be traced here: the Romans believed that Attis was born as a result of an immaculate conception, died young due to the wrath of Jupiter, but was resurrected a few days after death. And in honor of his resurrection, people began to arrange a ritual every spring: they cut down a tree, tied a statue of a young man to it and carried it to the city square with weeping. Then they began to dance to the music, and soon fell into a trance: they took out knives, inflicted small injuries on themselves in the form of stab wounds, and sprinkled the tree with the statue with their blood. Thus the Romans said goodbye to Attis. By the way, they fasted and fasted until the Feast of the Resurrection.
In Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" there is one interesting moment, where one of the characters talks in detail about how Christ's candidacy was approved "for the position of God" at the First Nicene (Ecumenical) Council, held in 325. This event took place in history.
First Nicaea (Ecumenical) Council. 325 Jesus was approved on it and the reformation of the celebration of Easter was carried out.
It was then that the Roman emperor Constantine I, fearing a split in society along religious lines, managed to unite the two religions, making Christianity the main state religion. Therefore, many Christian rites and sacraments are so similar to pagan ones and have such diametrically opposite meanings "from the original source". This also applies to the celebration of Easter. And in the same year 325, the Christian Easter was separated from the Jewish one.
But where are the eggs, you ask? We'll get to them soon. and one more necessary clarification:
Calculation of the date of Easter.
Disputes about the correct determination of the date for the celebration of Easter have not subsided to this day.
The general rule for calculating the date of Easter is: "Easter is celebrated the first Sunday after spring full moon».
Those. it must be: a) in the spring, b) the first Sunday, c) after the full moon.
The complexity of the calculation is also due to the mixing of independent astronomical cycles:
The revolution of the Earth around the Sun (the date of the vernal equinox);
- revolution of the Moon around the Earth (full moon);
- the fixed day of celebration is Sunday.
But let's not get into the jungle of these calculations and immediately move on to the main thing:
The displacement of paganism in Rus' by Christianity.
We will also not delve into the main historical sad facts of those distant years, so as not to turn the post into a kilometer-long treatise on the history of Ancient Rus' - but only slightly and only from one side, we will touch on it, naming the main events that predetermined the planting of Christianity on the territory of our state.
Byzantium was interested in the Christianization of Rus'. It was believed that any nation that accepted the Christian faith from the hands of the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople automatically becomes a vassal of the empire. The contacts of Rus' with Byzantium contributed to the penetration of Christianity into the Russian environment. Metropolitan Michael was sent to Rus', who, according to legend, baptized the Kyiv prince Askold. Christianity was popular among combatants and the merchant class under Igor and Oleg, and Princess Olga herself became a Christian during a visit to Constantinople in the 950s.
In 988, Vladimir the Great baptizes Rus', and begins to fight pagan holidays on the advice of Byzantine monks. But then for the Russians, Christianity was an alien and incomprehensible religion, and if the authorities began to openly fight paganism, the people would rebel. In addition, the Magi had great authority and influence on the minds. Therefore, a slightly different tactic was chosen: not by force, but by cunning.
Each pagan holiday was gradually given a new, Christian meaning. Also, the signs of pagan gods familiar to the Russians were attributed to Christian saints. Thus, "Kolyada"- the ancient holiday of the winter solstice - gradually transformed into the Nativity of Christ. "Kupailo"- the summer solstice - was renamed the feast of John the Baptist, who is still called Ivan Kupala among the people. And as for the Christian Easter, it coincided with a very special Russian holiday, which was called . This holiday was the pagan New Year, and it was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, when all nature came to life.
Feast of the Great Day: the most important holiday in the calendar of the Eastern and Western Slavs.
Our ancestors, preparing for the Great Day, painted eggs and baked Easter cakes. But only the meanings of these symbols were not at all similar to Christian ones. When the Byzantine monks first saw How people celebrate this holiday - they declared it a terrible sin, and began to fight it in every possible way.
Easter eggs and Easter cakes.
There used to be a game called "red testicle". Men took painted eggs and beat them with each other. The winner is the one who breaks the most other people's eggs without breaking his own. This was done in order to attract women, as it was believed that the victorious man would be the strongest and best. Women had the same ritual - but their battle with colored kagbe eggs symbolized fertilization, since the egg among many peoples of the world has long been considered a symbol of spring rebirth and new life.
Beating eggs was carried out not only for entertainment and gaming purposes, but also in order to appease the goddess of fertility. By appeasing her in this way, they hoped for a future rich harvest, breeding of livestock and the birth of children.
According to one of the variations Makosh - Mokosh. It originated from the word "wet". Water was considered the symbol of Mokosh, giving life to the earth and all living beings.
Some believe that the custom of baking Easter cakes for Easter came from the Jews who baked their Easter bread, which is called matzo. This is wrong. Jesus himself broke the bread and served it to the apostles at the Last Supper, but this bread was flat and unleavened. And the Easter cake is made loose, with raisins, and sprinkled with icing on top, and then they are measured - whose type has grown higher.
This tradition arose long before Christianity came to Rus'. Our ancestors worshiped the sun and believed that Dazhdbog dies every winter and is born again in the spring. And in honor of the new solar birth in those days, every woman had to bake her own cake in the oven (the symbol of the female womb) and perform a birth ritual over her. When baking Easter cake, women lifted the hem, simulating pregnancy. It was considered a symbol of new life.
As you might guess, the baked Easter cake, which has a cylindrical shape, covered with white icing and sprinkled with seeds, is nothing more than an erect male sexual member. Ancestors treated such associations calmly, because for them the main thing was that the land yielded crops, and women gave birth. Therefore, after Easter was taken out of the oven, a cross was painted on it, which was a symbol of the sun god. Dazhdbog was responsible for the fertility of women and for the fertility of the land.
These similarities of Dazhdbog with Jesus Christ: the resurrection and the main symbol - the cross, according to historians, were the main signs by which the Byzantine church managed to successfully merge paganism and Christianity together.
Maundy Thursday and the zombie apocalypse.
Unlike the Easter of the first Christians, who ate exclusively unleavened bread with wine, our ancestors celebrated the Great Day in full: with meat, sausages and other goodies. With the establishment of Christianity, the church forbade eating meat for the holiday. However, once a year, meat dishes were treated not to ordinary guests, but to the dead. This ritual was called - "Radunitsy":
People gathered in cemeteries on the Thursday before Great Day. They brought food in baskets, laid it out on the graves, and then began to loudly and drawlingly call their dead, ask them to return to the world of the living, and taste delicious food. It was believed that it was on the Thursday before the Great Day that the ancestors came out of the earth and remained next to living people until the next Sunday after the holiday. At this time, they could not be called dead, because they hear everything they say and can be offended. People carefully prepared for the “meeting” with relatives: they coaxed the brownies with small sacrifices, hung amulets and cleaned their houses.
To date, this completely unkind holiday has been divided into two joyful ones: on a clean Thursday - when the housewives arrange a general cleaning in the house, and on a wired Sunday - when all our grandmothers rush to the cemeteries in a friendly crowd and lay out painted eggs and Easter cakes on the graves of their relatives.
But this change did not happen immediately. Pagan rituals were fought for quite a long time and hard, and in the 16th century even Ivan the Terrible joined this struggle, who tried to get rid of dual faith. In pursuance of the decrees of Ivan the Terrible, the priests began to look after the religious order and even spy. But this did not help, the people still honored their traditions, and as before, people continued to perform pagan rituals in their homes, and went to church in front of their eyes. And the church gave up. In the 18th century, pagan symbols were declared Christian, they even had a divine origin. So fertility eggs became a symbol of Christ's resurrection, and Dazhdbog's bread turned into a symbol of Jesus Christ.
Epilogue.
Now, brothers and sisters, you know almost everything about Easter. It remains only to draw a small parallel.
Over many centuries, Easter, like our Victory Day, has turned from a Day of mourning for the dead into a festive bacchanalia. Almost no one knows or remembers how it all began and why all this is necessary. Just another holiday from which you can swell Orthodoxally and go with impunity to the hellish Christian drunken-carbon breakout.
Now you will KNOW what to drink for. And drink at all. After all, perhaps for someone this day will be a day of sorrow. Or a day of big sad thoughts...
Easter. Christ is risen! Truly Risen!
God, as you remember, created the world in six days, from Sunday to Saturday, but he devoted Saturday to rest. For the first Christians, the week also began on Sunday. And only since they began to celebrate Easter separately from the Jews, this day has become the final, weekend, as we are now saying. During the year we have a rest on Sundays - this is our little weekly holiday. But Easter Sunday is called Great Sunday, because on this day "Christ rose from the dead, trampled down death by death, and gave life to those in the tombs."
For believers Easter- this is the end of Great Lent, and for everyone together, including non-believers, the joy of meeting with family and friends at a special, festive table, the dignity of which includes traditional, purely Russian dishes and Russian fun.
This holiday always evokes a feeling of the final victory of spring and the awakening of nature. This is not contradicted by the religious meaning of Easter, symbolizing the immortality of Christ, the main holiday in Orthodoxy, the second most important in Catholicism and other areas of Christianity.
Christians have been preparing for this day all year long, both old and young are waiting for it. On Easter, they dress up in festive clothes and prepare a festive dinner too. After seven weeks of fasting, it is finally allowed to eat whatever the soul desires, to have fun and have fun: “This is the day, the Lord has created it, let us rejoice and rejoice in it.” The Church testifies: “God became man in order that man might become god, enter into the glory of the Lord. As Christ Himself said: “And the glory that You gave Me, I gave them” (John 17:22).
Easter days are devoted to church and entertainment. You can take the children to the forest, to the park, to ride the children on a swing (traditional entertainment in old Russia).
There is a good omen: whoever spends Easter in a joyful mood will have happiness in life and good luck in business all year.
Russian people consider Easter the main Christian holiday. In honor of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, this day is called Velikoden (Great Day), and also - Bright Resurrection, and also - Christ's day. The very word "Passover" is translated from the Hebrew "Passover" as "origin", "deliverance" (from Egyptian slavery).
Christian Easter from the Greek "paschein" - "suffer". This is because Christ suffered before he was resurrected. But from the 5th century, Easter turned into a joyful holiday of the Resurrection of Christ.
Each year, calculated according to the lunar calendar, Easter falls on different numbers (theoretically from April 4 to May 8). In the Soviet era, there were only a few old women who had Paschalia rewritten for several years in the cities. Nevertheless, everyone knew the days of the main traveling holidays. By the importance of the blessings received by us through the Resurrection of Christ, Pascha is a Feast of feasts and a Triumph of celebrations, which is why the Divine Liturgy of this Feast is distinguished by grandeur and extraordinary solemnity. All the bells are ringing throughout the Easter week. Holy Pascha is celebrated in the most solemn way in all Christian countries. New Testament Easter is a holiday of deliverance (through Christ) of all mankind from slavery, from everything low, diabolical and the gift of eternal life and eternal bliss to people.
Having accepted on the eve, in the evening of Good Friday, terrible torment at Golgotha, Jesus Christ died on the cross. After that, the noble member of the Council Joseph of Arimathea and another secret disciple of Christ, Nicodemus, with the permission of Pilate, the Savior was taken down from the cross and buried in a new grave carved into the rock.
All this happened on Friday, because on Great Saturday they mark the transition from sorrow to the joyful approach of the Resurrection. During the singing of the Mid-Lamb, the Shroud is taken to the altar and placed on the throne, where it remains until the feast of the Ascension of the Lord as a sign of the daily sojourn of the Resurrected Savior on earth.
What is the Shroud? The shroud is a large silk cloth with the image of the Savior lying in the tomb. It symbolizes just the canvas with which Joseph of Arimathea, together with Nicodemus, wrapped the body of Christ before the position in the tomb: “And, taking the body, Joseph wrapped it in a clean shroud; and laid him in his new tomb, which he carved in the rock...” (Matthew 27:59-60).
The Paschal liturgy ends with the jubilant "Christ is Risen", to which those praying in the church joyfully answer in chorus: "Truly Risen." The Great Resurrection of Christ is celebrated as a great Act of God. Great because Life conquers death, Good conquers evil, finally, the Divine conquers the satanic, God conquers the devil... This eternal confrontation is the essence of earthly and universal Life. And one very important thought: salvation is accomplished in solitude, salvation - from dislike. Salvation is accomplished alone, but celebrated together. Russian people associate Easter with spring - the life of nature, with the flowering of good feelings - the unity of people, with the hope for future happiness. With the Resurrection of Christ, for the first time on Earth, the victory over death, the victory of Life and Immortality over the evil forces of hell took place.
Easter among Orthodox Christians is not only the biggest holiday, but it is also celebrated the longest of all holidays - a whole week (week): “That whole week is one day; for when Christ was risen, then the sun stood, not setting all that week, ”says figuratively in ancient Scripture. Even in ancient Rus', the Bright Week was known under the name of the Holy, Great Day, Joyful.
Many prominent prose writers and poets have descriptions of Russian Easter. Particularly piercing words can be found among those who were forced to leave Russia during the years of the revolution - A. Kuprin, I. Bunin, N. Shmelev, Sasha Cherny, Z. Gippius and others.
Easter folk omens
The bright Resurrection of Christ among the people has long been associated with the sun. The peasants had a belief that on Easter "the sun plays." And people tried to watch, to peep the moments of the play of the sun. Views of the harvest and the weather were also associated with the play of the sun.
On the first day of Easter, they noted: on Easter the sky is clear and the sun is playing - to a good harvest and a red summer; on holy rain - good rye; on holy thunder - to the harvest; the sun rolls down from the Easter hill in the summer; if the weather is clear on the second day of Easter, the summer will be rainy; if it is cloudy, the summer will be dry.
It was believed that from the Easter egg there could be relief from any ailment. If the egg is kept from three to twelve years, then later it can even cure diseases. And if the consecrated dye is put into the grain, then there will be a good harvest. There is also such an opinion: if the egg is left until the next Easter, then it can fulfill any desire. Children on the first day of Easter turned to the sun with chants, talkers, songs.
History of Easter
The celebration of Easter did not begin from the moment of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, but much earlier, and is associated with the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. You can find even more ancient references to the spring holiday, on which an animal was sacrificed to God so that the rest would be alive and well.
So, the word "Passover" comes from the Hebrew "Pesach", which, in turn, comes from the word "passover", which means "to pass." Why is that?
According to the story set out in the Bible, the Jews moved to Egypt after the son of Jacob, Joseph the Beautiful, became an adviser to the pharaoh.
Time passed, the number of the Jewish people increased, and the next pharaoh ordered them to be loaded with hard work and to kill the first-born boys. God commanded Moses, who in his youth killed an Egyptian for bullying a Jew and fled Egypt, to return and free his people. It is believed that as a punishment to the Egyptians, God sent ten trials (ten plagues of Egypt) to the country. As a result, all the first-born boys died, except for the Jews: on their doors was a sign drawn with the blood of a lamb. Then the pharaoh agreed to release the Jews from slavery.
Moses took the people and led them back to Canaan. On the seashore, they were overtaken by the army of the Egyptians, but the waters parted, let the Jews through and drowned their pursuers.
Since then, on the 14th day of Nisan (March), Jews celebrate Passover for 7 days. At first, a sacrifice was made on this day: each family had to roast and eat a lamb without breaking its knees. However, now it has been replaced by a lamb or chicken shank, which is not eaten, but symbolically left on the table in honor of the holiday.
Easter in the New Testament
Everyone knows about the modern history of the Easter holiday. On this day, Jesus Christ, who had been crucified on the cross two days earlier, was resurrected from the dead. Pontius Pilate was ready to release one prisoner according to the tradition of Good Friday, but the crowd asked not for Christ, but for the criminal Barabbas.
On the second day after the crucifixion, according to the traditions of Jerusalem, he was supposed to have his legs broken, but the executioners saw that he had already died, and did not do this. The disciples of Christ wrapped his body in a shroud and hid it in a coffin. The high priests, with the consent of Pilate, posted guards at the tomb so that the promised resurrection could not be faked.
Easter is celebrated to commemorate the Resurrection of Christ. On this day, Lent ends, and you can eat whatever you want. There are no sacrifices, because it is believed that Jesus Christ became a sacrifice (“the lamb of God”) for all the righteous. You can exchange congratulations and triple kisses not only on the day of the holiday, but also within a week after it.
At first, Easter was called two weeks - before the Resurrection of Christ and after. They were called Easter of the Cross (Suffering) and Easter Sunday (Resurrection). Now it is Holy and Bright weeks, and Easter is the holiday itself on Sunday.
Interestingly, in the first centuries of our era, Easter was celebrated together with Passover. But later, at the First Ecumenical Council in 325, it was decided to celebrate it on the first Sunday after the full moon, which occurs after the spring equinox. Adjusted for the modern calendar, Orthodox Easter is not celebrated earlier than April 4 and later than May 8.
Abstract of the lesson. EASTER OF CHRIST (history of the holiday)
Story for preschool children.
talk about the customs and rituals associated with the holiday.
To develop the spiritual and moral potential of pupils.
To create motivation for the holiday through acquaintance with its history, traditions, and customs.
Tasks: To acquaint children with the Orthodox holiday "Holiday of Easter", with its history. Talk about the customs and rituals associated with the holiday. Awaken children's interest in folk culture. Raise patriotic feelings for the Orthodox traditions of the Russian people, for folk art
Lesson progress:
The history of Easter is a journey through the millennia. Leafing through its pages, you can discover something new every time, because the history of the origin of Easter is an interweaving of traditions, beliefs and customs.
Let's go on this journey! Do you agree?
Pascha is the feast of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, we joyfully meet Easter And sing: “Christ is risen! We all unanimously answer: “He has truly risen!” Years pass in succession Under the azure sky. And the people everywhere sing: “He is truly risen!” Joy and hugs are everywhere: “Brother, sister, Christ is risen! Hell is destroyed, there is no curse: He is truly risen! (V. Kuzmenkov)
Jesus Christ was sent by God to earth for our salvation from sins (bad deeds)
He was kind, fair, never condemned anyone and fought evil.
The kings were afraid that Jesus Christ would himself become the ruler of the whole world. And they executed Him - they crucified Him on the cross.
Jesus Christ was executed on Friday. At this time, the earth shook and stones fell from the rocks and mountains. For people it was the saddest and most mournful day. Today this day is called GOOD FRIDAY.
After the execution, the disciples of Christ removed his body from the cross and put it in a cave and closed the entrance to it with a huge stone.
On Sunday, the women came to the cave and saw that the entrance to it was open. The women were very surprised that such a huge and heavy stone was moved away.
The angel announced the joyful news of the miraculous resurrection of Christ. Christ is risen, which means he became immortal.
One of the women, Mary Magdalene, decided to inform the Roman emperor about the resurrection of Christ. She gave the emperor an egg, which symbolized a miracle. But the emperor said to Mary: “It is rather that this egg will turn red than I will believe that Jesus has risen.”
The egg immediately turned red ... Since then, there has been a tradition of painting eggs for Easter.
The bright holiday of the Resurrection-Christ has its own traditions, customs, symbols and ancient rituals associated with them.
Easter fire, spring water of the stream, a wreath, eggs, Easter cakes - all these are symbols of the Great Day and have roots in the distant past.
Fire protected our ancestors from predatory animals and evil spirits, people made fires to drive away winter and meet spring faster. The Easter fire embodied the power of the hearth.
Easter is one of the most great and significant Christian holidays.
He is loved by both adults and children.
There are practically no children in a Christian family who have not heard about Easter and how it is celebrated. But why this holiday is so great, why it is so joyful for everyone, many children do not know.
After all, parents do not always introduce their children to the faith, even if Christian holidays are observed and celebrated.
And, if so, then, of course, it is wiser to tell the child about why Easter has become a great holiday, and why Easter Day is considered the most important of all days? And here: it doesn't matter how much you yourself believe in God.
How to tell a child about Easter, Christ's Resurrection?
If you find it difficult or simply don’t know how to tell your child about Easter and its history, we offer you an interesting and simple version of the story that will introduce the child to the history of the holiday, Easter and the Resurrection of Christ.
So, in order to make the story understandable, colorful and interesting, we suggest you prepare illustrations depicting: Jesus Christ, the Devil, the King (abstract image), God. As well as the symbols of Easter: colored eggs, Easter cake and cottage cheese Easter.
Accompany the story with illustrations. Then it will be easy and interesting for the child to listen to your story.
Telling a child about Easter.
Introduction:
You know that a holiday will come soon, for which we will paint eggs, make cottage cheese Easter and bake Easter cakes. Do you know what this holiday is called? - Easter.
What is another name for Easter? - Resurrection of Christ.
This holiday is considered the most important holiday for all believers in God. It is the most solemn and most joyful of all holidays.
Do you know why? Because on this day the greatest miracle on earth happened, which gave people hope for eternal life.
Main part:
| - The fact is that once upon a time Jesus Christ, the son of God, lived on earth. And Jesus Christ came to earth to help people and save them from death so that their souls would not go to hell. | |
| - Hell is another world in which the Devil rules. The soul in this world is tormented by fire. | |
| - Jesus Christ told people that if they stop sinning, then God will forgive them. And after death, their soul will go to Paradise, to God. | |
| - Jesus Christ explained to all people that in order not to sin, one should not do bad deeds, one should not offend anyone, one should never deceive, one should always speak only the truth. This is what Jesus Christ always did. | |
| - Many people, and the King who ruled at that time, did not like it. The king did not want all people to become better and know the truth, because then he would not be able to rule. And so the King ordered to kill Jesus Christ, if he does not stop doing good to people. But Jesus Christ was not afraid. He wanted to save people, so that people would become better, so that they would stop sinning and God would forgive them and let them into paradise. At that time, the most terrible and shameful punishment was crucifixion, because only bandits were killed in this way. And in order to frighten people who wanted to become good, and to convince everyone that Jesus Christ is a deceiver, he, too, like a bandit, was crucified on a cross. |
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| - After the death of Jesus Christ, they put it in a special place for the dead - a tomb. And after three days and three nights, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Thus, he proved to people that everything he said was true and that if they did not sin, then God would open Paradise for them. And after death, their soul will be able to live there even better. All people have the confidence that their soul can be immortal if they become better. |
Conclusion.
The day when Jesus Christ resurrected was called Easter. And it became the most joyful and happy day for all people.
That is why the first thing to say on the day of Easter, when you see someone: "Jesus is risen", and in response you should be told: "Truly He is risen." And vice versa.
Eggs became the symbols of Easter,
Holy Christ's Resurrection
Gone, the gray winter is gone,
And the field, the forest come to life.
The meadow turns green, caressing the eye.
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen!
Easter- the feast of the Holy Resurrection of Christ - the central event in the spiritual life of a Christian, celebrated with great reverence, triumph and joy. By His death, the Savior redeemed the entire human race from sin: He offered Himself as a sacrifice both for the living and for the dead.
Easter in Rus' is the most joyful and solemn holiday. And it is not surprising that our ancestors furnished it with many customs coming from the depths of centuries.
The Easter custom of christening and gifting each other with colored eggs has been going on since apostolic times. The joyful Easter greeting reminds us of the rapturous state of the disciples of Christ, who suddenly learned of His Resurrection, and then they joyfully asked each other: “Is Christ Risen?” and answered: “Truly Risen!”. Mutual kissing - in memory of universal forgiveness, reconciliation, expression of love.
Previously, there was a custom, appearing to an important person, to give him something as a sign of respect and reverence. Wealthy people brought gold and jewelry as a gift, poor people brought poultry eggs and fruits. It was this custom that Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene fulfilled when she preached about the Resurrection of Christ when she came to the Roman emperor Tiberius. She gave him an egg with an exclamation: "Christ is Risen!".
The emperor doubted the possibility for a mortal to rise from the dead:
This is as hard to believe as the fact that a white testicle can turn red!
And at the same moment the white egg turned scarlet. Since then, the tradition of eating painted eggs for Easter and offering them as gifts has become the most common in all countries where Christianity is practiced.
Every house was preparing for the Bright Day. On Good Friday, ritual cakes and Easter were prepared.
An obligatory culinary masterpiece on the Easter table has always been the Easter cake consecrated in the church. Unlike the dough for pies, where it is not advisable to put eggs, a lot of eggs are put into the dough for pies, a lot of butter and also a lot of sugar. All these components allow you to get a very rich dough, and ready-made Easter cakes do not get stale for a long time.
Among the ritual dishes for the Easter table is Easter - curd mass in the form of a truncated pyramid - a symbol of the Holy Sepulcher. On the cottage cheese Easter there should be an inscription "ХВ", as well as an image of a cross, a spear, a cane, sprouted grains, sprouts, flowers - symbols of the suffering and Resurrection of Christ.
Many good customs were timed to coincide with the Holy Day in Rus'. It was believed that good deeds done in favor of others, especially those deprived of fate, helped to remove sin from the soul. It was customary to redeem debtors from prison. Wealthy people, the merchants did not skimp on refreshments, poor people, the needy bought birds from birders in order to set them free.
Children and young people especially had fun. They rolled krashenka on the ground, along the chute, played "cues".
You could play "wolf". They spin the eggs, whoever has the egg spins longer wins and can take the opponent's egg. Interesting game "roll the egg". They rolled the egg over the clothes from the left sleeve to the right: who is faster?
On Easter, crimson bells sounded over Moscow. The holiday lasted all Bright Week, the table remained set, invited to the table, treated everyone, especially those who did not have the opportunity to do it themselves, welcomed the poor, the poor, the sick.
The brightest Easter holiday is approaching. Children love him very much, but perhaps they do not fully understand him. How to tell children about Easter? Introduce your child to the history of the holiday, its traditions.
The most important holiday in the Christian calendar is Easter. In general, Easter is a very ancient holiday, but for Christians it has acquired a special meaning. The Son of God Jesus was crucified on the cross for the sins of men. But on the third day after his death, he rose again! Therefore, we know that our soul is immortal. And it happened just at Easter. Since then we have been celebrating Holy Sunday every year! By the way, the seventh day of the week was called "Sunday" for this very reason. Easter is preceded by a strict 40-day fast, during which adults eat only fast food, pray, repent, thus spiritual cleansing takes place. Even all family holidays that fall on fasting are transferred to Easter.
On Easter Sunday, people visit the church, where the priest blesses Easter cakes and eggs. Only after the church, the family gathers at a rich festive table, treats themselves to Easter cakes (pasochki), and the children play with painted eggs. Everyone congratulates each other, kisses, says: “Christ is risen” and they hear in response: “Truly he is risen!”.
And this is where the tradition came from: on Easter, Mary Magdalene came to the Roman emperor Tiberius with the good news: “Christ is risen!” - she said and presented a chicken egg as a gift to the emperor.
The emperor laughed and said that the egg would sooner turn red than he would believe it. And before the eyes of the astonished audience, the white egg in the hands of Mary Magdalene turned red! When Tiberius saw this, he was amazed and replied: "Truly risen!"
Since then, a tradition has arisen to paint eggs red and greet each other.
Later, eggs for Easter began to be painted in different colors and called them "krashenki", eggs on which various drawings are drawn are called "pysanky". And it happens that eggs are covered with wax, painted, then various patterns are scratched out with a needle. These eggs are called "drapanki".
Easter symbols: LIGHT (therefore, they try to bring a lit candle home from the church), LIFE (it is symbolized by eggs - a symbol of new life, a rabbit - a symbol of fertility), EASTER KULICH and, of course, the CROSS, because Jesus was crucified on it. The cross has become the main symbol of Christianity. The LAMB is considered a symbol of purity and innocence. It used to be customary to bake lamb from dough on the Easter table.
Here we have such a lamb made of pies (pies with cherries).
So, we got acquainted with the history, now you can start preparing. Let the baby help you in any way he can: decorate the eggs, sprinkle the pastries (you will bake them, right?), Make postcards for relatives. And be sure to take the baby to church, he will receive an incredible charge of emotions. Print for the kids, do together.
Watch with your children a beautiful video about the life of Christ from birth to miraculous resurrection:
Happy Easter to you!
We will see you again on our website.
The history of Easter for children
Orthodox Christians call Easter "the feast of feasts and the triumph of celebrations." On this day, the Orthodox Church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This holiday symbolizes the victory of good over evil, light over darkness, keeps the historical memory of the atoning voluntary sacrifice in the name of humanity of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection.
Christian is celebrated not according to the solar, but according to the lunar calendar and therefore does not have a fixed date.
How did the Resurrection of Christ from the dead happen? One of the testimonies of this greatest miracle belongs to the historian Hermidius, the official historiographer of Judea. On Sunday night, Hermidius personally went to the tomb to make sure that the deceased could not be resurrected. In the faint light of dawn, he saw the guards at the door of the coffin. Suddenly it became very light and a man appeared above the ground, as if woven from light. There was a thunderclap, but not in the sky, but on the ground. The frightened guard jumped up and immediately fell to the ground. The stone that closed the entrance to the cave rolled away. Soon the light over the coffin disappeared. But when Hermidius approached the tomb, the body of the Buried One was not there. The doctor did not believe that the dead could be resurrected, but Christ, according to his memoirs, "really resurrected, and we all saw it with our own eyes."
Easter traditions
Easter is preceded by a strict seven-week Great Lent, when believers abstain from certain types of food. The week before Easter is called Holy Week. Each day of the week is associated with the events of the last days of the earthly life of Christ.
On the day before Easter - Great Saturday - old and young believers gather in churches for prayer. Special Easter food is brought to the temple to consecrate it. On the day of the Resurrection of Christ, special dishes are put on the table that are prepared only once a year - Easter cake, cottage cheese Easter, Easter colored eggs. Midnight comes, the procession begins in the churches. Great Saturday is replaced by Bright Sunday.
But the Easter holiday is not only about prayers. This holiday has always had another side - worldly. While the Easter service was going on, no one dared indulge in festive entertainment. But when the “icons passed”, the Easter festivities began.
What kind of entertainment is accepted for Easter? First, a feast. After a seven-week fast, you could again afford any food - whatever your heart desires. In addition to Easter dishes, there are many traditional Russian delicacies on the table. All sorts of games with Easter eggs, round dances, and swings were arranged (and are still being arranged).
At Easter it was customary to celebrate Christ. Everyone exchanged colored eggs and kissed each other three times. To christenize is to congratulate each other on the holiday, and colored eggs are a symbol of life.
Long before the advent of Christ, the ancient peoples considered the egg a prototype of the Universe - the world surrounding man was born from it. Among the Slavic peoples who adopted Christianity, the egg was associated with the fertility of the earth, with the spring revival of nature. It is a symbol of the Sun and Life. And to express respect for him, our ancestors dyed eggs.
Festive Easter signs
The Orthodox believed that miracles could be seen at Easter. At this time, it is allowed to ask God for the fulfillment of their desires.
Since pagan times, the custom has remained to pour water on Easter with well or river water.
On Easter, old people combed their hair with the wish that they have as many grandchildren as there are hairs on their heads; old women washed themselves with gold, silver and red eggs in the hope of getting rich.
On Easter, young people climbed onto the roofs to meet the sun (there was a belief that “the sun plays” on Easter, and many tried to watch for this moment).
EASTER TREATS
Easter boiled
Ingredients
➢ 2 kg of cottage cheese,
➢ 1.5 kg of sour cream,
➢ 1.5 kg of butter,
➢ 12 eggs (yolks),
➢ 1.5 kg of sugar, vanillin.
Cooking
Easter is prepared from Thursday (best) or from Friday.
Rub cottage cheese through a sieve. You should not pass the cottage cheese through a meat grinder, otherwise it will become denser, but it is necessary that it be saturated with oxygen. Sour cream, butter, raw yolks grind with half a glass of sugar. Mix everything together in a saucepan, put on fire and stir.
When the mass is melted, add the rest of the sugar, stirring, heat, but do not bring to a boil.
Add vanillin at the tip of a knife, mix, cool. Put the mass in a gauze bag and hang to glass the liquid. Leave for 10-12 hours. After that, transfer the mass to the pasochnik and press down with a press.
Easter nut
Ingredients:
➢ 1.2 kg of cottage cheese,
➢ 1 glass of sugar,
➢ 200 g butter,
➢ 200 g pistachios or peanuts,
➢ 4 cups heavy cream, vanilla sugar.
Cooking
Rub the cottage cheese through a sieve, put sugar and vanilla, mix well. Add eggs, butter, chopped nuts. Mix everything thoroughly and pour cream into the curd. Mix the mass again, put it in a mold covered with damp gauze, place a press on top.
Put in a cold place for a day.
