History and traditions of Easter. Traditions of celebrating Easter in Rus'
The first Easter was celebrated by the ancient Jews for 1500 BC. er, escaping Egyptian slavery. The New Testament, Christian Easter was established by the apostles after the resurrection of Jesus. By the 5th century The Orthodox Church has developed its own rules and terms for celebrating the Resurrection of Christ. Orthodox Slavs timed to the celebration of Easter many customs, rituals, traditions that have survived from pagan times.
Easter cake was never known in the Old Testament Easter, and indeed in Christianity. The Passover lamb was eaten with unleavened bread (unleavened bread) and bitter herbs. The origin of the Easter cake is pagan. Kulich, like tall bread with eggs, is a well-known pagan symbol of the god of fruit-bearing, Phalos. The Russian people, as a native of paganism, still interferes with concepts in folk etymology.
Slavic-Aryan Easter
In most of the myths of the ancient peoples, there were dying and resurrecting gods. So, in early spring, the Egyptians greeted each other with the words: “Osiris is risen!”
The Slavs did not invent resurrection gods for themselves, but they had a holiday, surprisingly reminiscent of Easter in its name. The oldest source on the history of the Slavs, the Vedas, reports that in the first centuries of our era, Slavyansk tribes celebrated a special holiday called Paskhet, which approximately meant the Way of Deliverance. What deliverance was meant. Easter was dedicated to the completion of the 15-year march of the Slavic-Aryan peoples from Daaria, the land considered the ancestral home of our ancestors. The legend said that evil creatures settled on the earth - koshchei, killing people. But one of the main deities of the Slavs, Dazhdbog, did not allow the “dark Forces from the Pekelny World”, which the Koshchei gathered on the nearest Moon-Lele, to defeat (in those days, the earth had 3 moons: Lelya, Fata and the Month). He destroyed the moon with magical powers, a fiery rain began, and after it the Flood. Daaria plunged into the ocean, thousands of people died, but many managed to escape. The legend is remarkably reminiscent of the Biblical Flood and the exodus of Moses from Egypt, isn't it? By the way - in memory of this event, a well-known ceremony appeared for all of us. Slavs on the eve of Easter, and it was celebrated in early spring, painted eggs with ocher and beat them against each other. Broken eggs were considered a symbol of hell, or koshcheev, and unbroken ones - Dazhdbog, who defeated the forces of evil. The eggs were painted in a bright color to remind of the fiery rain from the sky after the destruction of the Koshcheys. In the celebration of Easter, one can easily see the roots of the celebration of the later Christian Easter.
Ancient rituals and Easter symbols
On April 16, the ancient Slavs solemnly celebrated the end of the great wedding of heaven and earth, the readiness of the earth for fertility, for sowing. Women baked cylindrical babki as a symbol of masculinity, dyed eggs as a symbol of masculine power, and made curd dishes round in shape as a symbol of femininity.
Long before the adoption of Christianity, the Slavs had a myth about how a duck egg became the embryo of the whole world. “In the beginning, when there was nothing in the myrtle but a boundless sea, a duck, flying over it, dropped an egg into the abyss of water. The egg split open, and from its lower part came out mother earth, damp, and from the upper part a high vault of heaven arose. Recall that the death of Koshchei was contained in the egg, from which all evil in the Universe came. There are other customs associated with the egg. So, our ancestors wrote magic spells and prayers on bird eggs, brought them to pagan temples, laid them at the feet of idols. The Eastern Slavs dedicated painted eggs to the most formidable deity, Perun. In the first Slavic cities (this custom is little known in the villages), lovers gave colored eggs to each other in spring as a token of sympathy. The ancient Slavs were pagans, like the vast majority of peoples in the world. Religions that have long sunk into oblivion were based on faith in forces that were inaccessible to people's understanding. Actually, Christianity is based on the same worldview.
The Christian faith, like pagan beliefs, is based on the most ancient ideas of mankind about the afterlife, about life after death. The ancient Slavs, long before the advent of Christianity, viewed the world as a struggle between two principles - good and bad; Christianity, for its part, adopted these views and strengthened them.
The main Easter symbols - streams, fire, Easter cakes, eggs and hares - have roots in the distant past. Spring water the stream in the traditions of many peoples of the world was necessary for cleansing after illnesses and all kinds of misfortunes. Pure Thursday, as it were, embodied the ancient beliefs of the peoples. Easter fire is the embodiment of the especially revered fire of the hearth. Ancient people revered fire as their own father, it gave them warmth and tasty food, protection from predatory animals. On the ancient holiday of Easter, bonfires were lit everywhere, firewood blazed brightly in the hearths. The fire had a magical effect on people, had a cleansing power. At the beginning of spring, European tribes kindled numerous bonfires to drive away winter and welcome spring with dignity. The Church has made fire a symbol of the Resurrection. Already at the very beginning of the spread of Christianity in the IV century. the custom was born to put a candle at the altar during the night Easter service - the sacred flame symbolized the Resurrection of the Savior. Throughout the Middle Ages, believers adhered to the custom of taking burning candles home from the church in order to light lamps or a fire in the hearth from them.
Easter cakes, colored eggs, hares and rabbits are also not a Christian discovery. It has already been said that prototypes of Easter cakes- grandmas - Slavic women baked in the spring from time immemorial, and hares have always been considered a symbol of fertility among many peoples. Colored eggs prototypes also borrowed from the ancient tribes as a symbol of new life, as a small miracle of birth.
Pagan Gods and Orthodox Saints
Prince Vladimir I in the middle of the X century. carried out a kind of reform of the pagan gods in order to strengthen his power. Next to his tower, on a hill, he ordered to place wooden idols depicting Perun, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Semargl and Mokosh.
At the same time, Christianity was already known in Rus' (the first information came to Rus' in the second half of the 9th century). Wanting to expand his power to Byzantium, Vladimir decided to baptize Rus'. In 988, the prince was first baptized himself, then he baptized his boyars and, under pain of punishment, forced all Kyivans and residents of other Russian cities and villages to accept the new faith. Thus began the history of Christianity in Rus'. The Russians gradually ceased to burn the dead on funeral pyres, every year they sacrificed fewer sheep to the wooden idols of Perun, completely ceased to bring bloody human sacrifices to the idols. But at the same time, they continued to celebrate their traditional holidays, baked pancakes for Maslenitsa, lit bonfires for Ivan Kupala Day, and revered sacred stones. A long process of merging Christianity with paganism began, which has not been fully completed even in our time.
The Christian church could not turn people away from their usual holidays and rituals. Documents have been preserved in which priests complain about the fact that people prefer pagan amusements and gatherings to church visits. The church procession could collide on the streets of the city with a crowd of "mermaids" and "ghouls" in masks. Races, tournaments and games were held near the cathedrals. Then the priests acted differently: they tried to replace the old pagan holidays with new, Christian ones. The oldest Slavic winter holiday was timed by the church to coincide with the Nativity of Christ, and few people know that the bell ringing was also borrowed from the pagans. Many centuries ago, the Slavs tried to make a lot of noise on the coldest days, they beat metal objects in order to revive the life-giving rays of the sun. Later, on all major Christian holidays, bells began to ring in churches, but with a different purpose - as a greeting to Christ. Old traditions have left their mark on the celebration of Christian Christmas: singing of carols and pagan songs, masquerades, Christmas divination have become traditional.
The Orthodox Mother of God externally resembled the pagan goddess of the earth and fertility Lada - the mother of the Gods, the elder Rozhanitsa, later Bereginya, thereby uniting the old and new religious cults.
The ancient Slavs, among the many gods, especially revered Volos, or Peles, who, according to mythology, was “responsible” for the afterlife, for the fertility of livestock and the well-being of forest inhabitants. His companion was a cat. After the adoption of Christianity, the church tried for a long time to prohibit the veneration of both Peles and his cat, but every year at the end of May, festivities dedicated to this ancient God were held in many villages. The church had to find a "replacement" - May 22 was declared the day of St. Nicholas.
Like all agricultural peoples, the Slavs were constantly preoccupied with the future harvest, trying to do everything to make the year successful. In the first days of May, with the advent of spring shoots, another spring holiday was celebrated - the day of the god Yarila. The day of the sun was celebrated, which later grew into the Christian holiday of the Trinity. On this day, the Slavs decorated trees with ribbons, and houses with tree branches. The summer solstice crowned another pagan holiday - Ivan Kupala, now celebrated as the birth of John the Baptist.
Bright light in churches during holidays and services is also an old custom that existed in Rus' long before the adoption of Christianity. On all pagan holidays, both winter and summer, the Slavs burned fires, lit torches, made torchlight processions to the temples. Fire drove out evil forces, winter cold, and in summer - all kinds of evil spirits. In the Christian church, the meaning of fire has changed; it is considered an additional symbol of the significance of Jesus as the Light of the World.
Easter holidays and paganism
During pagan holidays, many ancient tribes decorated trees in winter. Christianity, represented by the monk Saint Boniface, made the fir tree its sacred symbol. Trying to lure the Druids into the Christian faith, Boniface claimed in his sermons that the oak, sacred to the Druids, managed to destroy all the trees, except for spruce, when falling. Therefore, Christianity did not declare oak, but spruce as a sacred tree. After the pagan Christmas time (turned by Christianity into Christmas) and the spring holiday of Maslenitsa, a new significant period began for the Slavs. The villagers gathered to pray to Beregina. Women stood in a round dance, one of the participants held bread in one hand, and a red egg in the other, which symbolized the vital energy that the sun gave people and all living things. Eggs in ancient times were painted only in red - it was the color of fire revered by all tribes. In addition, among the Russians, the red color was the personification of beauty; Christian priests dated the Great Easter holiday to this time.
At the same time, the Red Hill holiday was celebrated. The Slavs gathered on the hills and hills and welcomed the spring. Many ancient peoples had their own sacred mountains, hills and steeps, on which fires were kindled, sacred rites and prayers were held. One of the ancient precepts addressed to the newlyweds sounded like this: "Vyu, vine, give us our eggs!" In response, the young people presented painted eggs, Easter cakes, beer and wine to those present. Red eggs were rolled on the graves of relatives on Krasnaya Gorka, later distributing them to the poor. Krasnaya Gorka was considered in Rus' the most suitable time for weddings (the second such period came after the harvest).
In early spring, when the earth was freed from snow and the fields were ready to receive seeds, the ancient man performed rituals dedicated to his ancestors, who also lay in the ground. Peasant families went to cemeteries, brought ritual memorial dishes to the “grandfathers”: kutya from millet porridge with honey, chicken eggs. Appeasing the dead ancestors, people seemed to be asking them to help the future harvest. These days were called among the Slavs Radunitsa (from the word "rejoice"). People, commemorating the dead, believed that they rejoice in the spring and the sun with them. Red-painted eggs were a symbol of the connection between the dead and the living, some people even buried the eggs in small holes next to the grave. This custom was found among the Greeks and Romans in the pre-Christian period, when colored eggs were left on the graves of relatives as a special gift to the dead. Grooms and brides also left colored eggs on the graves of relatives, thus asking them for blessings for marriage. Remembering relatives, they drank a lot of wine and beer, hence even the saying was born; “We drank beer about Maslyanitsa, and with a hangover it broke after Radunitsa”.
In the northern Russian provinces, people walked on Radunitsa, singing, under the windows of their neighbors, songs that resembled Christmas carols sounded differently in each province, but everywhere the singers were presented with painted eggs, gingerbread, wine and pancakes in the same way.
On July 20, the ancient Slavs especially revered the thunder god Perun, while the Christian religion declared this day Ilya's day. It was one of the darkest days of the whole year - no songs were sung, no voices were even spoken. Perun demanded bloody sacrifices and was considered a formidable deity, as was later his Christian successor. And although the people began to call July 20 Elias day, pagan traditions survived for a long time: the peasants collected "thunder arrows" that did not fall into the devil and remained on the ground, they did not let cats or dogs into the house that day, because there was a fear that god can incarnate in these animals. And the priests had to announce, according to the ancient traditions of the people, that it was impossible to work in the field on Ilyin's day.
Easter after Nikon's reforms
Before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, Easter looked more like a great pagan festival than a triumph of Christ's victory over death. On Holy Week, Monday was considered a men's day, the guys doused the girls with water, while it was believed that if the girl remained dry, she was not beautiful enough and good for the grooms. On Tuesday, the girls took revenge on the guys, pouring water on them in revenge - it was women's day. On Wednesday and Thursday, the whole family thoroughly cleaned the house and outbuildings, put things in order, and threw out the old rubbish. Maundy Thursday was still called clean, because on this day, according to ancient pagan traditions, it was necessary to swim in a river, lake or bath at dawn. Christian traditions adopted these rituals, and on every “clean” Thursday, all believers not only bathed in baths and ponds, but also cleaned all residential and courtyard premises. In the northern regions of Rus', branches of juniper or fir were collected, burned, and fumigated with smoke in a dwelling, barn, barn. It was believed that juniper smoke is a talisman against evil spirits and diseases. On Friday it was impossible to do anything except the most necessary things. On this day, eggs were dyed and dough was put on Easter cakes, and married women carried food for the Easter table to poor houses. On Saturday, services continued all day, Easter cakes, colored eggs and Easter were consecrated in churches. The common people, in addition to fires, lit tar barrels, the boys placed torches and bowls with burning oil everywhere. The most daring put lanterns on the dome of the church. The coals left from the fires were then stored under the eaves of the roof so that there would be no fire.
On the Holy Week following Easter, believers sang songs and walked in crowds from house to house. They called this crowd a sorcerer, and its leader - an initiator. The first song was addressed to the owner and mistress, it glorified the construction of the house, wealth, piety. It was also mentioned that St. George protects cows, St. Nicholas - horses, St. Ilya keeps the fields, the Blessed Mother sows, and the Intercession harvests. After each line, the refrain was invariably sung: "Christ is Risen." These songs had deep pagan roots, they were performed back in those days when no one knew about Christianity. The farmers in the songs showed concern about the future harvest, worried about the safety of livestock. In the Polish lands, the Slavs carried a live rooster with them during the procession, which they considered as a symbol of the resurrection.
Bonfires were lit on elevated places throughout the week as a symbol of the victory of spring over winter.
Priests with icons walked around the yards, accompanied by the so-called God-bearers (as a rule, pious old women and old men). God-bearers carried with them candles for sale and mugs for collecting donations for the construction of churches. The retinue of the priest certainly dressed in festive clothes and girded with white towels, and elderly women tied their heads with white scarves. At first, everyone gathered at the church, the priest blessed Easter cakes with burning candles and made a procession around the church. After that, the Easter procession through houses and yards began. The beginning of the course was signaled by the ringing of the bell. The hosts were waiting for the guests - they lit candles near the icons, covered the table with a new white tablecloth and put a round rug and two loaves on it, and hid “Thursday” salt under one of the corners of the tablecloth. The owner, without a headdress, met dear guests and, while the prayer service was going on, he stood in front of the priest and his retinue. At the same time, the woman was holding the icon of the Mother of God in her hands. The men counted quietly aloud how many times the priest would say the words, "Jesus, son of God." They sang this less than twelve times, they asked in chorus to repeat the prayer,
Easter, or the Bright Resurrection of Christ, is the main Orthodox holiday. In Rus', both this day and the next week were fun: they prepared Easter traditional dishes - Easter cakes, curd Easter, painted eggs, danced round dances, swung on a swing, went around the house with congratulations.
We remember how Easter was celebrated in the old days.
Games
The meeting of the Holy Resurrection of Christ included not only a solemn service in the temple, but also folk festivals. After many days of fasting and the rejection of entertainment, the celebration was widely held - with round dances, games, songs. Easter in Rus' was celebrated from 3 to 7 days, and in some regions - even before the Trinity (celebrated 50 days after Easter).
A favorite pastime for Easter was egg rolling. Each region has its own rules of the game. For example, in the Pskov region, a player rolled a colored egg down a sloping wooden plank or a sloping hill and tried to knock down other eggs below with it. If the participant achieved the goal, then he took the beaten egg for himself and continued the game. If it missed, the next one entered the game, and the unsuccessfully rolled egg remained. Skillfully painted wooden eggs were often used, sometimes whole sets of such eggs were made especially for this entertainment. Wheelchairs are still played in some regions.
Also on Easter they put carousels and large swings, in the Pskov region they were called "unsteady". It was believed that the future harvest depends on swinging on them. That is why they swung most often from Easter to Trinity, just during the active growth of wheat. There was also a belief that the swing helps to quickly find a husband or wife. In the Russian villages of the Udmurt Republic, this belief was preserved in Easter songs and ditties, which were sung during the rocking: “Red egg! / Tell the groom. / You won’t say it - / Let’s rock you”, “There are swings on the mountain, / I’ll go swing. / Today I’ll spend the summer, / I’ll get married in the winter, ”“ We’ll pump it up, we’ll get it, / I’ll take it in marriage for myself.”
The swing song "Red Egg" performed by D.P. Dubovtseva and E.M. Barmina from the city of Izhevsk, Udmurt Republic
Among the popular was a fun known as "in the eagle", "in the toss". It was most often played for money. The easiest way to play: one of the participants tossed a coin, and when it fell to the ground, the second had to guess, without looking, which side it fell up. The obverse (heads) always meant a win, the reverse (tails) a loss. Therefore, the game got its name - "in the eagle." In some villages, it has survived to this day, for example, in the village of Kadyshevo, Ulyanovsk Region.
Songs
Before the revolution, Easter songs were passed down from generation to generation. With the advent of Soviet power in families, this tradition almost disappeared, however, folklore ensembles at clubs often knew and sang them.
The main Easter hymn - the troparion "Christ is risen from the dead" - was performed during the church service. But in some villages it sounded not only in the temple. For example, in the Smolensk region they performed their own, folk version of the troparion. It was called "shouting Christ." The women who sang it did not spare their voices. "Christ was shouted" in any situation - at work, on the street, during festivities and festive feasts.
In some regions, words from oneself were added to the canonical text of the troparion. God was asked about the main thing: health, prosperity, good harvest. Such songs were sung in the Bezhetsky district of the Tver region. Here, for a long time, the tradition of going around the village with the icon of the Mother of God was preserved for a long time - the villagers believed that this was how they protected themselves from all sorts of troubles.
In the Pskov region, girls and women sang songs on the very first day of Easter, and in the Cossack farm Yaminsky, Volgograd region, wide festivities began later - on the first Sunday after Easter (Red Hill), and ended on Trinity. As a rule, they started celebrating here after lunch. The Cossacks gathered together on two opposite sides of the farm, laid tables and sang songs - "lyuleiki" - that's what they were called because of the refrain "oh, lyuli, lyuli". Then they moved to the center of the farm and laid a common table on the street.
Dances and round dances
With the end of Lent, the ban on dancing was also lifted. An integral part of the Easter festivities were round dances, which were led to special songs. In the village of Stropitsy, Kursk Region, tanks were driven - special round dances of two types: circular and longitudinal. The circles looked like a theatrical performance. The dancers sang story songs and played different roles in them. Longitudinal tanks acted on the principle of a stream. These dances were performed only once a year, on Krasnaya Gorka.
Karagod song “Quit, nanny, work to work” performed by the folklore ensemble “Peasant Woman” from the village of Russkaya Trostyanka, Ostrogozhsky District, Voronezh Region
The dragging song "Dragling" performed by U. V. and E. V. Pozdnyakov from the village of Boriskovo, Nevelsky district, Pskov region
In the Kostroma region, on the first Sunday after Easter, they went around the courtyards of the newlyweds. This rite was called "Vyunets". In the morning, the children called out to the newly-made spouses under the windows and sang the song “Young Young Lady”. Boys and girls came to call the newlyweds in the middle of the day, and adults - after dinner. The climbers first sang on the porch, then they were invited into the house and treated at the table.
The Kukmor Udmurts also had a custom reminiscent of traditional Russian bypass rituals. Young girls and boys riding on festively decorated horses drove into every yard and sang the call “Hurrah!” to the owners, calling them out into the street. Later, everyone sat down for a hundred, and the guests were treated to festive food.
The most important holiday in the Orthodox church calendar is the Bright Sunday of Christ, also called Easter. This day is the center of the whole tradition, history and philosophy of Orthodoxy. It symbolizes the victory of life over death in the broadest sense.
The date of the celebration is calculated every year according to the lunar calendar. There are Gregorian and Alexandrian Paschalia - complex astronomical systems for calculating the exact date. The Russian Orthodox Church adheres to the Alexandrian Paschalia and uses the Julian calendar. Sometimes these systems give out one date, then Catholics celebrate Easter together with the Orthodox. In all calendars and traditions, the date of Easter always falls on a Sunday. This day of the week got its name from the holiday.
Holiday name
According to the four Gospels, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ fell on the Jewish holiday of Pesach. On this day, the Jews celebrated the Exodus from Egypt. The Old Testament says that the last "Egyptian plague", which finally persuaded the pharaoh to decide to let the Jews go, was the murder of all the firstborn by an angel. The angel did not touch only those who slaughtered the lamb and smeared their doors with its blood. Thus, the blood of the lamb saved people from death. In the New Testament, Christ is the Lamb who saves people.
Gradually, the Hebrew word "peisach" was transformed into the Russian "Easter". And people began to use the abbreviated name of the holiday more often instead of the full one.
The history of the celebration of Easter
The early Christians believed that they were living in the end of time and every year they expected the Second Coming. In memory of the sacrifice of Jesus, they began to celebrate the liturgy, remembering all the events - from the Last Supper to the Resurrection. Every Friday has become a day of mourning, and Sunday a day of joy. This bitterness and joy reached its climax on the day of the Jewish Passover. Thus was born Easter in our modern sense.
Easter in Rus'
The holiday came to our region along with Christianity. After Saint Prince Vladimir baptized Rus', Pascha became the most important state event. Celebrations have since lasted at least three days. Sometimes Russian princes, after successful campaigns or the birth of an heir, stretched out the celebration for a whole week.
Sunday preceded Great Lent, which lasted at least forty days. Our ancestors used this period of time for spiritual purification. The pilgrimage to the monasteries was very popular. Ordinary peasants set out on foot for many kilometers to arrive at the monastery even during fasting. There they confessed and met Pascha already cleansed.
Celebrations in the New Time
At all times, until the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, Easter remained not only the main spring holiday, but also the most central event in the calendar. This was until the early 1920s, when atheism became state policy. The authorities forbade Easter liturgies, opposing the Sunday of Christ with its analogue - Workers' Solidarity Day.
But already in the early nineties of the last century, all the bans were lifted and several red days in the spring appeared again on the calendar. As in the old days, Easter occupies a dominant place among all religious events. Even the head of state on this day attends a service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
Folk customs and traditions
Since Christians abstain from fast food for a long time before Easter, many Easter traditions have a culinary character.
Kulich or Paska
The main dish of the holiday is rich Easter cake, which is now commonly called "paska". Easter cakes are baked in advance and the day before the holiday they are lit in the church. Our ancestors called paska a completely different dish - cheese baba. For its preparation, many chicken eggs and selected cottage cheese were used. Easter cakes were baked separately. Pasca had the shape of a pyramid, which symbolized Mount Calvary, where Jesus Christ was buried. Eating Easter symbolized the victory of Christ over death.
It is customary to bring Easter cakes to church in wicker baskets made of wicker or other material. In some parishes, paskas are consecrated on the evening before Easter, in others on Sunday.
A separate tradition is the decoration of baskets. Now many Western attributes have come to us that were previously uncharacteristic of the Orthodox tradition. Such symbols include rabbits, yellow flowers and heart-shaped confectionery.
colored eggs
Together with Easter cakes, it is customary to put eggs in a basket, painted bright red or covered with an intricate pattern. They are also meant to symbolize the victory of life over death. There is a version that this tradition is dictated by the shape of the egg - there is life under the dead shell.
After the Easter meal begins, the children take the eggs in their hands and try to break their friend's egg. This game was called "Christosovanie", because when the egg was struck, the Easter greeting was usually pronounced: "Christ is Risen."
Church Liturgy - Easter Liturgy
Divine services in Orthodox churches begin in the evening of the previous day and continue throughout the night. Although the majority of believers come only in the morning to get to the main part of the action - the Holy Liturgy. In ancient times, it was customary to baptize catechumens on this day. Then, in order to become a Christian, it was necessary to prove one's piety for a long period. Such candidates were called catechumens, they were not allowed to be present in the church during the sacraments.
During Lent, priests wear either passionate red vestments or purple mourning vestments. In such clothes they begin the Easter service. But as soon as the joyful “Christ is Risen” sounds, they change into the most beautiful outfits, sewn from white fabric with an abundance of gold.
Immediately after the end of the festive liturgy, festivities begin. On this day, it is customary to wear the best clothes and not restrain oneself in manifestations of joy. Young guys blow up crackers and fireworks, large fairs open, where not only goods are sold, but various competitions are held. For example, a pole is placed on the main square, to the top of which a valuable item is tied. To win the contest, you need to climb to the top of the pillar and remove this item, receiving it as a prize.
From time immemorial, artisans have used folk festivals to showcase their best products. For example, bakers on this day baked a gigantic Easter cake right on the square and divided it among everyone.
Sunday of Christ was also considered an excellent occasion for charity. On this day, the imperial couple could visit a shelter for orphans or the poor. In the houses of rich people, the poor were received or food was taken out to the street.
In the evening, towards the end of the festivities, it is customary to burn the Easter fire. On the main square of the settlement, a bonfire of a rather large size was laid out and set on fire after dark. Now, for obvious reasons, this tradition is forgotten. Although in some villages bonfires are lit, but not in the main square, but near the church.
Easter is the most joyful and most revered holiday in the Orthodox world. It is preceded by a severe forty-day fast, they prepare for it in advance: they clean houses, paint eggs, prepare a festive meal, 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?
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.
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 the Red Week, Bright Week), they walked and had fun, and the remains of food consecrated in the church were buried in the field so that the harvest was rich. Easter symbols and ancient rituals associated with them
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 colored 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. 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 pagan and Christian traditions, beliefs of ancient tribes and customs of different peoples.
The celebration of Easter was established in apostolic times. The ancient Christians especially revered not only the day of the Resurrection itself, but also the entire Bright Week, during which they gathered daily for public worship. In order not to violate the holiness of the great celebration, impious entertainment was forbidden during Bright Week. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (691) decreed for the faithful: “From the holy day of the Resurrection of Christ our God until the New Week, throughout the whole week in the holy churches, unceasingly exercise in psalms and spiritual songs and songs, rejoicing and triumphing in Christ and listening to the reading of Divine Scriptures and enjoying the holy mysteries. For in this way, with Christ, we too will resurrect and be exalted. For this reason, horse racing, or any other popular spectacle, does not take place on the said days "... Over time, strict prohibitions on entertainment were abolished.
In Rus', the celebration of Easter was introduced at the end of the 10th century. From the very beginning, Easter was widely celebrated in our country, for it was the most beloved national holiday, when "the Russian soul, as it were, dissolves and softens in the warm rays of Christ's love, and when people most of all feel a living, cordial connection with the great Redeemer of the world."
Easter was celebrated in every corner - from the Kremlin Palace to the poorest house, the holiday spread throughout Rus'. A foreign traveler in his book about Russia, published in Leipzig in 1620, wrote as follows: “In all cities and villages of the country, in all large and small streets, Russians put several thousand barrels and cauldrons with boiled eggs, painted red, blue, yellow, green, and various other colors, and some of them gilded and silvered Passers-by buy them as much as they want, but do not save a single egg for themselves, because all the people, rich and poor, nobles and commoners, all Easter , men and women, boys and girls, servants and maids, carry painted eggs with them, wherever they are, wherever they go, and when they meet someone, familiar or unfamiliar, they greet, say: "Christ is risen! ", and he answers: "Truly He is risen!", And they give each other eggs, kiss and caress each other, and then each goes his own way until he meets someone again and corrects the same rite, so that sometimes he spends up to 200 eggs a day. They adhere to this custom so sacredly and firmly that they consider it the greatest impoliteness and insult if someone, having met another, says the above words to him and gives him an egg, but this one does not take and does not want to kiss him, who would whether he was a princess, or another noble woman, or a maiden. They do it 14 days in a row."
Russian tsars solemnly celebrated Easter. “After matins in the Assumption Cathedral, the sovereign “kissed on the lips” with the patriarch and the authorities, that is, metropolitans, archbishops and bishops, and the archimandrites, abbots and archpriest of the Assumption with the cathedral granted to the hand, and he granted red eggs to everyone. - writes in his book A.P. Aksyonov – Boyars, okolniki and everyone who prayed in the cathedral approached the patriarch, kissed him on the hands and received either gilded or red eggs – the highest three, the middle ones two, and the youngest one each... After the matins from the Assumption Cathedral, the sovereign, along with numerous "ranks" marched to the Cathedral of the Archangel, where, observing the ancient custom, he kissed the icons and holy relics and "christened with his parents", that is, he worshiped their coffins .... On the next or third day holiday, and most often on Wednesday of Bright Week, the sovereign received in the Golden Chamber, in the presence of the entire royal rank, the patriarch and spiritual authorities, who came with a offering or gifts: images, painted and painted eggs. Numerous delegations came from monasteries, from farmsteads, guests from all Russian cities ... ".
The village was especially reverent about the feast of the Resurrection of Christ, where "the connection with ancient customs is felt more vividly, and where the Orthodox faith is stronger." In the villages, preparations for Easter were made very carefully and ahead of time. Throughout Holy Week, peasants dressed up their homes: they whitewashed stoves, washed benches, scraped tables, and so on. At this time, the peasants prepared firewood, bread and fodder for cattle. On Saturday, the whole world went to church to bless Easter cakes, eggs and Easter. Everything cooked was put on a large dish, tied with a special embroidered towel, and decorated with flowers. By the evening of Holy Saturday, the people hurried to church to listen to the reading of "passions". Easter night turned out to be especially solemn and beautiful - lit lanterns and bonfires illuminated the church and the bell tower. With the first stroke of the bell, the people rushed to the temple to listen to Matins. Near the iconostasis and near the church walls, the Easter food brought for consecration was placed. Exactly at 12 o'clock, after matins, they began firing from a cannon or from rifles in the fence. All those present in the church made the sign of the cross, and then, to the sound of bells, "Christ is Risen" was heard. After the end of the liturgy, the consecration of Easter cakes and Easter began.
Having consecrated the Easter cakes, every Orthodox had to go to the cemetery before even going home and to partake of Christ with the deceased parents. On the graves they left a piece of Easter and Easter cake (necessarily consecrated, because, without being consecrated, the Easter cake remains just a rich pie). Only after that it was possible to go home - to christen and break the fast with the family. Mothers always woke up children (even the smallest ones) by the time of conversation, saying: "Get up, little one, get up, God gave us little pastries."
Throughout the Bright Week, Easter prayers were served in the villages. The priests walked around the peasant huts, accompanied by "shelters" and "sheds", who were otherwise called "God-bearers", because they wore icons. The God-bearers dressed in everything clean and gave a vow not to drink wine. "Walking under God" was considered a pious feat, wearing icons during the entire Bright Week was equal to the seventh part of the journey to Jerusalem.
Easter festivities began only after the prayers were served. “Adults “visit” each other, drink vodka without measure, sing songs and visit the bell tower with particular pleasure, where they ring from early morning until 4-5 pm,” historians testify. Ringing the bells was a favorite Easter pastime: “During the whole Bright Week, guys, girls, men, women and children crowd the bell tower: everyone grabs the ropes and raises such a chime that the priest now and then sends deacons to appease the merry Orthodox and drive them away from bell towers". Another favorite pastime was egg rolling. Eggs were rolled from some kind of tubercle or special trays were made. If the rolled egg hit one of those lying on the ground, the player took this egg for himself. In the 17th century decrees were issued forbidding peasants to beat with Easter eggs, since this custom has nothing to do with the dogmas of faith. But the decrees did not bring any results. By the way, once it was not allowed to lead round dances on Easter, as it was considered a pagan rite. But later, it was from Easter that round dances began. But there was no Easter without a swing. Swings for children were arranged in almost every yard, and in a traditional place, poles were dug in ahead of time, ropes were hung, boards were attached - public swings were erected. Also on Easter they played toss and cards, although this was not encouraged.
And, of course, it is difficult to imagine this bright holiday without guests. At Easter, an obligatory invitation to visit godfathers and matchmakers was adopted. Historians point out that in this respect, Easter has much in common with Shrovetide, when in the same way householders consider it a duty to exchange visits with matchmakers, but even future matchmakers are invited to Easter.
The whole Easter week passed in joyful meetings and plentiful meals, people gave gifts to each other.