EASTER TRADITIONS AND BLESSING OF EASTER FOODS
Easter is a time of celebration and renewal. From the colorful Pysanky eggs to the sweet aroma of freshly baked Paska bread, Easter traditions are a vibrant and important celebration to mark the resurrection of Christ.
Preparations
People start spiritual preparation for Easter 40 days before the holiday. This is when Great Lent begins – a time of giving up meat, dairy food, and eggs, as well as a time of spirituality.
Willow Sunday
Willow Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week and the Easter preparations. People carrying branches of pussy willow, which they bring to a Church Service to be blessed. After the service, it is traditional to tap one another with the willow branches to encourage good health. This act is accompanied with several different phrases, depending on which region of Ukraine you are from:
Не я б’ю — верба б’є, За тиждень Великдень, Недалечко червоне яєчко!
I don’t beat – the willow beats, Easter is in a week, the red egg is not far away!
Будь сильний, як вода, багатий, як земля, а здоровий, як верба.
Be strong as water, rich as the earth, and healthy as a willow tree.
The branches are then taken home and put in front of Holy Icons. In some regions, it is customary for the father and eldest son to plant some of the branches in the garden. If they began to grow, it symbolized good luck for the family in the coming year.
Holy Week
Holy Week begins after Willow Sunday, and lasts until Easter Sunday. During this time, it is common to observe a strict fast, regularly attend Church services, and prepare spiritually for Easter. It is during Holy Week that traditional Easter components are made, such as the traditional Easter eggs Pysanky and Krashanky, alongside the baking of the Paska (Easter Bread). The woman baking the bread would change into clean clothes and also pray.
Good Friday
Good Friday is a solemn day in Ukraine which commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Divine Liturgy is not performed, instead the Gospel about the Passion of Christ is read in Church. The main rite on Good Friday is the removal of the Shroud, which symbolises the cloth in which Jesus Christ was wrapped after he was taken down from the Cross.
On this day of mourning, no manual labour is allowed and a strict fast is followed until the removal of the Shroud in Church. After returning from Church, the family sit at the table to have dinner. Dinner on Good Friday still observes the fast with no meat or dairy products permitted, traditionally even fish is not eaten.
Easter Saturday
Holy Saturday, is traditionally a day of preparation. Some families have their Easter baskets blessed on this day, whilst others do this on Easter Sunday morning. The contents of the Easter Basket are later enjoyed at the Easter Breakfast, the following morning.
EASTER AND THE BLESSING OF FOOD
“The Holy Spirit reminds us not to reject the traditions of our elders, which they have learned from their fathers” (Sirach 8:9). Together with the Byzantine Rite, we have inherited many meaningful customs that make our liturgical worship inspiring, spiritually rich and close to the heart of our people.
Among these venerable customs, we count the custom of blessing food at Easter.
In earlier times, meat and dairy products were excluded from the daily diet during the entire season of the Great Fast, beginning with Cheesefare Sunday. As the end of the strict fast approached, the people showed their joy and gratitude by taking their food to church to be blessed and eaten after the Easter Liturgy. This is the reason why the liturgical books prescribe the blessing of the food after the Divine Liturgy on Easter Sunday.
TRADITIONAL EASTER BASKET
A venerable tradition in the Byzantine Church is the blessing of Easter Baskets. It is a very symbolic and tasty custom. These baskets of food are brought to the church to be blessed. The foods represent the foods abstained from during Lent: eggs, meat, butter, rich breads and more. All meals on Easter Sunday are eaten from the basket, so that no one need be busy with preparation of additional food on such a solemn Holy Day.
Each basket is covered with a cloth usually embroidered with the words “Christ is Risen” and containing a lighted candle, which is also usually decorated. The traditional basket contains the Easter bread called pascha, ham, egg cheese, sausage, butter, pysanki (decorated eggs), chrin (horseradish and beet mixture), bacon, and salt.
The traditional foods all have symbolic meaning which are briefly summarized as follows:
Firstly, the Easter bread (pascha) is a large round loaf of bread, made of white flour and enriched by adding eggs, raisins, and milk. It symbolizes our Lord Jesus Christ, the “living Bread,” (In. 6:51) Who “came down from heaven to give life (eternal) to the world” (cf. Prayer for the Blessing of the Bread).
Secondly, the tradition to put meat dishes in the basket is generally referred to the Old Testament Easter: on this holiday people were eating a sacrificial lamb in commemoration of how the Lord commanded to slaughter the lamb and to mark the doors with its blood, so that the angel of the wrath of the Lord would bypass the dwellings of the chosen people.
Lamb is a prototype of Jesus Christ who saved all people from the power of death with his blood. This is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whom John the Baptist calls the Lamb of God who accepts the sins of the world. In Halychyna people put smoked sausage and ham in the Easter basket. In central Ukraine, it was more common to put baked meat, sausages, and salo (bacon/salted pork fat).
As we learn from the prayer of blessing, the meat products also symbolize the fattened calf prepared for the Prodigal Son (representing fallen mankind) on his return to his father (Heavenly Father). Thus, at Easter we celebrate our return to God and our joyous participation in the blessings of our Savior, Who promised to be our “true food” (In. 6:55).
Finally, milk foods are the products that are not created by a man but are gifted by Mother Nature. Cheese and butter symbolize the sacrifice and tenderness of God, which you should wish as a child wishes the mother’s milk. By tradition, dairy products are put in small containers and are covered with lids where crosses are drawn.
Butter: This favorite dairy product is often shaped into a lamb or is decorated with a cross. It reminds us of the goodness of Christ that we should have toward all things.
Eggs were always considered as a symbol of the resurrection, the emergence of a new life. At Easter our Savior came forth from the tomb as the chick after breaking the shell at birth. Because of this special meaning, it is fitting that Easter eggs be colored or decorated. They are the favored object of our national art and are known to us as “pisanki.”
Easter eggs are put next to the Easter bread into the basket. There are many types of Easter eggs, including pysanky (eggs decorated with traditional Ukrainian folk designs using a wax-resist method), krashanky (one-color dyed eggs), driapanky (eggs with a design scratched on their shells).
“In Halychyna (Galicia), both krashanky and eggs without a shell were put in a basket, while in central Ukraine whole eggs were blessed”.
In central Ukraine, everyone had their own krashanka. In Halychyna, one egg was divided among all members of the family. Traditionally, krashanky were primarily colored in red, according to the legend about Mary Magdalene, who came to the Tiberius, the second emperor of Rome, with a red krashanka to announce the Resurrection of Christ.
Horseradish (Chrin): symbolizes the strength and invincibility of the human spirit after performing the sacrament of Confession. This powerful root can give a person faith in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The horseradish root which is especially widespread in Western Ukraine, refers to the Old Testament. During Easter, Jews had to eat foods seasoned with bitter spices to remember the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.
There is a legend that someone tried to poison Christ with horseradish roots that were believed to be deadly because of their bitterness. However, this plant, as a natural antiseptic, on the contrary, is beneficial and helps digestion.
Evergreens: The basket was also obligatory decorated with an evergreen plant – as a symbol of eternal life and immortality. In central Ukraine as well as in Stryishchyna, creeping myrtle (periwinkle) was mostly used, while in the Lviv region and Boikivshchyna – people used boxwood.
Salt: also was always blessed. It symbolizes the quality of communication between God and people who need to keep the purity of their heart to imitate Christ. Ukrainians meet guests with bread and salt and took a piece of salt with them when they went on a journey.
Embroidered towel: the basket is covered with a beautiful embroidered napkin or towel symbolizing life. This is the wealth of threads woven with love and intelligence. During the blessing, people put a candle in the basket which reminds of Jesus, who is the Light for the world. A candle is a light that comes out between people.
National Folk Customs
Shells from blessed eggs, crumbs and bones were not thrown out, but were buried either in the garden, or in the field, so that the earth, too, might receive some blessed matter.
In certain localities of Ukraine it was customary on the day of Resurrection for families to visit the graves of their beloved dead, in order to share with them the joy of the Resurrection and to salute them with the greeting of the Resurrection. At the Kievan Pecherska Lavra following the resurrection services, the monks and the faithful descended into the underground caves in order to announce to the deceased monks the news of Christ’s resurrection.
In ancient times, a custom prevailed of building fires on Easter night. These fires, in Christian religion, came to symbolize those fires which the soldiers, guarding the grave of Christ, kindled during the night, and they symbolize our greeting of the Sun of Truth – the Risen Christ.
The Easter greeting is: Khrystos voskres! with the response: Voistynu Voskres!.
The translation is: “Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!“
