ElfyWhen we think of Easter, a lot of things come to mind.
Spring, the resurrection, the catkins, the spring break, the end of the fast, the delicious ham and cake, the coloured eggs, the lamb and the fish, the long weekend. It’s a holiday for what we’ve been preparing for every year, maybe since January.
We keep in mind the Easter date, plan family programs, book maybe wellness weekend, and yes, we writing the shopping list for the Easter menu.
What do you need to know about this real spring holiday?
The Date Of Easter In 2022
This year will be on 17-18 April.
Do you know why Easter is different every year?
According to official sources, the time of Easter is always the Sunday following the first lunar charge after spring day-night equality. Easter can never be before March 22, nor can it be after April 25.
The first Council of Nicea decided on this method of calculating the planet-adapted Easter long ago, in 325, and all Christian churches except the Orthodox Churches adhere to this procedure.
The date of Ash Wednesday was exactly shown by the time of Easter 2022, as it is Easter Sunday on the 40th day after Ash Wednesday.
Lent will begin on March 2, 2022, so Easter will be on 17-18 April.
In some countries, it is public holiday on Good Friday, April 15, so the long Easter weekend is a 4-day holiday.
What do we celebrate at Easter?
Easter is one of the most important and greatest celebrations of the Christian church, on which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but also the greeting of the spring coming, think only of the budding trees, the spring flowers, the budding plants that signify the rebirth and resurrection of nature.
Countless Jewish, Germanic and Catholic traditions and rituals have been associated with it for thousands of years.
Today it is a church and family holiday that does not lack the symbols of Easter.
Easter symbols and traditions
Easter Bunny
There is no Easter without a bunny. The symbol of the Easter Bunny originated in Germany, and it was said that Ostara, the Germanic goddess, had a bird laying colored eggs, which she turned into a rabbit for the sake of entertaining children or maybe in her anger.
This is how the strange bunny, which lays a nest and fills it with eggs, is given a place in the Easter celebration.
Easter egg
The egg is the oldest symbol of the rebirth and fertility of life. It is a symbol of birth, creation, renewal. In many creation myths, the world comes from eggs. Although small and fragile, it symbolises the greatness of the universe and the mystery of the transition from the inanimate to the living. Colored eggs is also a very old habit, there are countless ways to paint Easter eggs, from ready-made colored egg paints to natural ingredients to wax writing.
Easter lamb
The Easter lamb symbolises Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, and refers to the Jewish roots of the feast when the Jews in the Old Testament sacrificed a lamb to save their firstborn sons.
Catkins
An important symbol of Easter, it replaces the palm branches with which people greeted Jesus entering Jerusalem. To commemorate this, the catkins are hallowed on Flower Sunday. In folk tradition, the hallowed catkins was placed under an eaves to protect the house from lightning.
Easter sprinkling
Easter sprinkling is a symbol of ritual cleansing, in some countries, like Hungary, Romania long ago the boys dragged the girls to the well and trough, and a number of buckets of fresh water were poured on them.
Today, the habit of watering is with parfume, although buckets full of water are found in villages and communities that preserve folk traditions.
Easter menu
Ham, eggs, lamb and sweet bread. These delicacies are definitely on many family’s Easter table around the world, just to mention some, prepared in countless ways, of course. On Green Thursday we eat fresh vegetables, on Good Friday we eat fish according to the fasting, then on Easter Sunday and Monday the real Easter feast can come.
