Easter is celebrated with great zeal and enthusiasm throughout the world. On the
occasion of Easter, the Christian community presents in every nook and corner of
the world celebrates this day as the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ
after crucifixion. The celebration of Easter is marked by morning services at
the church and feasting and party in the evening. In almost all the countries
around the world, the festivities of Easter are more or less the same. However,
certain specific traditions of the place make the Easter at a particular country
stand a little different from the other. Here in this article we have explored
the Easter celebrations in Romania.
Easter in Romania is celebrated according to the rituals of the Eastern Orthodox
Church. The Easter entire season consists of Flowers Saturday (Lazarus’
Saturday), Palm Day (Flowers Day), Great Thursday, Great Friday, Easter, The
Small Fountain and Good People’s Easter. Each of these has small interesting
rituals. The Easter celebration goes on for a long week and finally wraps with
Good People’s Easter celebrated in honor of the ancient spirits.
The Friday before the Easter is called the Great Friday or the Friday of
sufferings, as it is the day when Jesus was crucified. On Saturday, people go to
church for the midnight mass, taking with them a bowl of Pasca, eggs and steak,
where these aliments are blessed by the clergy. On returning home from the mass,
people first eat some of the sanctified aliments and only then the rest.
Starting with Holy Thursday, people start painting eggs in a multitude of
colors. The predominant color is red, but other colors are also applied -
yellow, green, blue and even black. Decorated eggs or 'oua incondeiate' are an
integral part of Easter celebration in Romania. The eggs are decorated using a
type of thin and round sticks called chisita, made of beech wood.
The special Easter cake, known as Pasca, is baked on Great Thursday. The Pasca
can have a round shape (reminding little Jesus' diapers) or a rectangular one
(the shape of his grave). The shells of the eggs used for the Pasca are thrown
in a river. This action stems from the ancient belief that the shells are taken
by the river to the country of the Good People, announcing them the Easter has
came.
In some regions (Bucovina, Transylvania), there is a tradition called "the
wetting". On Monday morning, the boys take a bucket of water and go to the
houses of the unmarried girls. If they found them sleeping, the boys throw water
on them. As it is believed that those girls will marry soon, they reward the
boys who had wetted them by giving them the most beautiful decorated eggs and
Pasca or cake.
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