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Hristos a inviat, Adevarat a inviat!

ROMANIAN ORTHODOX EASTER

Most Romanian Easter traditions are the same all over the country. Still, each region has some specific customs and practices. Typically associated with the natural beauty of the areas, some of them legendary, the Easter Holidays should encourage you to explore Romania.
Are you going to be in Romania for Orthodox Easter this year? Then you could spend this holiday in a unique and unforgettable way.
Although staying in Bucharest doesn't mean you are going to be bored, as there are many places to go and a lot of things to do, few of the old traditions have been kept alive here. If you really want to experience Romanian Easter, you need to go to villages or small towns. The local residents will welcome you into their homes with traditional “pasca” and “cozonac” (a sort of pound cake), with coloured eggs, painted in themes which are specific to this part of the world (we call them “oua incondeiate”).
We cannot speak about Easter without saying a few words about the Holy Day that precedes it, Palm Sunday (in Romanian, “Florii”), the Sunday before Easter. On this day, we celebrate the revival of nature. The faithful go to church to bless small willow branches, which they later put at their windows, doors or gates. In some areas the villagers will put these branches around their waist ,in the belief or hope that this will protect them from disease and make them stronger. They also hang the “martisor” lace, which they wore in March, on a blossoming tree, in addition to some objects from the dowry of young girls. During this night, the girls put sweet basil flowers under their pillows, if they want to get married that year.
In Muntenia, people don't wash their hair on this day, believing that if you do that on Florii, when all the trees blossom, your hair will turn white like the crowns of the trees. Another old belief says that the on Easter the weather will be just as it is on Florii. The popular name of this holiday comes from the Roman goddess of flowers, called Flora. The Christian Holiday overlapped the Roman one. If there is a storm, people may burn the buds of the willows from Florii, in order to scatter the clouds and the hailstones, protecting their house and family from disaster.
In the countryside, peasants make big fires on top of the hills during the Easter night. The fires are called “watch fires”, and in some villages they burn all night, the fires can be seen not only on the hills, but also the valleys. The celebrants sit around the fire, re-telling stories from the life of Jesus. The boys and the young men jump over the fire, so that witches will have no power over them.
A ritual washing takes place on Easter morning., the villagers put a red egg in a basin or, in some places, a silver coin, over which they pour fresh water brought from a well. All the members of the family wash themselves, while saying: “Let me be healthy, and may my cheeks be as red as the egg; let everybody want me and wait for me as are awaited red eggs on Easter; let me be loved like eggs on Easter Day.” Then they take the silver coin and, passing it over their faces, they say: “Let me be proud and clean like silver”. The girls add to that: “Let me pass from one hand to another while dancing, like money; let me be light like the egg-shell, which floats on water”. In some villages, they also put common basil in the basin, for they say that if you wash yourself with it you will be honored like basil.
Having come back from church, the family sits around the table. After eating and toasting with glasses of drink, there comes the great moment: the knocking of eggs. The head of the family knocks first with his wife, speaking the traditional “Christ has risen!”, to which the response comes right away: “He has risen, indeed!”, sometimes add: “Let us knock eggs so we may have a beautiful Easter next year as well, and after death meet each other again in heaven”. The other members of the family follow in turn, beginning with the elderly. According to popular belief, it is well to remember with whom you knocked first, because, if you happen to get lost in a forest, all you have to do is remember the person with whom you knocked eggs first on Easter, and you will find your way back. Lunch on the first day of Easter is a chance to reunite the family, following the entire ritual. On the Easter table you will always find, beside the red eggs, the green cheese, green onion and radish salad, kell and, of course, lamb steak.
All these practices have very old roots, going back to the Middle Ages or earlier, some preceding Christianity. The tradition of using coloured eggs on different occasions comes from times out of mind. It existed already in ancient Egypt and Rome. The Chinese used coloured eggs 2000 years before Christ. The researcher Ioan I. Lacusta speaks about the Easter egg as “a bearer of life, a symbol of regeneration, purification and eternity”. In Bucovina, the red egg is believed to protect people from the devil, who try to learn whether they dye the eggs and keep the traditions. Only when these customs disappear will he come to the world.
One of the oldest storie about coloured eggs in Romania is of the Florentine secretary of Constantin Brancoveanu, Antonio Maria del Chiaro, who, around the year 1700, was amazed by the golden color of the dyed eggs from the Court of the Muntenian ruler.
The colors used for dying eggs correspond to certain symbols:
Red – the symbol of blood, sun, fire, love and joy of life
Black – absolute stability, eternity
Yellow – light, youth, happiness, harvest
Green – revival of nature, freshness, hope, fertility
Blue – sky, health, vitality
Violet – self control, patience, confidence in justice
A long time ago, the eggs were dyed using vegetal colors, but today chemical dyes are more typical. Vegetal colors were prepared following old recipes, passed on from one generation to another, with a great variety of methods and techniques. The materials and utensils used in decorating the eggs are extremely diverse, ingenious and vary in the different regions of the country. In some areas people boil the eggs, in others, they make a small hole and suck out the contents. Decorative eggs are also made with colors in relief (Vrancea, Putna Sucevei), embellished with glass beads (Bucovina), of wood (Neamt), of clay (Corund-Harghita) or even of plastic (Bucovina). The ornamentation of the eggs includes geometrical, vegetal, animal, anthropomorphous, as well as religious symbols


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