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Er... I am sorry, but Easter is about Christ, actually, not about "traditions".

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nerdesque.livejournal.com

It still involves traditions.

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I dont entirely get the jist of your comment...
but maybe I came off wrong in my post,
I am christian and we have religious traditions at many holidays,
like easter and christmas (that arn't about the easter bunny and santa clause)
such as go to an easter/christmas plays, light 4 candles, christmas tree with a star to reprosent the night christ was born, sing to god etc etc.
but I am just curious about other parts of the world.
Like I have heard about the catholic lent, and I have no idea what it is about. And that russians have a form of 'lent' too? And they bake many cakes on easter??
Anyways I am compleatly ignorant on the subject, and as long as it doesn't offend anyone, I'd like to hear stories? examples of what and why people do things? like go to midnight liturgy ... ?

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la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com

yes, we do have lent, and you´re not supposed to eat meat, milk or any other products that come from living beings during the time. It´s a long period and there´re several throughout the year but I won´t tell HOW long coz I never observe it. The Great one starts from Maslenitza and lasts, I believe, till Easter (but ask sb else:). But today it seems to me that many people do observe it, and not out of religion but because it´s becoming fashionable. It´s sad, imho.

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That's right, the Lent starts on Clean Monday (Чистый понедельник) that comes after Forgiving Sunday (Прощеное воскресенье) which is the last day of Maslenitsa. And the last day of the Lent is Great Saturday, the day before Easter. 7 weeks in all. However, the Lent is not first and foremost about food. It is about spiritual renewal and forgiving, about trying to do (at least for a while) without things that are not really vital, about concentrating on what is really vital, about prayer. Food abstinence is only a means to an end, not the purpose of the Lent. But most people don't know or care and they observe Lent "for health" or just because it is "tradition". And I agree, this is really sad.

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giftchild.livejournal.com

lent is what is refered to as a time of 'fast and abstinence,' eating less, abstaining from meats and rich foods, etc., particularly meat on fridays ('good/holy friday' being the day christ died). lent starts on ash wednesday and last until holy saturday, 40 days long, as jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert.

the day before ash wednesday, therefor is the day to use up the cream, butter, eggs, meat, etc., and is 'the day to party before the no-partying time,' called fat/shrove tuesday, or in french, mardi gras, and is celebrated with many different cakes, foods and general partying.

in medieval christianity, too, easter was the more important holiday, as it celebrated christ's resurection, which allows for the future resurection of his followers ( a fine reason to celebrate. after all, everone is born, few rise from the dead.). hence the proper christian name of the holiday being 'the feast of the resurection' or 'the pascal feast' (also proper, from its jewish passover roots). 'easter' is the name of a pagan britano-germanic springtime fertility goddess. it is from her that we get the 'eggs and bunnies' fertility symbolism (mating season for the latter, increased egg-laying from poultry with the increased sunlight after the spring equinox, etc.). many modern pagans celebrate the spring equinox as a holiday they call 'ostara.' easter is the only christian holiday based on a lunar date ( as it's based on the date for passover, and teh hebrew calendar is lunar.), the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, hence why its date changes year to year.

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icedink.livejournal.com

There is no Ash Wednesday where Eastern Orthodoxy is concerned.

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giftchild.livejournal.com

midnight liturgy is to celebrate the very begining of the day being celebrated, easter or christmas.

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In my opinion, religious holidays can be about both traditions and Christ - I think a lot of families have traditions that are related to holidays, whether the family members are believers or not, it could be interesting to see the things people talk about.

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Unfortunately, for many people Easter is first and foremost about traditions. There are many that don't know or care about Christ or Easter, but at Easter they find it necessary to get drunk and stuffed on certain kinds of food, even if they would not be able for the death of them to recite the Credo. They don't even know that Christ is God (and will argue with you when you tell them that He is) but on Easter they rush into the church with kulichs. Believe me, I've met such people. Fine by me, but why profane a word you know nothing about and call this "Easter celebration"? Call it "Spring Food and Drink Fest", and everybody will be happy.

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wire-shock.livejournal.com

Religious holidays in Russia are precisely that: religious. The western-X-mas-type 'big thing' would be the new year celebration, when people rush out to buy things in shops. While Christmas is about Christ really, and, even more so, Easter is too.

The tradition is to give your friends coloured eggs...honest! But only Christians do that.

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Well for our family, personally, christmas is much bigger... not in the X-mas type of big... but more in importance to our religion (or somthing like that) ... where we dont see Easter as hardly anything.
Although if I think about it, shouldn't the rise of christ be more important that the birth?
I guess it's a perspective thing. Like mary being so important in the catholic church.
okay we'll I don't want to get into the religion-philosophy part... just the religious traditions part.

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wire-shock.livejournal.com

Yes, that's it: the resurrection of Christ is more joyous - and important - than His birth.
We do bake special cakes, by the way :-)

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la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com

I don´t think many people celebrate Easter now in Russia... Well, we´ll bake a ¨kulich¨ (or buy it, rather) and colour some eggs to put them on the table, for fun and decoration (coz I think it´s really pretty). My Mother keeps several Easter eggs all the year round, I mean, there´re 4 eggs in the frige that we coloured last Easter, and soon we´ll throw them away and make new ones. She says they bring luck. But I, for one, wouldn´t have remembered about Easter if it wasn´t for your post:)

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In my family in Russia we usually make easter cake called kulich to share with friends (the type you make in a coffee can, with frosting on top), and have hard boiled eggs with salt on easter day, although that may be more because it's a cheap breakfast *G*

Most of my family's Jewish though, so it's just more of a ... nonreligious thing, hell, we'd celebrate Martian holidays if someone sent a calendar ;) It's not more important in Russian than America, IMO, New Year's is definitely the blow out holiday.

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Ya thats what my teacher said... they make cake with coffee cans (to make it taller)... why do they want to make tall cakes?

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My aunt said it was because 'Christ is risen', therfore the cake is...tall. No clue if it's accurate though.

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The grandmother chimes in saying that the cake represents Christ's suffering, you must make a smear in the frosting that looks like the cross, and there has to be red on top to symbolise blood.

I have no clue, I failed religion class, hard.

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zorritito.livejournal.com

From my down to earth point of view :), it's because they are baked better :)
I prepare them myself and if the form is wide, then the middle of the kulich remains wet, so I always make sure that I have enough quantity of thin long cans before the event. And due to the quality of the paste for kulich, it rises a lot (as was mentioned already), so the form should be able to keep it.

Funny thing you know, in Soviet times, when about Christmas almost all people forgot, the Easter was still very much celebrated. I remember that before the day usually we were told at school that we shouldn't go to the church that night and people seen there will be punished. But in bakeries you could still buy kulich, but it was called "spring cakes"

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msk01.livejournal.com

Look at these pictures [1] (http://www.ljplus.ru/img2/gregorzamza/cool1.jpg) [2] (http://www.restoran.ua/uploads/news/i_1114158861_kulich.jpg) [3] (http://www.ljplus.ru/img2/gregorzamza/cool2.JPG).
What do you see? A tall round thing with white stuff on the top. What is this? What did it mean a thousand years ago? This is the machismo, a symbol of life.

To bake kulich in the middle of the spring is an old pagan tradition.
So christians couldn't just cancel it and they adopted it.

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bellezzarubata.livejournal.com

Coffee can kulich! I know that too well. : )

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just1user.livejournal.com

Visit the cemetery. Despite the fact that Orthodox Church officials discourage people from doing it.

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sunniegreen.livejournal.com

Really? I'm Orthodox and I haven't heard of that. Then again, I haven't tried to visit the cemetery during Pascha, either. Is there any official reason you know of?

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Yes, there is. (here, for example, an explanation is given (or you can yandex for "церковь не одобряет посещение кладбищ на Пасху", there will be plenty of links returned). The main idea, in short, is that this tradition is not a christian tradition; it originated in the Soviet era when most people could not go to church on Easter, so they found a substitute ritual they could do. However, Easter is a very special time which is about life and resurrection, not about death. The Church has special days established for the commemoration of the dead, and of course you can pray for them any time. But the Easter day should be about Christ, Church, and celebration.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_delly_/

http://photofile.ru/photo/delly/476690/large/9464768.jpg
http://photofile.ru/photo/delly/476690/large/9464837.jpg

Those are the pictures of our Easter breakfast-table last year :) Painted eggs and kulich (Easter cake) in the middle and the white staff with letters ХВ in the second picture is paskha (a delicious thing - soft cottage cheese with sour cream and raisins). I cannot say that our family is very religious, but we love this tradition. We enjoy gathering, sharing a meal, we actually compete knocking easter eggs against one another - to find out who's got the hardest one :)

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