Easter
( 2005-09-13 )

The Russian people are of the Orthodox Church, and Easter Sunday and Christmas Day are their most important holidays.

Easter is the feast of feasts, and is both the unalloyed joy and gladness of all Christians, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, through which humankind is saved from eternal damnation.

On this day, men and women, all dressed up in their Sunday best, attend church to celebrate and sing chants. After the ceremony, they dance happily to accordion music.

Easter is an annual holiday observed throughout the Christian world. The date for Easter shifts every year within the Gregorian calendar. The current Gregorian ecclesiastical rules that determine the date of Easter traces back to the year 325 at the First Council of Nicaea convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine. The Council decided to keep Easter on a Sunday, the same Sunday throughout the world.

The Easter table should be adorned with the best of everything -- the mostbeautiful chinaand tablecloth, the best possible wine, flowers, and so on, all with the colors white and gold -- symbolizing purity and glory -- and the traditional symbols of Easter predominating. And people should look their best, too; it is common for those who can afford it to buy a new outfit to wear on this day.

The Paschal Candle representing the Light of Christ (Lumen Christi) is the centerpiece of the table today and, like the Paschal Candle at church, is relit each day (such as at dinner and during family prayer) until the Feast of the Ascension in 40 days.

The candle should be large and white, and should be surrounded with flowers and the symbols of Easter. It can be carved with the Cross and the numbers for the current year, according to the carving order on the church's Paschal Candle -- first the Cross, then the Greek letters, then the numbers of the current year.

Easter Bunny, colored eggs, jellybeans, and lots of chocolate. He or she comes on Saturday night leading to Easter Sunday morning. He brings lots of chocolates and other candies…That's one meaning to Easter, especially if you are a kid or a "Chocolaholic."

Upon awakening Easter Sunday morning, the children will hunt for the Easter basket left by the Easter Bunny. Then the family will dress in their finest new spring clothes, and go off to church to celebrate Christ's resurrection. From there, the holiday tradition varies. Some have a big breakfast or brunch feast. Other family will have a big main meal with baked ham being the most common meat. Brightly colored hard-boiled eggs will also be popular. It is not a day for high cholesterol diets. It is a day to feast as the long lent (fasting) season is over and Christ has arisen.

There is a famous Easter game called the Easter Egg Hunt. Early in the morning kids go outside to find the many colored Easter eggs that the Easter Bunny has hidden the night before. The Easter Egg Hunt was the first game ever invented. It is said that the reason this tradition started was because the Easter Bunny dropped the eggs on the way to deliver them and the kids hid the eggs themselves.