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11. 04. 12. - 17:00

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11. 04. 12. - 17:00

Happy Easter!

Michael Leidig

The large majority of Romanians is celebrating Easter on Sunday, 15 April.

Easter in Romania is celebrated according to the rituals of the Orthodox Church.

The Easter celebration goes on for a long week and finally wraps up with Good People's Easter celebrated in honour of the ancient spirits.

The Friday before Easter is called "Great Friday" (Good Friday) or the Friday of sufferings, as it is the day when Jesus was crucified. On Saturday, people go to church for midnight mass, taking with them a bowl of Pasca, eggs and steak, where these food items are blessed by the clergy. On returning home from the mass, people first eat some of the sanctified foodstuffs and only then they rest.

Starting with Holy Thursday, people start painting eggs in a multitude of colours. The predominant colour is red, but other colours are also applied - yellow, green, blue and even black. Decorated eggs or "oua incondeiate" are an integral part of Easter celebrations in Romania. The eggs are decorated using a type of thin, round stick called chisita, made of beech wood.

The special Easter cake, known as Pasca, is baked on "Green" (Maundy) Thursday. The Pasca can be of a round shape (reminding of 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 to them that Easter has come.

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 unmarried girls. If they find them asleep, 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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