Secular and religious: how to behave on Easter

From the point of view of Orthodox Christians, it is Easter that is the main holiday of the year (and not the New Year at all, as for secular people). It is not customary to sleep on Easter night, you need to spend time at the service in the church – it starts at 23:30 on Saturday, and at midnight you need to go to the procession. The next episode of the holiday is a feast, symbolizing the end of Lent. Easter is associated not only with religious rules, but also with cultural traditions. “MK” remembered some of them.

Russian Orthodox traditions suggest a clear hierarchy of dishes at the Easter table: the first thing you need to do is eat an egg, which is called “krasnka” or “pysanka”. In some families, it is customary for everyone to pick up an egg at the same time and knock them against each other, trying to break the shell, but this is a later fun that is not directly related to Easter.

The next in line is a consecrated Easter cake: everyone who sits at the table is cut off a piece. And only after that you can switch to other meat and dairy dishes. In the Russian tradition, not only cottage cheese (cheese) Easter, but also a ham were always on the Easter table. It is important to understand here: the Easter feast in a traditional Orthodox society is not just a banquet, it is the first day after the 48-day fast when you can eat meat. People who did not hold Great Lent in pre-revolutionary Russia could be counted on the fingers, so this was especially important for them. By the way, there is a tradition to put 48 dishes on the table – in honor of the expired 48-day fast. It is certainly not for a family of 3-4 people!

It is possible and necessary to visit Easter, but it is customary to invite only the closest people on this day. Anastasia Tsvetaeva, daughter of the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka and sister of the poetess Marina Tsvetaeva, vividly describes the traditional Easter feast in a Moscow family of the late 19th century in her Memoirs. According to her, children were not taken to the Easter service – they were waiting for adults at home, and immediately after they returned, the family sat down at the table.

“Voices and steps were heard in the courtyard, and we, forgetting the ban, sleep, everything, rushed towards hugs, Easter, Easter cake and gifts. The hall is flooded with the pale gold of the April rays, the table is ceremonially laid, the triangle (like a Christmas tree!) Easter cottage cheese, boyar hats (beaver fur!) Easter cakes, pots of hyacinths, smelling thick as soon as lilacs can, and such incredible colors, just like their enchanting pinkness, purple, blue… Fairy blooms of colored eggs, and a huge, carnelian (slightly crimson) ham ham. How foreheads burned (secretly, bending under the table, breaking hard-boiled eggs about them), how spicy smelled from slices of Easter cake, how dirty fingers were picking out raisins and candied fruits, and how satiety piled up, like a nasty mountain, when crumbs of the most delicious refused to go into your mouth! Drops of amber and ruby ​​are the remains of wines in set aside glasses! New eggs: glass, stone, porcelain – not counting the frailty of chocolate, sugar.

The mentioned “new eggs” are a very important, though forgotten today, part of Easter etiquette: it was considered good manners to give each other (or those whom you came to visit) not an ordinary painted egg, but a souvenir one. This tradition was followed even in the imperial family – remember the luxurious Faberge eggs! – but not only in it. Chocolate eggs as a gift for children are a classic of the Easter genre. And by the way, this tradition is easy to follow today – chocolate eggs with toys a la Kinder Surprise are perfect for it. By the way, an interesting fact is that these very “surprises” were invented in Italy in the early 1970s, inspired precisely by Easter chocolate eggs at the beginning of the century. So if you are going to visit a family with children, be sure to buy a Kinder.

Fans of visiting will like the folk omen: whoever tries nine Easter cakes from different housewives for Easter will have a happy and lucky year. However, it is not necessary to be in time for only one Sunday – you can continue throughout the week!

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As for the celebration of Easter in the Soviet – officially godless! – time, the process became semi-legal, Moscow expert Alexander Vaskin said in an interview with MK:

“Sometimes people had to travel God knows where from Moscow to consecrate Easter cakes: this was not welcomed. Secrets were passed from mouth to mouth on where and when to go to the temple. Of course, in our time, everything is much simpler: even unchurched people at least once a year want to get enough of this atmosphere. It is important that women bake and bring Easter cakes – after all, there is nothing better than homemade cakes. And it’s great that these days there are so many new ways to dye eggs – it’s no longer necessary to collect onion skins to achieve a bright terracotta color. Easter is such a national holiday, when kindness becomes a little more and everyone rejoices. A wonderful event of light, and now we just lack light.

A similar family conflict of generations, by the way, is colorfully described in the story “The Elder Sister” by Lyubov Voronkova:

“Go, mother, to church, bless the little cake,” grandmother said affectionately. – Oh … I can’t do it myself!

Zina turned to her grandmother and stared at her with astonished eyes:

– What?!

– Well – something! Grandmother said with hidden annoyance. – It’s like I’m saying something. Go, I say, to the church, it’s not far away, I don’t send it to the end of the world, but consecrate the cake, that’s all, and nothing more! If I could, would I ask?

“I don’t know how to sanctify Easter cakes,” Zina answered, turning pale with indignation and went to her table.

This was still not enough for a schoolgirl, a pioneer, to go to church to bless Easter cake!

By the way, the heroine girl was not lucky – she was nevertheless noticed going to church and then thoroughly scolded at a pioneer meeting. Soviet society became more tolerant of Easter only in the 1970s: then, despite official atheism, the industry began producing Easter cakes. They were called “Spring” cupcakes, everyone understood everything perfectly. At the same time, curd mass with raisins appeared on the shelves – an analogue of the classic cheese Easter.