Easter - Tradition

Easter Eggs Easter is preceded by forty days Lent. The period of fasting starts on Ash Wednesday. Before that on Shrove Thursday is the time of eating doughnuts and sweets. The last day of carnival is Tuesday – it is called "Ostatki". It is the day when it is necessary to celebrate and have fun the maximum, because the next occasion it is in 40 days.

Ash Wednesday is a very solemn day when ash is sprinkled on the heads of members of the congregation. During the Lent most of the people do not eat meat on Fridays.

The Sunday before Easter is called Palm Sunday. On this day people bring the pusssywillow branches or other custom made wild flowers bouquets instead of palms to the church for the blessing. It is believed that swallowing a willow catkin from a branch consecrated by a priest would bring health, and palm branch placed behind a holy image until the following year would bring the inhabitants luck. This is the beginning of the Holy Week. Many people send the Easter cards to their friends and family.

Easter Eggs - 'Pisanki' On the morning of Holy Thursday, the vestments are changed on the miraculous icon in the chapel of the Pauline monastery at Jasna Gora in Czestochowa. This is one of the most important sites of the religious cult of the Poles, and has been venerated as a national shrine since 14th century.

The next, Good Friday, marks the start of the vigil at symbolic tombs of Christ, which lasts until Holy Saturday. Visits are made to "tombs of Christ".

On Holly Saturday the decorated "blessing baskets" (called "Święconka") containing a sampling of traditional food are taken to churches to be blessed. Inside the churches, priests sprinkled holy water on the baskets. Believers also go to visit the tomb of Jesus Christ. “Swieconka” will begin then the meal of Easter. It is one of the most enduring and beloved Polish traditions. The basket contains of: hard boiled shelled eggs, ham, sausage, salt, bread, cakes. The most important are: Easter lamb often made of chocolate, colorful written eggs and chicks figures.
The eggs are decorated with many traditional symbols of Easter. Most popular are lamb, cross, floral designs, rabbits or Easter's greetings. There are a few kinds of written eggs:

"pisanki" - decorated with the use of treated wax and then soaked in painting
"kraszanki"/ "malowanki" - decorated with colored paper or shiny fabric glued to them, the eggs are painted in one color
"skrobanki"/"rysowanki" - patterns are etched with a pointed instrument on top of the paint

Easter Eggs - 'Kraszanki' The main day of Easter is Easter Sunday. In the morning the Christians take part in the procession around the church and in the holy mess called Resurrection. On this day people follow the tradition of eating Easter eggs. The family breakfast is an important part of Polish Easter celebration. Beautifully laid table is covered with colored eggs, cold meats, coils of sausages, ham, salads, yeast cakes, poppy-seed cakes and “Mazurek”. The last one is the most popular Easter cake. It is a flat cake, covered with imaginative decorations such as eggs of icing; willow branches made of marzipan, chocolate flowers, jam, almonds, nuts and raisins. Artistic letters made of cream read “Hallelujah”.
Many families gather together for dinner and organize egg fights (Two persons take one boiled egg each and hit the other egg, the one who keeps the broken egg lost the fight).... There is also tradition to share blessed eggs with the members of the family and wish each other good health, happiness for the rest of the year. Each member of the household received a piece of the consecrated bread as well.
In the Sunday morning children get out from the bed and go to see what is left in their shoes. They believe that during the night bunny brings them some presents such as sweets or small chocolate eggs. Children get a lot of chocolate eggs, rabbits and chicks.

Easter Chicken The day after Easter is known as Wet Monday. It is the last day of Easter celebration; especially kids have fun this day. Polish tradition says that everyone sprinkles each other with water. It is said that being splashed with water on Easter Monday will bring you good luck throughout the year.
Formerly, Wet Monday was a very popular tradition in particular among the unmarried women and men: the men tried to put the most possible water on the girls whom they liked, thus showing them their interest and their feelings! Girls were running away and hiding avoiding being wet.

The eggs, water and the palms are the symbols of a new life which starts in nature in spring. Easter is the oldest and the most important Christian holiday.