In the U.S. and most of Canada, Easter is a children’s holiday in which a magical rabbit or hare comes and leases colorful Easter gift baskets filled with candies and colored eggs resting on a bed of greens. For followers of Christianity, it is also a sacred celebration of the resurrection of the faith’s recognized founder, Yeshua ben-Yosef, or Iesus Christos as he was named in Greek.
This time of year – at least in the northern hemisphere – has always had special meaning across many cultures, however, celebrating the end of winter and the renewal of life. Although much of the West as well as Japan celebrate the Easter holiday, not all cultures celebrate with Easter baskets. In fact, every ethnic group and nation has colored this holiday with their own customs and traditions.
Mexico is a strongly Roman Catholic country, yet many of the church holiday customs have been influenced by the Aztec, Mayan and Olmec peoples who lived there before the arrival of the Spaniards. Like many other places, eggs figure prominently in the celebration, but instead of being eaten, children actually break them over each other’s heads during the week leading up to Carnivale and the forty day Lenten season leading up to Easter. (These are really toy eggs made from papier-mâché and filled with tiny bits of paper.)
In Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Serbia where the Eastern Orthodox predominates, the coloring of Easter eggs is a highly developed art. Known as pysanka, Easter eggs are carefully painted with complex and elaborate geometric designs in bright, contrasting lights and dark colors. In the Russian church especially, Easter is the most important holiday of the liturgical year, symbolizing spiritual cleansing and renewal.
In Greece, the traditional meal is roast lamb. While this suggests a connection with the Jewish holiday of Pesach, or Passover (the Greek expression for “Happy Easter” is Kalo Pascha), it also represents the “Lamb of God.” The traditional Greek Easter greeting is Hristos anesti (“Christ is Risen”), to which the response is Alithos anesti(“He is risen indeed”). At midnight, Easter Sunday morning, it is also customary to light fireworks.
Christianity is practiced by less than 2% of all Japanese, however the faith has persisted in that country since the 1540’s. Forced underground for 200 years by the Tokugawa shogunate, Japanese Christianity re-emerged in 1865 in the Urukami district of Nagasaki when a French priest opened a church for foreigners living in that city. Although for most Japanese Easter is time to eat candy, the faithful who attend mass at the Urakami cathedral on Easter Sunday receive actual hard-boiled chicken eggs as a symbol of rebirth. Interestingly, women in the congregation wear Portuguese mantilla lace veils in the same way as the earliest converts did over 450 years ago.
