Easter celebrates the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection and it is the second biggest feast in the Christian calendar after Christmas. The feast starts on Maundy Thursday when Jesus Christ had his last meal with his Apostles known as the “Last Supper”. The next day is Good Friday the day that Christ was crucified on mount Calvary. The last day of the Easter feast is Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday. This was the day that Christ rose from the dead.
Easter Sunday is the end of Lent, which is a season of fasting prayer and penance for Christians. During this period it is the custom for Christians to give up something as a penance. Easter Sunday is also the start of the Easter Season or Eastertide which used to last until Ascension day 40 days later, when Christ rose into heaven.
Easter now officially lasts for 50 days until Pentecost, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit from Heaven upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus as described in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles 2:1-31.
Easter is a moveable feast. The date of Easter was established by the First Council of Nicasea in 325AD. The date was set as the first Sunday after the full moon, known as the Paschal Full Moon, following the northern hemispheres Vernal Equinox. Both Eastern and Western Christian churches follow this tradition but the Western Churches use a different calendar from the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
For the Western churches use the Gregorian calendar so the Vernal Equinox is March 21st which means that Easter can fall anytime between March 22 and April 25. The Orthodox churches use the Julian Calendar which puts the Vernal Equinox at April 3rd, so the feast can be anytime between April 4 and May 8. This is the reasons people remember hot warm Easters and Easters with snow because the feast dates can vary by a month.
Easter is not just and important feast period for Christians. It is the time the Jews celebrate the Passover. In most European languages the name for Easter translates from the Hebrew Pesakh (Passover) which is why the word Paschal is used for the Easter period. Passover starts on the date of The Paschal full moon, Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after this. Pentecost 50 days after Easter Day is the same day as the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.
Associated with Easter are the traditions of egg painting and the Easter Bunny. To pagans the egg is a symbol of rebirth and was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the Resurrection of Jesus. The ancient Zoroastrians from Iran celebrated their new year on the Vernal Equinox, March 21st , and practised a tradition that had existed for 2500 years of painting eggs on this day.
To Christians painting eggs red symbolises the blood of Christ on the cross. The inside of the egg symbolises the tomb where Christ’s body was laid and the breaking of eggs symbolises the Christ’s resurrection.
In the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe the art of egg painting grew to high art. A batik (wax resist) process is used to create intricate, brilliantly coloured eggs., the best-known of which is the Ukrainian pysanka.
The celebrated Fabergé workshops created exquisite jewelled Easter eggs for the Russian Imperial Court. The most famous decorated Easter eggs are those designed by Peter Carl Fabergé. In 1885 the Russian Tsar, Alexander III, commissioned him to make a special Easter gift for his wife, the Empress Marie.This first Faberge egg was an egg within an egg. It had an outside shell of gold and enamelled white which opened to reveal a smaller gold egg. The smaller egg, in turn, opened to display a golden chicken and a jewelled replica of the Imperial crown.The Tsar and Tsarina were so impressed with their gold eggs that they ordered the Faberge firm to design further eggs to be delivered every Easter. In later years Nicholas II, Alexander’s son, continued the custom. Most of these eggs contained hidden surprises such as clock-work birds, or miniature ships. The auctioneers Christie’s sold a diamond encrusted Faberge egg in November 2007 for £9m.
Easter Sunday is the end of Lent, a period 40 days of fasting and abstinence for Christians during which it was forbidden to eat eggs. The first day of Lent is Ash Wednesday and the day before this, Shrove Tuesday, is known in England as Pancake Day. Traditionally a household used up all of its eggs by making pancakes, hence the name. During Lent eggs were still collected and hard boiled then stored. This meant that by Easter Sunday there was a surplus of eggs that had to be eaten quickly before they went bad. The traditional Easter dishes of Hornazo from Spain use hard boiled eggs as the primary ingredient.
Easter Sunday became an egg gorging day and games associated with eggs became tradition. The egg hunt is still popular throughout Europe when children scour the garden for hidden eggs. This tradition is also associated with the Easter Bunny or Hare. In legend, the creature brings baskets filled with coloured eggs, sweets and sometimes also toys to the homes of children on the night before Easter. The Easter Bunny will either put the baskets in a designated place or hide them somewhere in the house or garden for the children to find when they wake up in the morning. Giving Easter eggs seems to have originated from Alsace & the Rhineland around the early 17th century. Chocolate Easter Eggs.
The first edible Easter Eggs were made in Germany during the early 19th century and were made of pastry and sugar. The first chocolate Easter eggs were produced in 1873 by Fry’s who had also produced the first manufactured chocolate bar. Sales of chocolate Easter eggs today are massive. The Finnish celebrate Easter by eating two million Chocolate Mignon eggs made by the Fazer Factory. In the 4 days leading up to Easter 2008 £280million was spent on Easter eggs worldwide. £32.7million was spent on Fairtrade Easter chocolate products in 2008 alone.
Easter eggs or spring eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime.
The egg was a pagan symbol of the rebirth of the Earth in celebrations of spring and was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus.
The oldest tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jelly beans. These eggs are often hidden, allegedly by the Easter Bunny, for children to find on Easter morning. Otherwise, they are generally put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird’s nest.
The egg is widely used as a symbol of the start of new life, just as new life emerges from an egg when the chick hatches out.
The ancient Zoroastrians painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration, which falls on the Spring equinox. The Nawrooz tradition has existed for at least 2,500 years. The sculptures on the walls of Persepolis show people carrying eggs for Nowrooz to the king.
The egg is seen by followers of christianity as symbolic of the grave and life renewed or resurrected by breaking out of it. The red symbolizes the blood of Christ redeeming the world and human redemption through the blood shed in the sacrifice of the crucifixion. The egg itself is a symbol of resurrection: while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.
For Orthodox Christians, the Easter egg is much more than a celebration of the ending of the fast, it is a declaration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Traditionally, Orthodox Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, shed on the Cross, and the hard shell of the egg symbolized the sealed Tomb of Christ—the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead.
In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are blessed by the priest at the end of the Paschal Vigil, and distributed to the faithful. Each household also brings an Easter basket to church, filled not only with Easter eggs but also with other Paschal foods such as paskha, kulich or Easter breads, and these are blessed by the priest.
The first edible Easter Eggs were made in Germany during the early 19th century and were made of pastry and sugar. The first chocolate Easter eggs were produced in 1873 by Fry’s who had also produced the first manufactured chocolate bar. Sales of chocolate Easter eggs today are massive.
The Finnish celebrate Easter by eating two million Chocolate Mignon eggs made by the Fazer Factory. In the 4 days leading up to Easter 2008 £280million was spent on Easter eggs worldwide. £32.7million was spent on Fairtrade Easter chocolate products in 2008 alone.v
Simnel cake is a light fruit cake, similar to a Christmas cake, covered in marzipan, then toasted, and eaten during the Easter period in Great Britain, Ireland and some other countries. A layer of marzipan or almond paste is also baked into the middle of the cake. On the top of the cake, around the edge, are eleven marzipan balls to represent the true disciples of Jesus; Judas is omitted. In some variations Christ is also represented, by a ball placed at the centre.
The cake is made from these ingredients: white flour, sugar, butter, eggs, fragrant spices, dried fruits, zest and candied peel.
Simnel cakes have been known since medieval times, and were originally a Mothering Sunday tradition, when young girls in service would make one to be taken home to their mothers on their day off. The word simnel probably derived from the Latin word simila, meaning fine, wheaten flour with which the cakes were made.
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Buy all the stock photos in this gallery on line as Royalty Free or Rights managed stock photo. The stock pictures & stock images are all high resolution digital stock photos made award winning professional photographer Paul Williams.
Photo Art prints are also available to buy on line in large to small print formats for framing as art works for home, restaurant, pubs, office art or commercial art.
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