Feature
Щасливих Великодніх свят! - Happy Easter! By MARIIA PALCHAK Easter is one of the brightest, most celebrated holidays in Ukraine. ‘Easter’ in Ukrainian is ‘Velykden’, which can be translated as ‘Great Day’, which shows how important this holiday is in the country. It has a lot of unique traditions and rituals inherited from the ancestors. However, some of those traditions have modified over the years to suit modern families customs. In Ukraine Easter is celebrated the week after Catholic Easter (in 2023 it is celebrated on April 16). Usually, the preparation for Easter begins two months in Easter blessing with Holy water advance. Lots of people lent and health and luck upon a person this fast and are very strict about it. day. There is a tradition with deep Everyone awaits Easter day, as pagan roots of gentle switching of it always brings cheerful mood to one person by another. the country and gathers families When it comes to Easter week together to celebrate. itself, Thursday and Friday Orthodox Ukrainians have the deserve a special attention. same tradition as Catholics about Clean or Holy Thursday (Chystyi celebrating Palm Sunday, but there Chetver) is a very important day of are certain differences. The holiday the Easter week. This day all the itself is called Willow Sunday family members should take a bath (Verbna nedilia), and pussy willow or a shower before the sunrise branches are used to bestow and then all the house should be
Willow Sunday in church
14
DiscoverDuhallow@irdduhallow.com
cleaned during the day. Also you can start baking Easter bread ‘kulich’ or ‘paska’ this day. There are certain rituals concerning Easter bread as well. The person baking it should do it in silence and with happy thoughts only. There’s a saying that if you’re trying to bake ‘paska’ in a bad mood or being in argument with someone it will never have a proper look or taste. ‘Good Friday’ follows ‘Clean Thursday’, no hard, physical work should be done this day. You are not supposed to listen to loud music or have any arguments with others. It is the day for staying calm and finding harmony inside you. On Saturday people usually put Easter products in a basket to prepare for visiting the Mass in the church. Except for already baked or bought Easter bread, Easter eggs (pysanka and krashenka) should definitely get into the Ukrainian Easter basket. Pysankas are eggs with special ornament decoration and folk patterns. Each of these patterns have their
Issue 85 March 24th, 2023