Celebrating Easter Away from Home

Easter in Lithuania is a Huge thing! For as long as I can remember, I would wait for Easter with bigger anticipation than for my own birthday. While Easter, as we know it today, was never a pagan festival, its roots and many of its traditions have associations with ancient pagan customs and beliefs. And since Lithuania was the last pagan country in Europe, the origins of many customs and traditions date back to more than 5000 years. Which in turn means that even families which don’t practice Christianity regularly, come together during this period and celebrate Easter in a very unique and special way.

Today, in Lithuania and many other Christian countries, Easter signifies the end of the 40-day Lent, and although it is quite a rarity for a family to fast strictly, many do try to give up at least one ‘luxury’ item from their daily intakes such as chocolate or alcohol. The celebration begins a week before Easter Sunday, on Palm Sunday, lasting throughout Holy Week with the main day being Easter Sunday.

However, since palms grow in warm, humid climates and Lithuania is known for much harsher weather, we make those ‘palms’ of colourful dried juniper branches and then adorn them with flowers and ribbons. After being blessed in church, they are brought home and dried. The needles are pulled off and saved to be burned as incense during times of calamity like thunderstorms, sickness, and death. The bare branches are tucked behind holy pictures or in the rafters of the home for protection. Apart from that, the most known tradition on the Palm Sunday is to ‘slap’ or ‘whip’ people with the juniper branch. It’s only practiced in certain regions of Lithuania and nowadays probably not many families follow this custom, but I remember my grandad waking me up early Sunday morning saying it’s good luck to gently pat each other with the branch.

After that, on Holy Thursday, in Lithuania, it is a time for ritual cleansing. In the old days, the bathhouses were heated and, for those near bodies of water, a quick dip in a river, lake or pond (or at least a perfunctory splash on the face) was required. Not only was it imperative to clean one’s own person, but the entire house and everything in it — windows, stoves, walls, clothes — needed to be in pristine condition. Now, families usually only follow the house cleaning tradition, since in the spring all of the natural waters are still unbearably cold. Me and my family would try and throw away all of the unnecessary stuff that we accumulated over a year and make our house look spotless for the whole extended family to gather around at Easter. And since my mom was always very spiritual, we would burn candles and meditate during this time period as a way to clean our minds together with everything else.

On Holy Saturday, people go to church to obtain blessed water. The belief is that it has miraculous powers and can cure a multitude of ills and provide protection. Both of my grandmas would spray some of the blessed water around the house as a holy ritual without a miss every year. Then, usually in the evening after everyone comes back from work, the families gather together to paint hard-boiled eggs. The most traditional way to do this is to use boiled onion skins and herbs picked in the garden. Or bee wax and other natural dye such as turmeric, blueberries, red cabbage or even oak bark. Although egg painting is encountered in many countries, only some Slavic and Eastern European cultures make ornaments on them using beeswax. This custom date back to talismanic pagan rituals and symbolises the awakening of the sun and birds.

On the big day, Easter Sunday, the families gather around for a feast from the early morning. We usually start breakfast by playing a dual with a family member and finding out who has dyed a stronger egg. Whilst one person is holding their egg, the other one has to smack it to find out which one breaks first and who’s the winner. It was thought that the person who has a stronger egg will be the healthiest that year and not get ill.

Then, families usually visit their other extended family members and exchange their dyed eggs with others. Easter is typically celebrated loudly by going outside, being in nature and enjoying the sun. This year, however, was a little bit different. Whilst I had to stay here in Leeds, I didn’t want to stop celebrating a holiday that gave me so much joy. I bought some blue eggs and duck eggs from the supermarket because brown chicken eggs can hardly be coloured. Then went to pick some herbs from the University’s sustainable garden and tried to recreate the traditional ornaments that my grandma would always make. Although it was unusual to celebrate it in such a quiet environment, it felt like a time to reflect on the past year and enjoy my time with my housemates.

For people who want to try and decorate some eggs at home, here are the instructions:

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into my culture as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you!

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