Easter in Bulgarian Traditions

Easter is one of them most meaningful Christian holidays. Traditional Easter loaves and dyed eggs are always around for the young and old to enjoy. Where do Easter symbols come from? Stay with us to learn.

The week preceding Easter is known as the Holy Week, and it is a period of time associated with a string of bans and restrictions. During the whole week people sing only church songs, while dancing and music are banned. In the folk tradition, whoever ignores this ban will be punished with a painful boil on his body.

The major cleaning of homes starts on Fig Monday. In the past - starting on Holy Tuesday - young girls and brides would go for silence water. This was fresh water taken from three springs. The process of getting and delivering it was to proceed in complete silence. The ritually purified water was believed to acquire special curative properties. The silence water was often used for head-washing for the sake of sound health. On Spy Wednesday women were banned from any household work – they were advised to refrain from sewing, spinning and weaving. Children were sent to pick geranium and wild celery, to make posies and to prepare for the eggs dyeing on the following day. In the past and also today Holy Thursday is the day to dye the Easter eggs. Here is more from a manuscript from 10 c. kept at St. Atanassius Monastery near Thessaloniki.

“The Christian tradition of giving dyed eggs has been around since apostolic times and was created by St. Mary Magdalene. According to the legend, she came to Rome, went to Emperor Tiberius, gave him a red egg and said, ‘Christ is risen!’ In this way she declared openly her Christian faith. And from then on, Christians followed her example. “

In another legend seven Jews gathered for a feast after Christ’s death. The table was laid with roasted chicken and boiled eggs. During the feast one of the Jews said that Jesus would resurrect on the third day. The host objected, saying, ‘When the chicken on the table rises, and the eggs turn red, only then shall he rise!’ The moment he uttered those words, the eggs turned red and the chicken was alive again.

In our lands the the tradition of dyeing eggs on Easter was borrowed from the Slavs in the late 5th and the early 6th century. In Western Bulgaria the colored eggs are sometimes called “perahski”. Some researchers assume that “perashka” comes from the Slavonic word “per” meaning beat, hail, thunder. The word per originated from an older word, kver, meaning oak. The name of God Perun, Thunder God, derives from per. In ancient times, Thursdays were the days of prevention of storms and hails in the farming fields, because Thursday was Perun’s day. This is how the tradition of dyeing eggs on Thursday originated.

Good Friday is a great holiday. There is a ban on any work and related activity, and people believed that if the ban was broken, the harvest would be ruined by hails. A legend tells us the story of how Christ, carrying the huge cross on Good Friday, passed by a woman who was washing clothes. He asked for some water to moisten His cracked lips. She scooped up some slops and gave Him. He drank it, and said nothing. Later, there was a house where people baked bread, and they gave Him a crisp piece from it. When He climbed Golgotha, Christ uttered, “Damned be the woman who washes on this day, and blessed be the one who bakes bread.” So, there is a ban on washing on Good Friday, and it is also the day to prepare the Easter loaves.

Holy Saturday is sometimes called Great or Funeral Saturday, because on this day women are expected to visit the cemetery and commemorate the dead. They light candles on family graves and leave colored eggs and Easter loaves.

Easter Sunday, also known as Pascha and Passover (meaning passage in Hebrew) is a holiday with origins back in Antiquity. Nomadic Semitic and Thracian tribes celebrated it enjoying the budding spring and the awakening of nature. With the emergence of Christianity the holiday was associated with the Resurrection of Christ and in the beginning the day coincided for both Christians and Jews. In 325 however, the First Council of Nicaea decided that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. As a result – to the present day – there is no fixed date for Easter holidays. Easter celebrations occur on different dates in the spell from 4 April till May 8. An old legend recounts that many years ago, when God walked the Earth among humans and cured them from illnesses, there was a kingdom where an evil wizard lived. He locked the sun and water with nine padlocks in a deep cave. Many years passed. The people toiled, but the land produced nothing deprived of water and light. The grass waned, the animals died and birds disappeared. Humans lived in small, dark huts deep into weeds that they used as food. They forgot about their traditions and were so embittered that lived in incessant enmity. A young man with two little children, a boy and a girl, lived in a hut high in the mountain. The evil wizard took their mother in his palace to be his servant. The winter was harsh, freezing cold. When the spring came, the father went to the woods to look for fresh roots. There he hacked out a wooden egg, dyed it with red soil and decided to take it to his kids. When he was back home, the kids were sleeping, so he placed the red egg close to their heads. During the night a white-bearded old man visited him to warn him that on the following day the Evil Wizard would come to the house to take away the children. “Have no fear!” the old man said, “And clench the red egg in your hand!” This old man was Father Easter. On the following day the evil wizard arrived in a carriage pulled by a three-headed dragon. The father was horrified, and hugged his kids. The red egg tumbled down near their heads and shone like a little sun. The father remembered the advice of Father Easter. He grabbed the egg and raised it above his head. The moment he did so, the earth was flooded with abundant light, and the evil wizard went blind. His power was lost and he transformed into a small black beetle. People broke the padlocks and released the sun and water. Water descended from the mountain, pouring over the forest and the fields. Trees came to leaf, birds and animals returned to their homes and the earth was resurrected for new life. Since then people dedicated this day to Father Easter. They dye eggs in red and celebrate the resurrected nature.

Apart from red eggs, the Easter bread is the second most prominent Easter symbol. It should never be cut, but only broken by the oldest member of the family. One piece is left aside for God. The Easter dinner is followed by singing and dancing. Girls go swaying on swings, to make sure that a dragon won’t fall in love with any of them, that their health is sound and boys fall for them.

English version Daniela Konstantinova

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Easter in Bulgarian Traditions

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