Like last year it is an armored Easter, it comes two weeks earlier than 2020, but it is once again a victim of Covid. Italy is all in the red zone and some regions have even closed access to second homes. Excursions and parties are not possible, but it is possible to go once a day to the home of close friends: only two adults from the same family plus minors and disabled people. It is allowed to participate in religious celebrations.
This day is first of all a religious holiday, the most important on the calendar for Christians.
Chocolate eggs and doves are modern additions.
WHEN IT’S EASTER
It is a mobile festival that falls on the first Sunday after the spring full moon, therefore between 22 March and 25 April. If it arrives by April 2nd it is low, after April 13th it is high. In the days in between it is said to be average. The system was established during the Council of Nicaea. Easter 2020 falls on Sunday 4 April and is therefore average.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
For Christians, Easter represents the victory of Jesus over death with the resurrection. The name is an adaptation of the Hebrew pesah which means “passage”. From this Hebrew term derive the Greek and Latin words according to the Treccani Vocabulary. The passion and resurrection of Christ is recounted in the four Gospels, with different details, and in the letters to the Apostles.
Passion celebrations go on throughout the week, in 2021 without the costumed representations and traditional historical reconstructions, to end on Easter Sunday with mass celebrated at 10 am. Following, at noon, the Urbi et Orbi blessing. It is the blessing that the pope addresses to the city of Rome (Urbi) and to the inner world (Orbi) on Easter Sunday. The pope, like all priests, will do all the celebrations, but without the presence of the faithful. All the pontiff’s appointments are online.
CATHOLICS AND ORTHODOX
Catholics and Orthodox usually celebrate on different dates with different calculations and calendars. For the Orthodox it is the Sunday following the first new moon, not full, always from the equinox. This year is May 2nd.
JEWISH EASTER
Passover was the anniversary that Jesus and the Apostles were preparing to celebrate with the Last Supper, recalling the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt as told in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament. Hence the sacrifice of the lamb: the doors of the Jews were marked with blood in the last plague of Egypt and left out by the Lord who instead exterminated the firstborn of the Egyptians. Unleavened bread is used as the manna that the Jewish people ate on their journey back to Palestine.
THE ANIMALS
In English Easter Bunny, it is also known as the spring rabbit. It is a fantastic animal that leaves gifts for children at Easter. The hare or the rabbit have always been a symbol of the beginning of spring. Even the chick is a symbol of new life. In Norway it takes the place of the bunny. Bilby is a sort of Australian marspial mouse that on the other side of the world brings eggs instead of the rabbit. It has been doing this since the late 1960s also to save the indigenous animal.
THE FLOWERS
The daffodils are called the Easter flowers, but there is also the tree with the eggs attached, an Eastern European tradition. Pensioner Volker Kraft, in Germany, makes one with 10,000 Easter eggs.
BELLS, POEMS AND OMELETTE
French children are told that the bells, traditionally silent from Friday to Sunday, from death to resurrection, have flown to Rome and on Easter morning they fly back. Also in France, members of the Bessieres giant omelette fraternity make a huge one at Easter every year, but it will skip in 2020, at least as a public rite. In Denmark, on the other hand, the color of Easter is yellow and it is traditional to write anonymous rhyming poems to deliver to friends and relatives. The recipient has to guess who sent it and will give him an Easter egg.
THE YELLOW AND THE EGGS
If you are ready to color eggs for Easter, choose yellow as the first shade. It brings health, according to a tradition that comes from Bulgaria. One of the many related to Easter. If the habit of the chocolate egg is recent, giving real ones was already a practice in the Middle Ages and even for the ancients the eggs were a symbol of life and sacredness. For the ancient Egyptians the egg was the fulcrum of the four elements of the universe (water, air, earth and fire), if the Persians exchanged it and if it speaks also in Polynesia. This is why they are linked to Easter, a spring festival of rebirth for everyone, but with other meanings for Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, as well as an already Jewish tradition.
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