Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian festival of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are commonly used during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tradition, which continues to be used in Central and Eastern Europe, is to dye and paint chicken eggs.
Eggs are, in general, a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth. In Christianity, for the celebration of Eastertide, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, from which Jesus was resurrected. The staining of Easter eggs with the colour red "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion" was an ancient tradition.
This custom of the Easter egg, according to many sources, can be traced to early Christians of Mesopotamia, and from there it spread into Eastern Europe and Siberia through the Orthodox Churches, and later into Europe through the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Additionally, the widespread usage of Easter eggs, according to mediaevalist scholars, is due to the prohibition of eggs during Lent after which, on Easter, they are blessed for the occasion.
A modern custom in some places is to substitute chocolate eggs wrapped in coloured foil, hand-carved wooden eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as chocolate.
History The practice of decorating eggshells is quite ancient, with decorated, engraved ostrich eggs found in Africa which are 60,000 years old. In the pre-dynastic period of Egypt and the early cultures of Mesopotamia and Crete, eggs were associated with death and rebirth, as well as with kingship, with decorated ostrich eggs, and representations of ostrich eggs in gold and silver, were commonly placed in graves of the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians as early as 5,000 years ago.Treasures from Royal Tombs of Ur By Richard L. Zettler, Lee Horne, Donald P. Hansen, Holly Pittman 1998 pgs 70–72 These cultural relationships may have influenced early Christian and Islamic cultures in those areas, as well as through mercantile, religious, and political links from those areas around the Mediterranean.
Eggs in Christianity carry a Trinitarian symbolism as shell, yolk, and albumen are three parts of one egg. According to many sources, the Christian custom of Easter eggs started among the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who stained them with red colouring "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at His crucifixion". The Christian Church officially adopted the custom, regarding the eggs as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, with the Roman Ritual, the first edition of which was published in 1610 but which has texts of much older date, containing among the Easter Blessings of Food, one for eggs, along with those for lamb, bread, and new produce.
Sociology professor Kenneth Thompson discusses the spread of the Easter egg throughout Christendom, writing that "use of eggs at Easter seems to have come from Persia into the Greek Christian Churches of Mesopotamia, thence to Russia and Siberia through the medium of Orthodox Christianity. From the Greek Church the custom was adopted by either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants and then spread through Europe." Both Thompson, as well as British orientalist Thomas Hyde state that in addition to dyeing the eggs red, the early Christians of Mesopotamia also stained Easter eggs green and yellow.
Peter Gainsford maintains that the association between eggs and Easter most likely arose in western Europe during the Middle Ages as a result of the fact that Catholic Christians were prohibited from eating eggs during Lent, but were allowed to eat them when Easter arrived.
Influential 19th century folklorist and philologist Jacob Grimm speculates, in the second volume of his Deutsche Mythologie, that the folk custom of Easter eggs among the continental Germanic peoples may have stemmed from springtime festivities of a Germanic goddess known in Old English as Ēostre (namesake of modern English Easter) and possibly known in Old High German as *Ostara (and thus namesake of Modern German 'Easter'). However, despite Grimm's speculation, there is no evidence to connect eggs with a speculative deity named Ostara. The use of eggs as favors or treats at Easter originated when they were prohibited during Lent. A common practice in England in the medieval period was for children to go door-to-door begging for eggs on the Saturday before Lent began. People handed out eggs as special treats for children prior to their fast.
Although one of the Christian traditions are to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with candy such as jelly beans; as many people give up sweets as their Lenten sacrifice, individuals enjoy them at Easter after having abstained from them during the preceding forty days of Lent. These eggs can be hidden for children to find on Easter morning, which is said to be left by the Easter Bunny. They may also be put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird's nest.
While the practice of giving away easter eggs is, to this day, popular, it was briefly banned in 1916s Hungary in the Easter Egg Act, due to the scarcity caused by the ongoing war, and the ban was only lifted when the war ended. The contemporary news reports emphasised however, that the locsolás was still legal to practice.
Traditions and customs
Lenten tradition The Easter egg tradition may also have merged into the celebration of the end of the privations of Lent. Traditionally, eggs are among the foods forbidden on fast days, including all of Lent, an observance which continues among the Eastern Christian Churches but has fallen into disuse in Western Christianity.
Historically, it has been traditional to use up all of the household's eggs before Lent began.
This established the tradition of Pancake Day being celebrated on Shrove Tuesday. This day, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday when Lent begins, is also known as Mardi Gras, a French phrase which translates as "Fat Tuesday" to mark the last consumption of eggs and dairy before Lent begins.
In the Orthodox Church, Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, rather than Wednesday, so the household's dairy products would be used up in the preceding week, called Cheesefare Week.
During Lent, since chickens would not stop producing eggs during this time, a larger than usual store might be available at the end of the fast. This surplus, if any, had to be eaten quickly to prevent spoiling. Then, with the coming of Easter, the eating of eggs resumes. Some families cook a special meatloaf with eggs in it to be eaten with the Easter dinner.
To avoid waste, it was common for families to hard boil or pickle eggs that their chickens produced during lent, and for this reason the Spanish dish hornazo (traditionally eaten on and around Easter) contains hard-boiled eggs as a primary ingredient. In Spain it is common for godparents to give an Easter mona to their godchildren during Easter period. In Hungary, eggs are used sliced in potato casseroles around the Easter period.
Symbolism and related customs Some Christians symbolically link the cracking open of Easter eggs with the empty tomb of Jesus.
In the Orthodox churches, Easter eggs are blessed by the priest at the end of the Paschal Vigil (which is equivalent to Holy Saturday), and distributed to the faithful. The egg is seen by followers of Christianity as a symbol of resurrection: while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.
Similarly, in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, the so-called święconka, i.e. blessing of decorative baskets with a sampling of Easter eggs and other symbolic foods, is one of the most enduring and beloved Polish traditions on Holy Saturday.
During Paschaltide, in some traditions the Pascal greeting with the Easter egg is even extended to the deceased. On either the second Monday or Tuesday of Pascha, after a memorial service people bring blessed eggs to the cemetery and bring the joyous paschal greeting, "Christ has risen", to their beloved departed (see Radonitza).
In Greece, women traditionally dye the eggs with onion skins and vinegar on Thursday (also the day of Communion). These ceremonial eggs are known as kokkina avga. They also bake tsoureki for the Easter Sunday feast. Red Easter eggs are sometimes served along the centerline of tsoureki (braided loaf of bread).Red and Butter, Martha Stewart magazine
In Egypt, it is a tradition to decorate boiled eggs during Sham el-Nessim holiday, which falls every year after the Eastern Christian Easter.
In Palestine, in many Palestinian Christian communities, red-dyed eggs are prepared and shared after the Paschal service as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The eggs are often exchanged among family members and friends following the Easter liturgy. In some households and parish settings, they are also used in egg-tapping games, where participants strike eggs against each other as part of Easter celebrations.
On Passover, Jews place a hard-boiled egg on the Passover seder plate and in some communities hard-boiled eggs are eaten at the seder along with karpas, dipped in salt water.
Colouring
The dyeing of Easter eggs in different colours is commonplace, with colour being achieved through boiling the egg in natural substances (such as, onion peel (brown colour), oak or alder bark or walnut nutshell (black), beet juice (pink) etc.), or using artificial colourings.
A greater variety of colour was often provided by tying on the onion skin with different coloured woollen yarn. In the North of England these are called pace-eggs or paste-eggs, from a dialectal form of Middle English pasche. King Edward I's household accounts in 1290 list an item of 'one shilling and sixpence for the decoration and distribution of 450 Pace-eggs!', which were to be coloured or gilded and given to members of the royal household. Traditionally in England, eggs were wrapped in onion skins and boiled to make their shells look like mottled gold, or wrapped in flowers and leaves first in order to leave a pattern, which parallels a custom practised in traditional Scandinavian culture. Eggs could also be drawn on with a wax candle before staining, often with a person's name and date on the egg. Pace Eggs were generally eaten for breakfast on Easter Sunday breakfast. Alternatively, they could be kept as decorations, used in egg-jarping (egg tapping) games, or given to Pace Eggers. In more recent centuries in England, eggs have been stained with coffee grains or simply boiled and painted in their shells.
In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, with further symbolism being found in the hard shell of the egg symbolizing the sealed Tomb of Christ—the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead. The tradition of red Easter eggs was used by the Russian Orthodox Church. The tradition to dyeing the easter eggs in an Onion tone exists in the cultures of Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Czechia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Israel. The colour is made by boiling onion peel in water.
Patterning When boiling them with onion skins, leaves can be attached prior to dyeing to create leaf patterns. The leaves are attached to the eggs before they are dyed with a transparent cloth to wrap the eggs with like inexpensive muslin or nylon stockings, leaving patterns once the leaves are removed after the dyeing process. These eggs are part of Easter custom in many areas and often accompany other traditional Easter foods. Passover haminados are prepared with similar methods.