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EASTER. Easter, the Christian festival commemorating the resurrection of Christ, was the earliest feast day decided upon by the ancient Christian Church. Like its Jewish predecessor Passover, it is a movable feast, based on the lunar calendar rather than falling on the same Sunday every year.

The complicated dating for Easter was set in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, which scheduled the festival to be celebrated on the first Sunday following the full moon occurring next after the vernal equinox (about March 21); however, if the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter will be celebrated the following Sunday. Hence, the date of Easter can fluctuate between March 22 and April 25. Because the Western churches (Catholic and Protestant) now follow the Gregorian calendar, the Eastern churches, which follow the unrevised Julian calendar, celebrate Easter (and other Church holidays) on different dates. In the Orthodox Churches, Easter marks the beginning of the ecclesiastical year.

Like many other Christian feasts, the celebration of Easter contains a number of originally pagan or folk-religious elements tolerated by the Church. Among these are customs associated with the Easter egg, Easter breads and other special holiday foods, and the European concept of the Easter hare, or, in America, of the Easter rabbit, which brings baskets of candies and colored eggs during the night.

The pagan roots of Easter involve the spring festivals of pre-Christian Europe and the Near East, which celebrate the rebirth of vegetation, welcoming the growing light as the sun becomes more powerful in its course toward summer. It is significant that in England and Germany the Church accepted the name of the pagan goddess "Easter" (Anglo-Saxon Eostra—her name has several spellings) for this new Christian holiday. In Mediterranean Europe (Italy, Spain, and France), Christianity adopted pascha, a word derivative of Passover, from which comes the adjective "paschal" for things pertaining to Easter, such as the Paschal Lamb.

Aside from the fact that Easter Sunday officially ended the long fast of Lent, one of the most distinctive food elements of the Easter celebration is the Easter egg. In earlier times, Easter eggs were much more a part of the formal culture than they are in America today, where individual families determine the range of the custom. In the European village context, Easter eggs were once used as part of one's tithe to the landlord, or given as festive (and expected) gifts to the village pastor, the schoolmaster, the sexton and bell-ringer, the parish gravedigger, and even the village shepherd. Of course, they were hospitably presented to visitors, bestowed as favors upon servants, and, above all, given to children. Courting couples exchanged them as tokens of love, and godparents usually regaled their godchildren with gifts of decorated eggs.

The Easter rabbit (Easter hare in Europe) is not documented before the seventeenth century. While the Easter hare is the major egg supplier in European Easter celebration, there were other runners-up in the form of egg birds, Easter hens, cranes, storks, even foxes and other creatures. With its late origin, scholars are still debating the reasons for the association of the rabbit with Easter custom and lore. It is generally thought that, like the Christmas tree—and the recent development of Easter egg trees—the custom first emerged in the cities, then filtered down into the country villages. Among the theories of the origin of the Easter rabbit belief, the most plausible (although still not without difficulties) is that it may be connected in some way with the so-called March Hare of folktale. The Easter rabbit was believed to actually lay the eggs; hence, children went to elaborate lengths to build attractive "nests" for the elusive egg layer, who was summoned by whistling or by saying a charm.

The elaborate decoration of Easter eggs became a major form of home-produced folk art both in Europe and America. Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, who produced an elaborate Easter culture, eggs are dyed with onion skins, producing a rich reddish-brown color, or with other natural dyes. These eggs are then scratch-carved with designs, dates, names, or even religious verses, or elaborately decorated by winding the pith of a reed around the egg to create patterns. The Pennsylvania Dutch also make Easter birds out of large goose or duck eggs, furnishing them with wings, beaks, and tails. These are hung from the ceilings of farmhouse kitchens as festive seasonal decoration.

In areas of Canada and the United States where Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians as well as Poles and other Eastern Europeans settled, unusual methods of egg decoration are found. Such Easter eggs are generally referred to as pysanka (plural pysanky). In Eastern Europe, egg decoration is an ancient folk craft treasured in families and passed down from generation to generation. In Czarist Russia, this craft was elevated to such a degree that it was even imitated by such famous jewelers as Fabergé. Whether created with gold leaf and sapphires or just homemade dyes, the designs involve a variety of standard motifs—geometrical, animal, and floral. The geometrical motifs are probably the oldest, and range from simple horizontal and vertical lines to sectionalize the egg to sun symbols like the tripod, or to the "endless line" forms. Some of the most complex patterns incorporate stars and rosettes. Animal and bird designs are the rarest; the reindeer is said to symbolize wealth and prosperity, while the hen, or the feet of a hen, symbolizes fertility and fulfillment of wishes. Butterflies, fish, and horses are also occasionally included in the design repertoire. From the plant world, pine trees are drawn to symbolize eternal youth and health. Many of the Slavic methods of decoration are similar to those used by the Pennsylvania Dutch, but the range of motifs is different, the colors more striking, and the designs richly elaborate. Background colors are often red or black, although green and yellow are also popular, but multicolored designs seem to be the most popular.

In the family and community of all the various Christian denominations, Easter Sunday has always been a day of joyous celebration. In the Middle Ages it was often chosen as the day to crown kings since Easter feasting was, and remains, quite elaborate, especially in the Orthodox tradition. Since the day marked the official end to forty days of the Lenten fast, many special foods were prepared to mark the occasion. Easter breads have been researched widely and form a huge genre of ornamental foods made especially for this feast. Among the Greeks, lung soup is very much associated with Easter cookery, while in America baked ham seems to be one of the most common features of the Easter dinner. Many games were played with Easter eggs prior to or following Easter dinner, such as egg picking, where the player forfeits his or her egg if it cracks during the picking, egg eating contests, and egg rolling contests. In Europe and in parts of colonial America, Easter was often extended into a twoday celebration, with feasting, gaming, and other secular entertainments continued into Easter Monday.

Easter has undergone further evolution in more modern times, especially since the latter half of the nineteenth century. The confectionery trade began to commercialize Easter during the 1870s, with the introduction of an entirely new line of sweets employing Easter themes. Chocolatiers in particular discovered that candies once only sold as luxury foods for Christmas could become just as lucrative when transformed into rabbits and similar gift items. Today Easter is one of the most important seasons for selling confectionery, from chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, and jelly beans, to music box coconut eggs, spun sugar tulips, and edible crucifixes filled with brandied fruit.

The most concise reporting of Easter customs in Europe occurred at a symposium on Easter organized by Robert Wildhaber of Switzerland. Wildhaber edited the papers and published them in 1957 in the Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde. The papers cover Eastertide as celebrated in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France (especially Alsace), Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Greece. The majority of the contributions deal with Easter eggs, their history, function, decoration, role in folk medicine, and in riddles. Several contributions treat Easter foods, especially Easter breads and other baked goods. Venetia Newall's An Egg at Easter (1971) is the most expert introduction in English to the history of the Easter egg and its place in ecclesiastical and folk culture.

See also Bread; Christianity; Folklore, Food in; Judaism; Lent; Passover; United States: Pennsylvania Dutch Food; Shrove Tuesday.

Don Yoder