Preparation for Easter. Tips of an Orthodox hostess

Bright Sunday. Ilya Kaverznev

When preparing for the Easter holiday, it is important to remember that household chores that seem so important coincide with the period of Passion Week. Washing windows, baking Easter cakes, numerous purchases and decorating the house should not obscure the main thing from us - the Passion service. How to do everything?

Easter. Andrey Lipatov

Monday Tuesday Wednesday

Experienced housewives try to finish all the house cleaning chores

until Maundy Thursday.

According to the many years of experience of familiar keepers of the hearth, it is quite possible to cook Easter cakes in the first days of Passion Day, so that later heavy and time-consuming baking does not distract from the services.

Not all families give gifts to children and each other on this day. As the mother of 4 children said: “We refused gifts 15 years ago, because otherwise, instead of thinking about the Passion of the Lord, I would have been tormented by the problems of choosing gifts. Whenever possible, I try to go to services with my children, read the missed ones together, participate in the procession and the removal of the Shroud (everything is within my power, according to the age of the children).

Maundy Thursday

On Maundy Thursday, if possible, all Orthodox Christians go to church for the Liturgy. There will also be a service in the evening. Therefore, during the day it is better not to start anything that requires serious energy costs.

Good Friday

To come to both services of Good Friday - the removal of the Shroud and the rite of burial - usually none of the mothers with children succeeds. Either the husband and wife alternate, agreeing on who will go to what service, or the mother and children come to the procession.

Holy Saturday

Children are very fond of attending the Liturgy on Holy Saturday, it is at this time that the dark vestments of Holy Week change to light ones, some girls and girls at the same time change headscarves from dark to white.

AT For some families, it has become a good tradition to decorate the house with bouquets of fresh spring flowers. They can also stand on the table, along with willow branches and figurines of chickens. Today, stores offer a large selection of such accessories, and decorating a house and a table in this style is not difficult.

In some families, on Saturday afternoon, active preparations for the holiday continue - up to the painting of eggs and the preparation of Easter (they are consecrated after the Easter Liturgy). And yet, no matter how important the unfinished business may seem, be sure to find time to relax. It does not matter what kind of service you are going to - for the night or morning. In any case, one must tear oneself away from decorating the house and washing the floors - in order to feel the great silence that precedes the Feast of Feasts.

Hostess on Holy Week:

For the convenience of planning time for Holy Week, we suggest you use a short calendar compiled together with experienced housewives who have been preparing for Easter for many years, which indicates all the services of this period. The time left from visiting the temple can be used for household chores.

Great Monday

Morning

Day
Wash windows, lamps
Dismantling cabinets

Evening
We put the dough for Easter cakes.

Maundy Tuesday

Morning
Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

Day
We bake Easter cakes
We buy the necessary products, paints for eggs, decorations for the house and the festive table

Evening
Together with children, you can make small Easter gifts for relatives and friends with your own hands.

Great Wednesday

Morning
Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (performed for the last time and the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian is read for the last time)

Day
General house cleaning
Floor washing

Evening
In many churches, the last confession is made before Easter.

Maundy Thursday

Morning
Liturgy of Basil the Great. Remembrance of the Last Supper.

Day
We paint eggs

Evening
Good Friday Matins with the reading of the 12 Passion Gospels.
After the service, you can put the dough for Easter cakes for the night (if baking them was postponed at the end of the week)

Good Friday

Morning
Royal clock
In the morning, you can cook Easter, as well as bake Easter cakes and paint eggs (if you haven’t done this before)

Day
Around 2:00 pm (usually) Vespers with the Removal of the Shroud

Evening
Great Saturday Matins with the Burial of the Shroud, which ends with a procession (usually mothers with children come to the procession, then venerate the Shroud).
After the service, you can do Easter if you want to do it without children.

Holy Saturday

Morning
Divine Liturgy
After the service - the consecration of Easter cakes, Easter and eggs (you can also bless Easter food throughout the day)

Day
Light cosmetic cleaning
Holiday home decoration
Buying fresh flowers
Some on the same day also paint eggs and make Easter

Evening
Rest and preparation for the Easter service
Easter procession begins at 23.30

It is a celebration in honor of the Resurrection of Christ. The most important rule in preparing for Easter is finding peace in the heart, cleansing the soul. Great Lent contributes to this. Some people believe that fasting is a series of restrictions in. This is only partly so. During Lent, food is not allowed. Believers should eat vegetables and fruits. All soups should be cooked in vegetable broth. In some you can not eat anything, in others fish and seafood.

Fasting is held not only to purify the body, but also to pacify the soul. When preparing for Easter, you can not swear with anyone. It is better to forgive old offenders, and if someone is offended by you, ask for forgiveness. If you have the opportunity and desire, take communion.

A few days before Easter, think about what should be on the festive table. The day of breaking the fast should not turn into a celebration of the stomach, since gluttony is a sin. It is better if you opt for tasty but simple dishes.

There must be colored eggs on the Easter table. Various stickers with images of icons are unacceptable, and the symbol of the cross, images of temples cannot be applied to Easter eggs. The church considers this sacrilege. Eggs can be dyed either with improvised means, for example, onion peel, or food coloring sold in stores. Red Easter eggs are a symbol of the triumph of life and its victory over death. It is allowed to apply various ornaments, images of plants.

Another attribute of Easter, which should be taken care of in advance, is Easter cake. Bread baked in a special way is considered a symbol of the presence of God near in the life of every person. If you bake Easter cake yourself, you can add nuts and raisins to it, pour over with icing sugar, sprinkle with powder. Purchased Easter cakes, despite the inscriptions on the labels and the assurances of manufacturers and sellers, are not covered by anyone. From the point of view of the canonical church, the sprinkling of Easter cakes by priests with holy water and the reading of prayers over them is not considered consecration.

Whether you bought Easter cake or baked it yourself, it must be consecrated in the church. Most often, Easter cakes, eggs and other traditional Easter food are consecrated after the completion of the liturgy on Great Saturday, but it is better to find out about the time of consecration in a particular church in advance. Representatives of the church claim that only those dishes that are consecrated at the Easter service are “correct”.

Residents of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and a number of other countries have a habit of going to the cemetery to visit relatives and friends on Easter day. The clergy are categorically against this. The graves should be put in order after the winter before Easter, and on the festive Sunday itself, rejoice and rejoice at the triumph of life.

Olga Prokhorchenko 04/29/2016 1899

We connect all family members to the preparation for the bright holiday.

By the way, it is especially useful to prepare for the Easter holiday with your child. This is not only a good time, but also an opportunity to tell him in detail about the traditions and meaning of Easter, if he has a vague idea about it.

Holiday cleaning

Before you go to the store for eggs and other Easter items, you should think about cleaning the house. Get the whole family to help. Divide the duties: let the husband knock out the carpets and remove the curtains, you, for example, wash the floors and windows, and the child can wipe the dust. By the way, this is a great reason to get rid of old furniture, and send clothes that you don’t wear “in exile” to the dacha.

If you live in a private house, you should also clean the area adjacent to the courtyard.

After a general cleaning, you will feel real spring freshness, and cleanliness will please the eye.

Food shopping for Easter

After cleaning, you can go on pre-holiday shopping to buy everything you need. If pre-New Year shopping requires us to buy kilograms of various foods and drinks, then Easter shopping is much more modest in this regard.

You should definitely put eggs, Easter cake in the grocery basket (if you do not plan to bake it on your own). You can also buy sweets and cookies - in case neighbors and relatives come to you to christen (or you yourself want to do it).

Buy the rest of the products based on the menu of your holiday table. He, by the way, should be plentiful, but rather modest.

You can treat your family and friends with the following dishes:

• jellied eggs;
• sausages;
• stuffed pike perch;
• pies with onions or meat;
• meat slices.

Egg painting

Painting eggs is perhaps one of the most enjoyable moments in preparation for the Easter holiday, which children really like. It is desirable to approach this process with imagination and creativity.

Polka Dot Egg

Boil the eggs and let them cool. Cut out circles of different sizes from scotch tape and stick them on the eggs in a chaotic manner. Dip them in a pre-prepared solution of 1 cup of water, 1 tsp. vinegar and a few drops of dye. It is enough to hold the eggs in the solution for about 2 minutes to get a fairly saturated color. Next, dry the eggs, remove the circles from them and put them in a special Easter basket.

table decoration

To create a festive mood, you should think about the decor of the table. It can be decorated with napkins with Easter symbols, a vase with willow branches, "newspaper" eggs.

We offer a simple Easter master class on making decorations for the festive table.

You will need:

• several balloons;
• PVA glue;
• floss or iris threads.

1. Inflate balloons to the required size.
2. We impregnate the threads in PVA glue and carefully wrap the balls with them.
3. Leave for a day to dry and then pierce the ball.
4. Ready-made balls of thread can be used for table decor or hung on a chandelier.

Everything, now you are ready for Easter! Christ is risen!

Many of us are believers. But how often does it happen that on the eve of the Easter holiday, of all the well-known questions about this holiday, only such “important” things come to our minds, such as “what color can eggs be painted” and “how many raisins to put in Easter cake”, and still need to be removed , wash, wash windows, knock out carpets - you list frantically in your mind ... Do you recognize yourself? Then let's figure it out: how do you need to prepare for Easter?

To make Easter a success, there are three simple rules:

1. First. Peace in the heart. Yes, yes, that’s right: the first is not cleaning, cooking, ironing at all. Pay attention to the state of your heart: is there resentment, anger, envy? Try to make peace with those with whom you were in a quarrel before Easter, and if it is not possible to see a person, forgive him in your heart. Ideally, this should be done even before the start of Lent, which is a preparation for Easter - after all, this is what Forgiveness Sunday exists for! Confession is also important during this period.
2. Second. Better less is better. Don't have time to bake fifty-three Easter cakes and paint ninety eggs, as planned? Leave this idea! The figures here, of course, are exaggerated, but many housewives do just that: three days in the kitchen - and there will be a holiday in the house. And nothing that the hostess will not have time for the celebration at all - the main thing is that there is something to eat! Such a "holiday of the belly" is not at all necessary: ​​there are many excellent culinary recipes, some of which you can choose from - but you cannot prepare everything for the holiday. It is enough to choose a few dishes.

• By tradition, Easter cake, cottage cheese Easter and colored eggs are mandatory dishes. Each of the dishes has its own meaning. Thus, an egg is a symbol of new life, a sweet Easter cake symbolizes the joy of the presence of God in a person’s life, and Easter cottage cheese melting in the mouth personifies the sweetness of life in paradise.
• As for the color of the eggs, traditionally they are dyed red. This is connected with one interesting legend that has come down to us.
• … After the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, his faithful disciple Mary Magdalene went to different places and told this message. She even dared to come to the emperor Tiberius, who at that time ruled the Roman Empire. It was customary to go to such respected people with gifts, but Mary was poor, and therefore she could not give the emperor anything more expensive than an egg. With an ordinary white chicken egg, Mary went to the emperor and began to announce to him about the Resurrection, but he only laughed in response, saying: “The resurrection from the dead is just as impossible as it is impossible for the egg that you hold in your hands to turn red” . The legend says that at that very moment the egg in the hands of the Magdalene turned red.
• However, it is allowed to paint eggs in other colors, making beautiful patterns using painting, thread, fabric, various plants - all this is allowed. But the recently popular stickers (especially with the image of icons) are not approved by the church. In general, the egg is also a symbol of our faith in the Resurrection, so it does not matter what color it will be painted. The main thing here is the content (i.e. understanding why we paint eggs), and not the form (i.e. the choice of color).

It is forbidden to work on the Easter holiday itself - this is a time for God, family and good deeds: go to the service, go to visit relatives or visit the sick.

1. General cleaning … hearts. This is the most important cleaning. How to make it? It is worth looking into your heart and getting rid of those feelings that pollute it - just for this, the church has been established. Unforgiveness, anger, anger, the desire for revenge, irritability - all these are not at all the feelings with which you need to celebrate Easter. Ideally, it was worth dealing with these negative feelings even before Great Lent, and it is not for nothing that the last Sunday before Lent is called Forgiveness Sunday. However, if you didn’t have time to forgive from the bottom of your heart, make peace with someone, or, on the contrary, ask, it’s time to do it in the last week before Easter. But remember that the Lord looks at intentions - the main thing is that reconciliation or forgiveness be from the heart, sincere. And if it is not possible to see that person, then try to make peace with him in your soul - and again from the bottom of your heart. Of course, don't forget about confession.

2. Finish the housework in advance. Many housewives not only clean the apartment for Easter, but also wash the windows, wash, iron, cook and do a bunch of other things that they never got their hands on. Of course, this is commendable, but you should not leave such intensive preparation for the last two or three days before the holiday. It is best to do this gradually, in parts, otherwise the hostess herself will not be at all up to the celebration for the celebration.

Separately, I would like to say about Maundy Thursday. In the people he received the name of the Pure. You can often hear that this day is especially for, that's when you need to thoroughly wash and clean the apartment and wash yourself. In fact, these are superstitions, and the Church has repeatedly spoken out that all household chores should be completed before Maundy Thursday, and even better - before Holy Week, on which it is better to devote more time to spiritual reflection and prayer, rather than everyday problems. . Maundy Thursday is the day of the establishment of the sacrament of the Eucharist (Communion), when Jesus Christ washed the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper. Why did He do it? The rite of washing the feet has existed for a long time, but servants usually did it - repeating this, Jesus without words showed the apostles that both His and their calling is to serve, and also that not the one who exalts himself is actually exalted. Probably, from here, and also from the fact that many believers confess on this day, the name “Maundy Thursday” has taken root. It is easy to understand that we are not talking about the purity of the home, but about the purity of the soul.

3. Do not forget about visiting the temple and consecrating food. The Resurrection of Christ is a Christian holiday, and therefore it will not be possible to truly celebrate it without visiting the temple. They begin to consecrate food already on Great Saturday, at night and in the morning divine services are held in churches. By the way, not everyone knows that not all products can be brought to the temple for consecration. So, for Easter you need to bring, and, of course, eggs. The egg symbolizes new life, sweet Easter - the life of a person in paradise, and a delicious Easter cake - the joy of a person from the presence of God in his life. The rest of the products are meat, lard, sausage (they emit a strong smell, and we came to pray!) And, of course, you do not need to bring alcoholic beverages to church for consecration. It is better to consecrate crosses and icons at another time, and not with food. By the way, it is important not only to consecrate the products, but also to pray.

By the way, many believers have a question: is it possible to paint eggs in different colors, and not in the traditional red? It is possible, and not only to paint, but also to paint them, decorate and dye with the help of fabric, thread, various plants. In any case, the most important thing is to remember why we paint eggs, and not to focus on what color. Finally, let's recall one story from which we learn where the tradition came from.

After the Resurrection of Christ, Mary Magdalene, his disciple, went to the Roman emperor Tiberius. Of course, she wanted to come to such a high-ranking person with some kind of gift. But due to poverty, she could not come up with anything more than an ordinary chicken egg (white). Being with the emperor, she handed him an egg and greeted him with the words “Christ is risen!”. The emperor did not believe it and replied skeptically: “I would rather believe that this egg will now turn red than that someone can rise from the dead.” And at that moment a miracle happened - the egg turned red, and until that time Christians continue to paint eggs on the main holiday - Easter.