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Holy Week and Easter

"What has become a habit let it remain a habit, and this, what was, what we heard from our fathers, or we have seen already by ourselves, pass to those who will come after us; remembering that where the past was, there, also, the future will be..." – Leon Potocki 1854.

Each year we celebrate Easter sometime between March 21 and April 25 on the Sunday that comes just after the first full moon of Spring. This date was fixed during the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Many other holy days in the church’s calendar are determined by this date, for example, the first day of Lent (Ash Wednesday) or Palm Sunday.

Easter is the most important holiday for Christians. It comes in spring when, thanks to the sun, day by day the earth become warmer and warmer and each farmer is ready to start work on his land, as our ancestors did. That is one of the reasons why Easter time was so important in peasants’ beliefs. The weather during each day of Holy Week was thought to herald the weather during the whole year: Wednesday indicated what the weather would be like in spring; Maundy Thursday, the weather in summer; Good Friday, the weather during harvest and lift time (potato harvest); while Holy Saturday was the herald of the winter weather.

Wednesday

After the morning Mass called 'jutrznia', all church bells fell silent until the Mass of the Resurrection. In place of the sound of the bells, young boys wandered through the villages making noise by using rattles to remind everybody that fasting was still in force and eating meat was forbidden.

On this day farmers went to their fields and were sprinkling land with holy water (blessed the previous year) to ensure a rich crop.

 Maundy Thursday: the day of the Last Supper

To commemorate the fact that Jesus Christ washed the feet of the apostles, there was in Poland the custom that bishops and kings did the same for old men. The king who initiated the tradition was Zygmunt III. In the time of Stanisław August, it happened one year that every one of the old men was over 100 years old and one of them was even 125 years old. After this ceremony the old men were led to tables and dignitaries served them to show their humility, as Jesus Christ used to do.  

To commemorate the Last Supper, a family supper was eaten in every house. According to old tradition, many Poles did not eat at all after this meal until Sunday breakfast.

Good Friday: the day of preparing Christ’s Grave in the churches

The Graves were guarded by the most respected men.

Old tradition said that you had to visit the Grave. In towns where were more than one church, you had to visit all of the Graves for a short prayer and leave alms for the poor at each.

The end of Lent—and at the same time the end of stomach’s torments—was very close. As a token of that, housewives took out pots with ash and spilled it on the soil. Then they broke the pots to make sure that the fast did not come back. All people were sick of herring and 'żur' (of course, the version that was eaten during fast days —without any bit of grease inside). They were happy they could say goodbye to these dishes, so they had a ritual funeral for them. Pots with 'żur' were carried outside the house and poured out. It happened sometimes that it was poured on the door where a nice girl lived. Herrings were also rightly served. In an act of revenge, they were hung up on tree branches or were hammered to the trunks of trees.

People believed that this day had its own magic, so they planted fruit trees on that day to guarantee rich fruits’ harvests. Housewives made butter, which was used all year as a medicine in case of injury (for both people and animals). They also attributed unusual power to eggs laid on this day. Supposedly, they would never go bad and if thrown into flames they had the power to put out the fire. Just before sunrise, the water in rivers and ponds had  therapeutic properties, so they washed themselves and also their cows (for good milk). 

The peasants believed that eggs had the power to chase away jinxes. So eggs were rolled on the back of each cow to make the animal as round as the egg, and especially on horses to make them as fast in running as an egg can roll. One of the most beautiful traditions of this day was (and still is) painting eggs called 'pisanki' (in the plular form or 'pisanka' in the singular).  There were many techniques for making 'pisanki'. Patterns could be scratched on colored eggs or they were drawn with hot wax and then put into an infusion that colored them. They were also decorated by sticking to them very delicate and light rushes which had been prepared in autumn. Many infusions were used to dye eggs. Each of them gave a different color.  So there were in use: onion skin, bark of young trees like apple, oak or alder, dried flowers of buttercup, also violet, crocus or hollyhock, rye and other grasses, leaves of  myrtle, mistletoe, alder’s cones, bilberries, and maple leaves.      

Colorful 'pisanki' were a favorite Easter gift. Young girls offered the most beautiful 'pisanki' to boys to win their love. Also, if a girl took 'pisanka' from a boy and in return gave him her own, it could mean that she reciprocated his affection. 'Pisanki' were also the objects of plays. The most popular game was to try to hit one 'pisanka' with another one. The winner was the one whose egg was not broken and as a prize he could take all the 'pisanki' of his opponent.  

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday was (and still is) the day of blessing water, fire and food. On this day a big bonfire was prepared in front of the church. After the ceremony of blessing the fire, everyone wanted to take home at least a small part of a burning twig to protect their home and land against storms and hail. During the first spring plowing farmers spilled ashes from this bonfire onto the ground.

After the ceremony of blessing fire there was the ceremony of blessing water. Everybody took some blessed water home. The men sprinkled everything in the house and farmyard―including the animals―with it. The leftover water was kept until the next Holy Saturday. It was used in case of illness and at time when God’s blessing was needed.   

During all of Saturday, priests were blessing food, which were eaten the next day. On this day nobody brought their food to the church as we do today. It was the priests who wandered from manors to backwaters and villages. In villages women met together in one place, put their baskets on the ground and uncovered what they had brought. There was a big quantity of everything (not just the symbolic dishes that we take to church today) and it all smelled good. After six weeks of fasting, the contents of the baskets must have teased the noses of the people. There were in these baskets pisanki, fresh cottage cheese, eggs, horseradish, butter, salt, bread, sausages, smoked bacon and sometimes pound cake and even piglet. All of this was decorated with myrtle so it had to be a real temptation after so many days of fast.

According to old beliefs, blessed food had great power. After coming back home, people carried the basket of blessed food (called in Polish 'święconka') around the house three times to protect provisions against rats and mice and to secure affluence. What more, the 'święconka' was supposed to protect villages against any disasters.

In the old days Holy Saturday ended with a Resurrection Mass at midnight. Today this Mass begins on Sunday morning (at 6.00 A.M.). Everybody wanted to attend this Mass because whoever was not present in church was deprived of the right to eat the food blessed the previous day. Who would like to deserve such a punishment? ;))

At the beginning of the Resurrection Mass, the people went in procession around the church three times, following a priest carrying the Blessed Sacrament and singing joyful Easter songs. After this Mass, the most frequently used word was Alleluja, which means Glorify the Lord. Also, after this Mass people greeted each other with the special words “Christ rose from the dead" to which one replied “It is true that He rose from the dead”. Today in many homes we can hear the same words on Easter Sunday morning.

Easter Sunday

Sunday morning brought what was most longed-for during Lent – the chance to be a glutton. Family breakfast began (and still does) by sharing blessed eggs (similar to Christmas Eve supper, which began by sharing a blessed wafer). After this ceremony you could eat whatever one wanted: veal, pork fat, sausage, eggs …… and everything with horseradish. This day was reserved for family, and only on Monday did neighbors pay visits to each other.

Easter Monday

The Monday after Easter was a day of joy and frolic. But first of all it was a day of sprinkling everybody with water.

It had various names. Today we know it as “Śmigus-Dyngus” or “Lany Poniedziałek”. There were many techniques of sprinkling, from gentle sprinkling with perfume to pouring full buckets of water on one another or throwing somebody into a pond. Although it was not always nice, no girl wanted to stay dry because that would mean a lack of popularity with the boys.

For more even fun, boys sitting on tree branches or on the top of a roof delivered short  rhymes, often very  malicious, in honor of the girls. But the real offence would be the lack of such a rhyme for a girl, so each of them wanted to hear something about herself.

There was one more custom connected to Easter. During Christmas boys were wandering ”po kolędzie”,  and similarly during Easter they wandered “po dyngusie”. They went from one home to another singing, wishing the best for their hosts and waiting for some food and booze.

Easter is a time of happiness. It is the time when Jesus defeats death and gives people hope for eternal life. Spring brings sun and together with that promises and hopes for rich crops and full granaries. And it is the end of the gloomy and hungry time of Lent, when both good food and games were forbidden. When Easter comes you can eat what you want and have as much joy as you wish. And whenever Poles had the opportunity, they never suffered from a lack of will to have a good time.

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