Radio România Internațional

Tag: Delia Suiogan

  • Traditions on Orthodox Easter

    Traditions on Orthodox Easter

    Easter is the biggest celebration in the Christian calendar. It is
    celebrated at the end of Lent, marking the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
    Ethnologist Florin-Ionuț Filip Neacşu told us more about the significance of
    Easter celebrations for Orthodox Christians.


    Easter is the most important religious holiday for Romanians and
    for Christians in Eastern Europe, which is predominantly
    Eastern-Orthodox. Unlike Western Christianity, where Christmas holds pride of
    place, in Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Greece but also in Syria, Palestine and
    Egypt, Easter is the most important. In Romania, as early as the first two
    centuries A.D. the disciples of the original apostles reached Dobruja, then
    started spreading the gospel to the rest of modern-day Romania. Therefore,
    Easter became an important celebration. According to ethnographic and
    historiographic studies, it seems Easter overlapped with certain celebrations
    of spring. The essence of Christianity is the Resurrection of our Lord, making
    Easter the biggest holiday in Europe and in the Eastern Mediterranean. Starting
    1925, when the first Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church was appointed,
    the Easter mass has been celebrated at midnight, when Christians are given the Resurrection
    light.


    Painting eggs and preparing traditional food are the main activities
    in Romanian households around Easter. Maramureș is one of the areas where
    Easter traditions are kept alive. Delia Suiogan with the North University of
    Baia Mare told us more.


    On Mondays, people put out their clothes to air, so the sun can
    breathe new life into them. The first three days of the week are therefore
    devoted to house cleaning activities. People would repair their wooden floors,
    paint their walls and clean the house. Additionally, starting Thursdays, people
    start preparing food for Easter Sunday. On Friday, no kneading and baking is
    allowed, therefore the dishes are usually prepared on Thursday. This is usually
    the day when people paint eggs, and they prepare food packages to give to the
    poor. On this day, people celebrate their dead and make peace with their peers.
    The food given to the poor need not necessarily contain painted eggs, but even
    raw eggs, particularly when we’re talking about very poor families, who have
    nothing to put on the table for Easter. Black Friday, as it is usually called
    in the traditional calendar, is a day of rest. It is a day devoted to
    reflection, when people fast during the entire day and reflect on the sins
    taken away by Christ’s supreme sacrifice. On Saturdays, people return to their
    household chores, kneading the dough for pound cake or the sweet cheese Easter
    Cake known as Pască. It is usually the house elders that do the kneading. The
    Easter Cake is a mix of unleavened dough and sweet cheese. It is related to an
    agrarian ritual, but it is also a dairy food, which makes the transfer of power
    from the world of plants and animals to humans. Sacrificing lambs on Saturday
    is symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. People prepare stuffed lamb,
    lamb meatloaf and lamb stew for Easter Sunday.


    On this special occasion, in the old days people would never eat the
    food they prepared before it got a proper blessing. They would bring food in
    baskets at the Church so priests could bless all the food that would be eaten
    at Easter Sunday. Therefore, this festive meal was steeped in symbolism and
    rituals, as Florin-Ionuț Filip Neacşu told us.


    In some areas of the country, people bring the dishes they have
    prepared for Easter to church for blessing. These include red-painted eggs in
    particular, symbolizing life and resurrection. This is actually a carry-over
    from earlier times, going back to the Celts and the Thracians. People would
    cook a lot of food, including sour soup of lamb soup. It was customary in the
    Hebrew tradition to sacrifice lambs, sheep and goats for Easter. In
    etymological terms, Easter means passing in Hebrew and Christians
    reinterpreted the word as a passage towards the Light of the Resurrection. In
    Bukovina, Bessarabia and Moldavia, as well as in Eastern Transylvania, apart
    from Easter Cake and other traditional Easter dishes, such as lamb meatloaf,
    people also prepare the so-called Pască, a pie or cake made with sweet cheese
    and raisins, with a cross-shaped bread on top. In central and western
    Transylvania as well as in Banat, people make a special Easter bread called
    pască, which is blessed in Church and given to the people attending mass.


    Another well-preserved tradition across various regions of Romania
    can be observed today in Maramureș and is related to the blessing of the Easter
    bread and dishes. People here fast on Saturday night until Sunday morning.
    During this interval they continue to eat fasting dishes, and eat sugar only
    on Sunday morning, when they return home with the baskets filled with blessed
    dishes. The blessing ritual is very specific. People line up in front of the
    church, carrying baskets with food adorned with handmade kitchen cloths, each a
    symbol of community identity. (VP)

  • New Year celebration in Romania

    New Year celebration in Romania

    The coming of the new year is one of the most awaited events in the world. Although for some the calendar date is a mere convention, the New Year is celebrated on all continents. In the Romanian tradition, the New Year used to be called Little Christmas, because all the rites to replace the old time took place in the spring. Although it was believed that the New Year actually begins at Christmas or even earlier, on St. Andrew’s, on November 30, the custom of caroling to announce a new beginning was a must at the end of the year.

    Pre-Christian rites play a special role in celebrating the transition into the new year. Given the fact that this moment does not have a religious dimension, the customs have remained almost unchanged over time. An ancient solar cult has passed down to present rituals in which animals are the main element, such as the Dance of the Bear and the Goat. The costumes are prepared the week before Christmas, and the dancers’ masks have the expressiveness of the folk craftspeople who make them with creativity and humor. Delia Suiogan, an ethnologist with the Northern University of Baia Mare explains:

    For the New Year, people go caroling to neighbors and friends. The so-called road carols are no longer preserved. On this night, in Maramureș you will be delighted by the beautiful carols, because here, unlike the other areas of the country, the emphasis is on the carol as a song. The people of Maramures know many beautiful Christian carols, but there is still a very rich fund of pre-Christian carols, with many symbols related to the solar system and the rebirth of the sun and nature.

    People in rural communities still believe that the night between years facilitates their access to the divine realm. In the folk tradition, the messages given to people at special times over the year, at major holidays, and at time thresholds are considered to be the only truly important ones for both the community and the individual. Sabina Ispas, director of the Constantin Brăiloiu Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest has the details:

    There is a suite of ceremonial and festive actions, among which Sorcova is very well known, which was practiced especially by younger children. The same goes for the Plough procession, involving both children and adults, married people, with families. The original meaning of the Big Plough was that of protection and sanctification, at the same time, all of which were aspects of the festive celebration of the great feast, from which the carol was derived as a ritual. All that would mark, therefore, the New Year, the whole ceremony ending with the so-called carol of Saint John. These special times, Christmas and New Year, are related to the tradition of opening the heavens. It is, in fact, about the perception, understanding and acceptance of the act of theophany. In all power, the divinity descends upon the earth and the people. That is why it was said that the heavens were opened, because God could communicate directly with his creation, with man. At these special times, when the heavens open, people can find out things that may happen to them during the year that is about to begin. It is not a question of divination, as is believed, but of a message which God conveys to people at a time when he can have direct and close contact with them.

    Also on New Year’s Eve, young women used to predict their future. Here is Sabina Ispas again:

    There are a lot of ceremonial practices, through which people try to ensure a correct and as complex as possible communication with the divinity. Especially young girls, who want to know if and who they will marry and what that person will be like. They try to decipher the qualities of their future partners, associating the image of hidden things that the girls have to discover. If they discover black ember, the chosen one would be a brunette. If they discover dry branches, it will be a marriage with a person older than them.

    For the history of our culture, the period between Christmas and Saint John, on January 7, is one of the richest in such ceremonial and festive actions. Modern society has turned the New Year’s celebration into an occasion of partying with family and friends, in oraganized events that end only at the dawn of the first day of the following year. (MI)