Welcome and greetings to you all my friends :-) In Romania the Christian Church says that Jesus was born during the winter solstice and his death followed by his resurrection happened during the spring equinox, the Easter. The most important Christian holiday is the day of Jesus' Resurrection. Cleaning the houses, wearing new clothes, the ritual bath before going to church, all these are supposed to mark a new beginning. After a long fast - the Lent, tables full with all sorts of good dishes and brightened up with beautiful painted eggs create a festive atmosphere. Children are the happiest of all looking for their gifts and colored eggs in the newly grown grass. Everybody including the peasants are beautifully dressed in their national costumes, with lit candles in their hands, gathered together around the churches at midnight in order to solemnly utter:"Jesus Christ has risen from the dead". Everywhere around the churches, on the hills or in the plains, people light fires and sing Our Saviour's praises. After the service, their is a multitude of flaring lit candles, a most uplifting and touching sight, make for home where people clink Easter eggs with beautifully dyed or exquisitely painted shells. The craftsmanship of dyeing the eggs at Easter, is an ancient tradition with Romanians, is due to the belief that eggs represent the source of life. The egg, preserver of the mystery of the origin of life, has always been related to the rites of the revival of nature. There is definitely a close link between Easter, the egg and the vernal equinox as the three of them cheese, cake, lamb roast and broth, drob which is a spiced minced lamb and fresh cottage cheese. The eggs colouring is an old habit in the Romanian tradition. The painted eggs are a testimony of the Easter customs, believes and habits, representing an element of spiritual culture characteristic only to the Romanians. As geographical spreading, this habit covers the entire country's surface. This habit is raised to the art level, in Bucovina more then anywhere else. The folkloric motifs used can be found in all the Romanian symbolism: the sun, the leaf and as a reconfirmation of our christianity, the cross. Chromatic symbolistic of painted eggs * black - absoluthysm, eternity * blue - sky, health, vitality * green - nature renewal, freshness, fertility, hope * red - symbol of the blood, sun, fire, love and living happiness * yellow -light, youth, happiness, harvest, hospitality * violet - self-care, patience Geometric symbolistic of painted eggs * vertical line - life * horizontal line - death * double line - eternity * line with rectangles - power of mind and knowledge * light curved line - water, clean, pure * spiral - time, eternity * double spiral -link between life and death Due to the great diversity of models, please visit some of the sites listed below. They are wonderfull believe me. I listed more becouse I couldn't do my choice which one to post for you. Arts Reproductions Online Gallery Traditii Decorated eggs Catalog More Hope you enjoied this visit. I am happy to be your host! :-)

Hi AnaMaria, That was wonderful, now I can say I have celebrated Easter in another country. Your forums are sooo interesting. I am looking forward to going to the links. Thank you my friend. Your Good Friend Deborah

Hi AnaMaria, I had to come back to tell you, those were some of the most beautiful eggs I have ever seen. Thank you. Your Good Friend Deborah

Hello Deborah, Thank you so much for being always here with me in my trips. Next week I'm going to post our major customs the week before Easter. Here in my country, and in my family, many of us celebrate Easter twice; this is because of the callendar. Orthodox Easter isn't at the same time with Catholic one. So, as we are some mixtures here, in the same family happens to be people with different religions. (As it is in my case) So, it comes out a funny situation, that the weekend to come is my Easter, and than it will be the majority's Easter (the orthodox one) the next week (but sometimes the differences are higher) Uf, this is quite difficult to explain in English. LOL The most famouse painted eggs are made in Bucovina. There are even exibitions with them and are sold as pices of art. Some of them may be quite valuable.

Hello Ana, This was a most excellent Forum about your holiday and meaning for Easter. Very cool!!! I loved the links to all the artistic eggs. I really enjoyed reading all about this. Thank you for sharing. Hugs and Love,