Religious holidays How do they influence on our way of life? Gusev Alex Kryukov John Tokareva Irena

Many Easter customs have come down to us from long ago. Often they have changed along the way. People celebrate the holiday according to their beliefs and religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day that Jesus Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day that He was resurrected.

Hypotheses Are there different traditions of Easter festivals in different countries? For countless years it was the custom to give eggs as gifts during the spring festival. So do we today. In some countries of Europe, decorating eggs has been a great art for many years. Many of the Easter eggs of southern Europe have crosses on them and other religious symbols. CHRIST IS RISEN - is a common greeting on Easter Day. People keep these beautiful gift eggs for years and years, and display them at Easter time.

Easter Traditions Easter Egg Games. Eggs play an important part in Easter sports. Two traditional Easter egg games are the Easter Egg Roll and the Easter Egg Hunt.

The rules of an Easter Egg Roll are to see who can roll a hard- boiled egg the greatest distance or can make the roll without breaking it usually down a grassy hillside or slope.

In England, children rolled eggs down hills on Easter morning, a game which has been connected to the rolling away of the rock from Jesus Christ’s tomb when He was resurrected. British settlers brought this custom to the New World.

Maybe the most famous egg rolling takes place on the White house Lawn. Hundreds of children come with baskets filled with brightly decorated eggs and roll them down the famous lawn.

The custom of an Easter Egg Hunt began because children believed that rabbits laid eggs in the grass. The Easter rabbit is supposed to bring Easter eggs and hide them. He is very shy. He comes at night, and no one ever sees him.

Today on Easter Sunday, children wake up to find that the Easter Bunny has left them baskets of sweets. He has also hidden the eggs that they decorated earlier that week. Children hunt for the eggs all around the house and the child who finds the most eggs wins a prize.

Hot Cross Buns, Kulich and Paskha One of the oldest custom is eating special food. In Russia at Easter Sunday people were required to consecrate the kulich and paskha in church.

Kulich is a tasty Easter loaf flavored with sweets and resins, round in shape. Paskha is a ritual dish made from sour cream, sugar, eggs, raisins and butter, square in shape. There are decorations on the walls of the mould which symbolized the of Resurrection.

In other countries one of the oldest Good Friday customs is eating hot cross buns. These small sweet buns, marked with a cross of white icing, may have originated in pre-Christian times. Early Egyptians, Greeks and Romans marked their loaves of bread with symbols to honor their gods and goddesses. Another belief was that eating hot cross buns on Good Friday served to protect the home from fire.

Easter Parade and Wearing New Clothes. On Easter Sunday everyone likes to wear something new. The tradition of wearing new clothes on Easter could be dated back to first-century Christians. Like many other Easter symbols, the new clothes represent the new life offered through the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

Conclusion Not all Christian churches celebrate the Easter season in the same way. But the message of Easter is always the same. It is the message of life without end!