While you digest all that chocolate: 10 questions and answers about Easter

Easter Sunday falls on April 17 this year. This is relatively late; the latest possible date is April 25. However, last year the Easter Bunny arrived on April 4, and in 2008 even extremely early: on March 23. The reason for this calendar back and forth is that Easter is a so-called movable party which means it doesn’t fall on the same date every year, like Christmas for example.

Why is that? According to Christianity, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus took place during the Jewish period Passover. The young Christian church therefore linked Easter to Passover. Since the Jewish calendar Start of spring Calculated differently than the Christian one, Easter and Passover no longer necessarily coincide. In addition, the Western churches introduced the Gregorian calendar, which makes their Easter date different from that of the Eastern churches.

But when is Easter? The rule is: It is the Sunday after the first Spring full moon. This won’t fall until March 21st at the earliest – at least for the church; Astronomically, spring can begin on March 20 or even March 19. This makes March 22 the earliest possible date for Easter Sunday. Of course, this event is rare: the last time this happened was in 1818, the next time it won’t be until the year 2285. There are a total of 35 possible Easter dates from March 22 to April 25; Easter Sunday usually falls on April 19.

In many European languages ​​- with the exception of Slavic – the name for Easter is reminiscent of the Jewish one Passover celebration: From Albanian Pashket about French Paques and Dutch Easter to Italian Pasqua – the Aramaic word is always there pas-cha inside.

But not in German and English: Easter And Easter probably comes from the old Germanic word AustrianWhat “Dawnbreak” (related to lat. Aurora and ancient Greek. Eos) means and at the same time for the direction of the compass East and perhaps also stood for a Germanic spring festival.

It is often said that Easter is named after a Germanic spring or fertility goddess Ostara derived from. However, their existence is quite questionable. But Old Norse may also have been used Austria Godfather: It means ‘to give water’ and is said to have become associated with Easter through the baptismal ritual, as baptisms used to be preferred on Easter morning.

Any important, self-respecting Christian festival has one second holiday. This applies to Christmas and Pentecost, and especially to Easter, Christianity’s highest festival. If you will, the second feast day of these three feasts is merely the pitiful remnant of a longer liturgical festive season, the so-called Octave, which lasts from the Solemnity until the following Sunday.

Theologically, Easter Monday, like Easter Sunday, marks the resurrection of Jesus. On the second day of celebration, however, the emphasis is on the story of the two Emmaus disciples: On the Road to Emmaus The risen Jesus Christ joined them, but they did not recognize him until the evening when he broke bread with them.

On Good Friday, Jesus Christ died on the cross; He was raised from the dead, as Christianity believes, on the third day. According to today’s insights, that would only be Monday, and not Sunday. What’s wrong here?

However, the Christian counting method follows the Jewish counting method of the time, which included the starting day of a period. If you count it Crucifixion Day thus the resurrection actually takes place on Sunday, which is the third day. The statement ‘after three days’, which occurs in the Gospel of Mark, should also be understood as ‘within three days’.

But Jesus himself announced “Sign of Jonah” that one day he would rest in the grave for three days: “For as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the womb of the earth three days and three nights.” This announcement actually contradicts a resurrection on Sunday.

Lent and Holy Week were serious business for the clergy and church people. The good news of Christ’s resurrection, on the other hand, should be celebrated with joy. From the 14th century, priests promoted merriment on Easter Sunday: The risus paschalisthe Easter laughter, echoed through the beech trees. This meant that some priests clucked like chickens and conjured eggs to make the people in the pews laugh. Some even told vulgar anecdotes or did handstands in the pulpit.

The Reformation did not like this. Martin Luther did not believe in this “silly, ridiculous nonsense.” Joyless Protestantism and the Enlightenment drove the laughter out of the church people, and eventually it fell silent also among Catholics. It only lasted a while as a friendly smile about good “Easter fairy tales”.

The event that Christians commemorate on Good Friday is not a cheerful one: Jesus Christ, the Son of God according to their faith, was crucified and died. The Mourning about his death can be found in the prefix “Kar-”, which goes back to an Old High German feminine noun: chara means “sorrow”, “repentance”; the verb Charen “complain”, “mourn” (cf. English. to assure).

Other languages ​​describe Good Friday – also “Quieter” or “High Friday” called – with the adjectives “good” or “holy”: In English the day is called Good Fridayin Dutch Good Friday. In the Romance languages, which are more influenced by Catholicism, ‘holy’ predominates: in French, Good Friday is Vendredi saintin Italian the Venerdi santo.

Eggs have been considered since ancient times Fertility symbol. About 5,000 years ago, people in China gave away brightly colored eggs at the beginning of spring. For Christians, the egg is a symbol of resurrection: just as Jesus Christ opened his rocky tomb at his resurrection, new life comes from the eggshell. The sometimes artistic painting of Easter eggs originated in the 12th and 13th centuries. Red-colored eggs symbolized the blood that Jesus shed for the people.

The connection between Easter and eggs may have another reason: during Lent, the consumption of eggs was prohibited, so they were boiled and stored. By Easter much of it had been collected.

You can read in the next chapter how a rabbit eventually brought the eggs.

Even anyone who has studied biology knows very well that rabbits do not lay eggs. Several theories attempt to explain the long-eared bat’s strange connection to Easter and dyed eggs. That should be the case clumsy bakers who inadvertently created the Easter Bunny because their traditional Easter lambs looked more like bunnies.

Master Lamp has only existed for over two hundred years as the Easter bunny who brings eggs. In the past, other animals were responsible for this: in Saxony, Bavaria and Austria the rooster brought the eggs, in Thuringia and Alsace the stork, in Hesse the fox and in Switzerland the cuckoo.

What is certain is that the brown hare, Lepus europaeusdue to its phenomenal reproduction rate, it has always been taken into account Fertility symbol had to serve. In ancient times it was one of the animals sacred to the goddess of love, Aphrodite. It was precisely this lust of which he was accused, which for a long time made him suspicious of the church, which condemned the pagan fertility cult in him and labeled him as an instigator of fornication.

To put it bluntly: they become unsold chocolate bunnies not recycled – but rumor has it they will be melted down and back on the shelves at Christmas as chocolate Santas. “This is a fairy tale that is re-enacted every year,” says Franz Schmid, former director of the Chocosuisse trade association. The chocolate bunnies are elaborately packaged; It would be a logistical nightmare and also uneconomical to collect, transport, unpack and melt them.

“In addition, taking back and recycling products that were in the store is prohibited for reasons Food Safety not allowed,” Schmid explains. “Right after Easter, retailers reduce the price of unsold bunnies and sell them,” says Schmid. “But the sale of personnel or donations to non-profit organizations is also an issue.”

Well, the cup final doesn’t necessarily take place on Easter Monday. This year, for example, the finalists will not meet until May 15 at the Stade de Suisse in Bern.

In fact, it was that way for a long time White Monday the traditional date for the cup final. But the international competition calendar of FIFA and UEFA, as well as the major World Cup and European Championship events that take place every two years, explains Daniel Eder of the Swiss Football Association (SFV), ensured that the date was handled flexibly.

Of the last fourteen finals since 2003, three were played on Easter Monday (2004, 2006 and 2014) and three on Whit Monday (2005, 2007, 2013). The remaining eight took place on a different date. This makes it clear: the cup final is rarely played on Easter Monday.

This is an updated version of an article originally published in April 2014.