Palm Sunday and Easter traditions in Romania: blessed willow branches, egg painting and tapping

Easter, or the Resurrection of Christ, is one of the most celebrated Christian holidays in the world. Each country has its own way of celebrating Easter, through different customs and Romania too has its own wealth of traditions waiting to be discovered. For those who decided to spend Easter in Romania, let's take a glimpse into what Easter is for Romanians and how they celebrate it.

In Romania, many Easter traditions have been preserved. The celebrations start with Holy Week, usually held a week later than Catholic Holy week. This is because the Orthodox Church calculates the date for Easter using the Julian, rather than the Gregorian calendar. Despite the different date, it also begins with Palm Sunday (in Romanian Florii), when Jesus entered Jerusalem and ends with Easter Sunday, when Christ was resurrected. During this week, final preparations are made for the big celebration.

On Palm Sunday, people who attend mass in church return home with blessed willow branches and hang them above the icons in their homes. On Florii , all those who have flower names and those called Florin or Florina celebrate their name day.

On Good Thursday, also called Holy Thursday, people take food and drink to the church. On the same day, boiled eggs are painted. Tradition holds that if eggs turn red on Holy Thursday, they will keep without spoiling all year. The prominent color for Easter eggs is red, but other colors like yellow, green or blue are also used. In Romania, some more elaborate painted eggs are found, with different geometrical and floral motifs and many colors on the same egg .

The egg painting ritual still survives, but only a few people still master the art of egg painting. The process involves various paints and wax. This type of painted egg makes a great gift for loved ones elsewhere in the world. Most of the colored eggs on Easter can be eaten, as they are boiled. These special eggs however are emptied of their contents, leaving only a colored, light shell. Most Romanians however paint eggs in red, green, blue and yellow for Easter, while the special painted eggs are to be found at fairs and in some regions of the country, for example in northern Moldova and Bucovina

Another egg related tradition is tapping eggs on Easter day. Children usually have a competition to see whose egg has the thickest shell and can tap and break all the other eggs. This is usually done with normal, colored eggs that can be eaten afterward. The egg tapping game also involves a saying: the first person says 'Christ has risen' (in Romanian, 'Cristos a inviat'), while the second goes “True, he has risen" (in Romanian, 'Adevarat a inviat').

Good Friday is also called the Friday of Sufferings, because Jesus was crucified on this day. A tradition that has been kept in Romania is that of placing flowers at the church for Christ and passing under the table three times, remembering the pains Christ endured when he carried his cross to his crucifixion.