Easter in Romania

Easter is an important and widely celebrated holiday in Romania. Unlike in the States, Romanians take the Monday & Tuesday after Easter Sunday off from work. Almost everyone attends a church service either at midnight the Saturday night before
Easter or on Easter Sunday and the streets are alive with people headed somewhere to celebrate. Like in the States, most Romanians like to spend time with family and many of them leave the city and head to their relatives in the villages where they enjoy each other’s company and a feast of traditional Romanian dishes.

A favorite dish is an appetizer made with the boiled eggs similar to our deviled eggs. The difference is the filling is made from pâté and the eggs are placed upside down in the bowl with a layer of mayonnaise spread on top of the eggs. I’ve had this dish twice now and although I’m not a fan of mayonnaise, I really liked it!

This year I had the pleasure of seeing an Easter parade the weekend before Easter – complete with a marching band and lots of people dressed in native costumes. After the parade there was an abundance of vendors selling homemade gifts – the highlight of most vendors being hand-painted or beaded eggs. They are beautiful, but few people are able to create such beautiful masterpieces.























There is a custom that is easy to do however…decorating eggs with natural methods. Since red is the most popular color for Easter eggs (representing Christ’s blood), Romanian women will take the eggs and lay small leaves and twigs around the eggs and then wrap them in strips of pantyhose to hold them in place. The wrapped eggs are then placed in a pan with water, onion skins, and a little salt where they are boiled until hard-boiled. The eggs turn a deep reddish brown color and have intricate designs left from the leaves and twigs that were placed on the outside of the shells. It’s a lot of fun and I recommend trying it sometime.

I didn’t see any Romanians hunting Easter eggs, so I think that must be an American thing. However, since I live with Americans we did introduce the infamous Easter egg hunt to “Clare’s kids” (the underprivileged gypsy kids that are part of the after-school program run by one of my American friends). We had the kids over and let them color Easter eggs and then made them wait inside while we hid plastic eggs filled with candy and prizes all over the yard. They had so much fun they wanted to do it again at the next two birthday parties!























A long time ago I learned how to say John 11:25 in sign language (Jesus said, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live), so I thought it might be fun to teach it to the kids in my class on Easter Sunday. They loved it! And it was so fun that they still ask me to watch them “say” that verse in sign language.

Easter in Romania was a special time for me filled with a mixture of new cultural experiences and old traditions shared in new ways with lots of wonderful children and adults alike.