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Though Easter is regarded as one of the most important Christian holidays, the customs connected with it apparently have much more importance for Poles.
Easter celebrations really begin four weeks earlier, on the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday. In essence, however, the celebrations in Poland focus on four days, starting Good Friday to Monday's ¶migus-dyngus customs.
• Good Friday (April 18): churches hold the Adoration of the Cross honoring Christ's death. The established custom is to visit churches which display mock-ups of Christ's Tomb.
• Holy Saturday (April 19): the eve of the Resurrection of Christ, is a day nearly as much celebrated as Easter itself, like Christmas Eve. Holy Saturday is a day of rejoicing and expectation: parishes organize all-night vigils, which are one of the most joyful church events. At night, some Warsaw churches put on concerts and performances, a tradition rarely celebrated in Western Europe. Poles also take their Easter baskets to church to get blessed. The baskets usually contain food served during the meal on Easter Sunday, which include symbolic salt, bread and eggs.
• Easter Sunday (April 20): ending Lent, at the same time marking the beginning of the new liturgical year. Visiting family graves is also traditional on this day. The religious ceremonies start with the Resurrection, or the new liturgical year's first Holy Mass, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus. During the mass, usually starting at 6 a.m., long paschal candles are lit; these candles will be lit during mass throughout the coming year. Traditionally in Poland, Easter Sunday is as loud as New Year's Eve, as shots are fired-in the past with the use of guns, today with firecrackers-to commemorate Christ resurrecting and leaving his tomb and-as described by the Bible-the incredibly loud sound of rending stone. The solemn Easter breakfast is preceded with a ceremonial sharing of the blessed egg, and everybody gathered at the table exchanges heartfelt blessings of joy, health and happiness in family life.
• ¦migus-dyngus (April 21): unlike the holidays described above, lany poniedziałek (Wet Monday) is a strictly secular tradition derived from folk beliefs, according to which sprinkling one another with water was a blessing that would guarantee prosperity and a good harvest. Eventually, the day became an occasion for merry-making and chasing one another around with buckets full of water. A maiden not sprinkled with water on the day was supposed to become an old spinster. Today, the holiday's idea has been somewhat distorted by Polish youngsters, who treat the day as an opportunity to get away with dousing everyone brave enough to leave their homes. We would not recommend you going for a walk to frequented places like Zamkowy Square, the surroundings of the Palace of Culture and Science and Warsaw parks. Actually, we would like to definitely dissuade you from any strolls.
On the Polish Easter table are found Easter bunnies and baby chicks-symbolizing rebirth-and also colored Easter eggs. An old traditional game is na wybitki, w bitki, also known as walatka-players hit their Easter eggs against another one, and whoever breaks his competitor's egg is the winner. As a gift to a boy or a girl, the Easter egg was considered to be a sign of attraction. Yet Easter eggs used to be presented not only to the living, but also to the dead, as an expression of one's memory about their ancestors, and-perhaps not always quite consciously-with reference to ancient beliefs, according to which the egg is seen as a seed of life and potential resurrection.
Also characteristically Polish are the traditional Easter cakes: mazurek, a cake filled with nuts and raisins; and faworki-twisted biscuits from dough, similar to puffed pastry.
The Polish Easter is a peculiar mixture of pagan and folk traditions with church traditions. In the end, however, Easter is simply a family holiday.
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