Easter

How do you celebrate Easter in your country?

What do eggs, bunnies and candies have to do with Christianity?

Let's watch this video about the history of Easter. 

* This video belongs to www.history.com

What facts mentioned in the video called your attention?

Do you celebrate Easter? What do you do on these days?
How is Easter celebrated in other countries? Share your findings with us.

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video transcription

Easter, the holiest day of the Christian calendar. A celebration of Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead. So, what does this miracle have to do with bunny delivering painted eggs? The answer lies in a hundred generations of rituals and customs.

According to the gospels of the New Testament, Jesus Christ and his apostoles entered Jerusalem to observe Passover, the Jewish holy season the celebrates the Hebrews release from slavery. After the Passover supper, Jesus was arrested, and on what is now known as Good Friday he was crucified. Two days later he rose from the dead. Those of Jewish origin were the first to celbrate the resurrection likely as a new fasting of the Passover festival. In fact the Eastern celebration was called Pascha. It's derived from the word Pesach, the Jewish translation for Passover.

Originally Easter was celebrated two days after Passover, so it fell on any day of the week, but Easter Wednesday just didn't feel right. In 325 AD Roman Emperor Constantine and the Counsel of Nicea ruled that Easter must fall on a Sunday, the day when Christ rose. Easter Sunday would be the first Sunday to follow the full moon after the spring equinox, it could occur anywhere between March 22nd and April 25th. 

Around the same time Christians began one of the first recorded rituals of the modern Easter celebration: the lighting of the Paschal candle. Its flame a reminder of Christ's resurrection, light out of darkness. As Christianity spread throghout Europe, different pagan customs blended into their holiday. In fact the actual word Easter may have come fron the word Eostre, the godess of spring and fertility, which brings us to the Easter egg.

Eggs have been a mythological symbol of birth for thousands of years. Christians adopted the egg as an Easter customs sometime around the 13th century. The yolk inside the shell represents Christ's emergence from the tomb. Eggs were painted red to represent the blood that Christ shed on the cross.

The colorful Easter egg soon hatched its own traditions. A popular one was egg rolling. In 1875, congress prohibited kids from playing on the capital grounds so, president Rutherfort B. Hayes opened the White House lawn to the little rollers. After that, the White House Easter Egg Roll became a tradition. So when did that Easter bunny hopped into the scene?

The furry rabbit had long been a symbol of new life in European pagan celebrations. Beginning around the 16th century, parents told children that if the behaved on the eve of Easter the Eostre hare would come and lay colorful eggs. Children built nests in their homes to entice the rabbit to visit, an so became the custom of the Easter egg hunt and the Easter basket.

To help fill out those baskets 19th century European chocolatiers began making egg shaped chocolates. The sweet trend quiclky spread throughout the world. Today billions of dollars are spent each year on Easter candy.

Easter: it's a joyful day when Christians celebrate the resurrection. For two thousand years customs have been added, some spiritual and some fun. But Easter is also the time for families to gather and welcome spring when new life emerges after the death of winter.

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Do you know the meaning of the highlighted words? Try to guess the meaning through context or look up the words in a dictionary.

Choose 5 words which are new for you and write sentences about Easter. On a separate sheet of paper write your sentences again but in the place where the new word appears leave a blank space. Hand in your paper to a classmate so that he/she can guess the missing word by reading the sentences you wrote. The student who guesses most of the words is the winner. Good luck!