Orthodox Easter Eggs

Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter with
Pasha -pyramid-shaped sweet bread- and eggs

Orthodox Christians will color eggs for Easter this Sunday, a week after Catholics and Protestants celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One would ask, why is that? The reason for different Easter dates goes back to a fundamental event in the history of the Christian church - a break up between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity, or the Great Schism. Without going into much detail of the underpinnings for the great divide, it is important to remember that, as a result of the separation, different Christian denominations observe the same holidays - including Easter - on different calendar dates. The Eastern Orthodox church is going by the Julian calendar, which is the older calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, while the rest of the Christian family follows the Gregorian calendar.

Different calendars and dates aside; it’s still the same Easter, the main Christian holiday for all Jesus Christ followers around the world. Interestingly, the Orthodox Christians that mostly live in Greece, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Serbia have kept and still follow their own Easter traditions. The most important of them remains coloring eggs for Easter - not artificial eggs, but very real, chicken eggs. The eggs are dyed on the day that Jesus was crucified and eaten on the day of his resurrection. These colored eggs are very appealing, and sometimes they are used only as a decoration.

There are several different ways of coloring eggs, but the most simple and traditional one is boiling eggs with onion skins. The onion skins are boiled first in a pot of water for about 30 minutes. Then, the eggs are boiled in the same pot with the onion water, which makes them dark red or brownish color. 

Red and yellow onion skins

This method of coloring eggs is very simple, yet the eggs turn out very beautiful as they have a very natural deep red color. These red-dyed eggs represent the blood of Christ shed on the cross.

The beautiful dark red eggs dyed in onion skins

In the end, it does not really matter on what Sunday we celebrate Easter or what kind of eggs we have - dyed red, chocolate, or plastic colorful eggs. What really matters is the meaning these Easter eggs encompass, the message they carry on, and the significance they represent. Easter eggs are a symbol of what Jesus has done for us and a reminder of his unfailing love for all the people. And although Christians have different calendars, different eggs, and different traditions, we all share and abide in the same miracle of Easter.


Photography by Igor Dmitry