Blessing of Easter Baskets

[bpbasilphx]

The idea is that you have foods you abstained from in your basket to be blessed to break the fast.

 

[Allyson]

Thank you Kuryakyn and mariyka–I think the already embroidered cloths are out of my budget this year–perhaps I’ll have to make do with some plain cloths and work on my own throughout the coming year.

I once took a pre-made square (white) from the craft store, hemmed the edges in, and put red Byzantine cross about 2" high on the middle of one edge. It was the perfect project for a graduate student budget, and it only took about a week in my spare time before Easter. It is simple, but gets the job done

 

[Perogi]

Thank you Kuryakyn and mariyka–I think the already embroidered cloths are out of my budget this year–perhaps I’ll have to make do with some plain cloths and work on my own throughout the coming year. Now I have more ideas as to what to put in. I was planning to make pascha bread (or at least Hungarian milk-loaf) and the horseradish sounds right up my alley, if not my family’s.

I think i’ll be putting in some chocolate rabbits and lambs if i can find them as well (for the kids, of course, right?).

Since our teeny congregation borrows space in a Roman Catholic church we will be celebrating “early” on Saturday with the service, blessing of baskets and a potluck.

Absolutely No candy which includes (Chocolate) is permitted in Basket! The older Priests screamed at the people who put sweets in the Baskets!!
Lambs should consist of Butter-cream!

 

[Perogi]

Hi Catherine

It isn’t only the Eastern Christians who have this custom.

You find that Slovaks, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Croatians and Slovenes also bless baskets of Easter food and they are 99% Roman Catholic.

You find different things in the baskets depending on where you’re from. For instance, Croatians and Slovenes put lamb in their baskets instead of ham.

In Western Slovakia, they make a veal loaf and put that into their basket.

My family is from Eastern Slovakia and we put slab bacon into the basket along with the ham and kolbassy.

In regions where they made wine, you will often find bottles of wine.

In some regions of Hungary and Croatia, they also put in garlic and spring onions.

Hope this helps…

Easter Basket Blessing is actually a **Slavic Paganist **tradition! And the Russian Orthodox church adopted the Practice from the start!

Poland and all most of the other slavs were converted to orthodox Christianity in the 10th century ! As a result they Blessed Easter Baskets also!

In the 13th century **Two events **shaped the Religious history of Eastern Europe!

**The first **was the Mongols conquered Russia and demanded Tribute from Russian Orthodox parishes !

**And the second **was Germany converted the Paganist Western Slavs notably the Wenzel and Sorbian (Czech Germans) to Latin-Rite Christianity !

As a result of those two events Poland slowly converted to Latin-Rite Christianity! However Poland was still 50% Eastern-Rite Catholic and Russian Orthodox untill the Boundary shifts at the end of World War two!

As a result of the two listed events Latin-rite Catholics of Eastern Europe retained the Basket Blessing tradition!

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

You find that Slovaks, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Croatians and Slovenes also bless baskets of Easter food and they are 99% Roman Catholic.

My mother’s (and my former) Polish parish in Brooklyn has always had the blessing of Easter baskets.

I am entirely unfamiliar with the Ukrainian terms you use, as Greenpoint, Brooklyn is almost entirely Polish, including the parochial school at St. Stanislaus Kostka’s Church.

We used ordinary Easter baskets, and for Wielkanoc (Easter, but literally, Great Night), we’ll have the following in a basket - ham, butter, Polish-style bread, horseradish (chrzan) with beets, kiełbasa (the ł is pronounced like w in English) a babka, salt, colored and decorated hard-cooked eggs, and home-style cheese. To be sure, that was what my family did, and others may have included other things. We didn’t include candy or chocolate.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Poland and all most of the other slavs were converted to orthodox Christianity in the 10th century !

Not the Poles. The Poles were Roman Catholics from the start, since 966, when Mieszko I converted. 966 is considered the date of the birth of the Polish nation. Because the Poles were converted by missionaries from Rome, they began using the Roman alphabet, unlike those converted by Cyril and Methodius, who introduced the Cyrillic alphabet.

To be sure, other faiths also lived in Poland, but it was overwhelmingly a Catholic country and a western-oriented one.

 

[ciero]

Absolutely No candy which includes (Chocolate) is permitted in Basket! The older Priests screamed at the people who put sweets in the Baskets!!
Lambs should consist of Butter-cream!

Never heard of this one!! My basket is always overflowing with chocolate1

 

[ciero]

Not the Poles. The Poles were Roman Catholics from the start, since 966, when Mieszko I converted. 966 is considered the date of the birth of the Polish nation. Because the Poles were converted by missionaries from Rome, they began using the Roman alphabet, unlike those converted by Cyril and Methodius, who introduced the Cyrillic alphabet.

To be sure, other faiths also lived in Poland, but it was overwhelmingly a Catholic country and a western-oriented one.

Perogis history of Christianity in Poland is much more historical…granted Poland is NOW a very western oriented catholicism but hasnt always been.

 

[masha]

We always have Krupnik, or just plain vodka in our basket as well, and salt to be blessed, and herbs.

Now that we’re living up in New England, it’s harder and harder to find a church that does bless the baskets, but I can’t imagine Easter without it!

 

[5Loaves]

…You can also go to www.hanuseys.com

They have plenty of Easter stuff including printed basket covers and plastic molds to make your butter lamb.

…You may also want to take a look at www.allthingsukrainian.com they have AWESOME basket covers in 3 sizes, small, medium and large. All are hand-done.

Another source I’ve used is St. Joseph School for Boys Bookstore They have nice basket covers and other items. She homeschools and this is a business that helps support them. It’s getting close to Pascha to be ordering anything now…

Remember Patchunky’s reference to putting some of the holy water into the dye for eggs. I’m planning to get more dye this afternoon.

 

[astronomylover]

Trying to remember everything with my sleepy brain…

This is coming from a Ukrainian Easter basket:

→ Of course you need the paska. No Easter basket is an Easter basket without paska!

→ Pysanky, as well as plain eggs (I think we hard-boiled the plain ones)

→ Horseradish

→ Kobasa

→ Ham

→ Butter

→ (blessed) Candle

→ Cloth below and above (embroidered)

→ Hrudka ( egg ball )

I am probably forgetting something. Maybe someone else can fill in the gaps. The “cover” you mention is just a rushnyk-- ours were either given to us as gifts or bought. There are several places you can order them online, and if you want I will try to find and post the URLs tomorrow.

 

[Hesychios]

Not the Poles. The Poles were Roman Catholics from the start, since 966, when Mieszko I converted. 966 is considered the date of the birth of the Polish nation. Because the Poles were converted by missionaries from Rome, they began using the Roman alphabet, unlike those converted by Cyril and Methodius, who introduced the Cyrillic alphabet.

To be sure, other faiths also lived in Poland, but it was overwhelmingly a Catholic country and a western-oriented one.

Poland was originally evangelized through the efforts of Ss Cyril and Methodios in the ninth century and onward. Byzantine-Greek Christianity spread from southern Poland (once part of the Moravian empire … little Poland, as it would be known later) to the north along the Vistula river, and also Latin Christianity from the west (Holy Roman German empire) to the east as well. The process of conversion was not complete when Duke Mieszko of Polans conquered the Vistulan Slavs to the south near the Carpathian mountains and united them to his pagan duchy (and subsequently accepted baptism from Latin Catholic missioners to avert attacks from the Holy Roman empire).

This conversion of Mieszko I (966AD) happened in the century after the work of Ss Cyril and Methodios circa 862 - 866AD). The process of converting the Christians in the south to the Latin rite began and the “Methodian Rite” and Byzantine spirituality was eventually suppressed.


The Great Moravian Empire

It seems very likely that the Easter Basket blessing which is so notably recognized as a Polish tradition among Roman Catholics came to them from the Byzantine rite Christians of Małopolska, the region around Krakow.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Polska_960_-992.png/254px-Polska_960-_992.png
Newly unified Poland under Mieszko I

 

[5Loaves]

.

Welcome to CAF EC section. Did you intend to say something about this post you quoted?