Today is the biggest Christian holiday – Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and represents the essence of the Christian faith.
Metropolitan Chrysostom of Dabro-Bosnia will serve the Holy Bishop’s Liturgy in the Cathedral in Sarajevo.
The celebration of Easter, which was preceded by several weeks of fasting, is first started by Orthodox believers in temples, gathered in community at the Holy Liturgy, with the aim of communion – union with God.
Then the celebration continues in the family circle, where beating colorful Easter eggs is a special joy, especially for children.
The colorful egg represents the very symbolism of Easter. The egg is a symbol of the birth of life, the chick breaks the shell and comes out, just as Christ rose from the dark grave and ascended to heaven.
Orthodox believers gather around the Easter table and say the Lord’s prayer “Our Father”, and sing the Easter victory troparion “Christ is risen from the dead and through death death has conquered…”.
Easter is celebrated for three days, during which the Orthodox greet each other with “Christ is risen” and “The True Resurrection”.
The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, as that holiday is marked in the calendar of the Serbian Orthodox Church, is the oldest Christian holiday and has been celebrated since the beginning of Christianity. It is the main movable holiday and based on its date it is determined when other movable religious holidays will fall.
At the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicaea in 325 AD, the Church established that Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon, which appears after the first equinox, with the proviso that it cannot be before April 4. nor after May 8.
This canonized principle of determining the date of Easter is used today by Orthodox churches, that is, churches that have remained on the orthodox line.
