Easter is a great and joyous festival of Christian community as they
believe on this day the resurrection of Jesus Christ took place, three
days after his burial. Hence this day is also referred to as Resurrection
Sunday. In India on 4 April 2021 Easter will be celebrated with full gaiety but
there is a country located in the North-east of Africa known as Eritrea
(capital Asmara) there this year Easter will be celebrated on 2 May 2021 as most
of them belong to Orthodox Christian. So there Easter is known as Orthodox
Easter, also called Greek Easter, is the main festival of the Orthodox Church.
And around 300 million Orthodox Christians celebrate 7 January as Christmas and
based on the Julian calendar Easter date varies so this year it will be 2 May
2021. It is pertinent to mention that the Gregorian calendar was introduced in
1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, as a modification of the Julian calendar. The
Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar for the calculation of Easter, whereas
the Western churches use the Gregorian calendar. It is important to
mention that Easter is associated with crucification of Jesus Christ and “the Last Supper was essentially a Passover feast.
However, the New Testament describes it as being given new significance by
Jesus: He identified the matzah (or bread) He shared with his 12 apostles as
his “body” and the cup of wine they drank as his “blood”
(history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-easter).
I had the opportunity to enjoy Easter in Eritrea in addition to my
country, India. A few lines about Eritrea I wish to men for the benefit of
readers. Eritrea is spread over to an area of approximately 117,600 square
kilometres including the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands.
Its total population was around 61 lakh in 2020. Eritrea is a unitary one-party
presidential republic elections were never held. Mr. Isaias Afwerki has
been serving as President since its independence in 1993. When I was in teaching
in the years 2005 and 2006 a lot Indian persons worked in different teaching
faculties. The Indian army was posted as ‘Peace keeping force’ as those days
Eritrea and Ethiopia had awful relations.
Anyway in India my Christian friends have invited me many times
for Easter and I have thoroughly enjoyed cakes, biscuits, tea etc. Here, I am
sharing my experience in Eritrea. I was in that country for about two years
selected by them as Associate Professor to teach Economics. As mentioned
already, they are Orthodox Christians so their celebration of Easter date is
different from Catholic and other Christians. During 2005 and 2006 two times I
was invited by two different families on Easter. They prepared varieties of
foods such as cakes, popcorn, barley-grain fry, biscuits etc. But, I was amazed
to observe their coffee preparation. They prepared coffee powder in their
residences by grinding coffee seeds and the powder is mixed with hot water then
boiled the same in a charcoal stove. Every time after serving black coffee in a
small cup the pot is put on the charcoal stove. Thus, hot coffee is served 3-4
times to each person. I enjoyed the coffee preparation which I observed for the
first time in my life.
On this auspicious
occasion of Happy Easter I wish all in general and Christian brothers and
sisters in particular for a blissful, healthy and prosperous life.
Dr Shankar
Chatterjee, Hyderabad
3rd
April 2020
