Saturday, April 1, 2017

When did Christians start celebrating Easter with eggs?

No one truly knows how the most important Christian holiday came to be associated with eggs, but here is my favorite origin story for the Easter egg:

According to one set of church traditions, Mary Magdelene, a follower of Jesus described in the New Testament, protested to the Roman Emperor Tiberius that the governor over Palestine (that is, Pontus Pilate) unjustly executed her innocent teacher and friend. In keeping with custom, Mary brought the Emperor a gift, but she could not afford anything more than a simple egg. As she stood before Tiberius, holding this egg in her hand, God provided miraculous proof that her claim was valid by turning the egg from white to red. To this day there are icons of Mary Magdelene (like the one pictured here) that represent this story.

Now, although I love this story, I doubt that it is true. It's difficult to imagine Mary being able to afford the journey to Rome, or that Tiberius would give her the time of day. Furthermore, there are no written records of Christians celebrating Easter with dyed eggs until sometime in the 1200s in Europe. This story of Mary Magdelene (and a similar one about Mary, the mother of Jesus, crying onto a basket of eggs, staining them red with her tears) probably developed after eggs had already become a major part of medieval Easter celebrations. Historian Bruce David Forbes claims that eggs would have eventually made their way into the Easter story, no matter what. Think about it -- could there be a better symbol for new life than an egg cracking open and a chick crawling out? Furthermore, the chicken egg is so common in everyday life that the opportunities to make associations with Easter are countless. My favorite of these is the supposed practice of fasting Christians, refraining from all meat and dairy during the 40-day period of Lent, who would boil all the eggs that were laid during those 7 weeks, thereby saving them for the end of their fast on Easter Sunday.

Whether or not there is any historical validity to these stories, we are definitely stuck with the Easter egg. Some Christians in Asia have exchanged red-dyed eggs on the feast day, along with the greeting, "Christ is risen," for more than 300 years. Today the tradition has evolved to include pre-dyed plastic shells that serve as delivery systems for hidden candy. Of course some people still dye real eggs, and others painstakingly paint them with intricate designs, showing a degree of care that indicates these creations would never be left outside, waiting to be trampled by a toddler looking for a prize. This description from Forbes's book makes me simultaneously fascinated and exhausted:

"Also notable are the eggs beautifully decorated by folk artists from the Ukraine and Poland. Most of us have seen examples of these eggs, with their very exquisite patterns, and we wonder how such fine, delicate decorations are possible. The term for these eggs is “pysanky” (Ukranian) or “pisanki” (Polish), meaning “to write.” Pysanky artists trace fine lines or designs of hot wax onto an egg and then lower the egg into a dye bath. The wax protects portions of the egg while the rest of the egg absorbs the color. This process can be repeated over and over again for multicolored patterns, and afterward the design is protected by a coat of varnish. The eggs are not hard-boiled, and when everything is dry, perhaps a day later, the artist pierces a tiny hole in each end of the egg and blows out the white and the yoke, leaving an empty shell. The designs on these eggs vary widely, from explicit Christian symbols to geometric patterns to birds, flowers, or any image the artist might choose." 

This tradition of egg decoration reached its cultural height when Russian Czar Alexander III commissioned artist Peter Carl Fabergé to create a jeweled egg for the czarina -- a special 20th anniversary gift. Maria Feodorovna was so impressed that the emperor continued to request a new egg each Easter, a tradition that was carried on by Nicholas II until his murder in 1917. Forty-three of these 50 imperial eggs still survive. If the Easter Bunny should desire to deliver one to your house this spring, you could cash it in to a trader for an amount around $30 million.

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