site.btaSerbia Keeps Easter Egg Tradition for Good Friday

Orthodox Christian households in Serbia dye Easter eggs on Great and Holy Friday rather than Great and Holy Thursday, ethnographers from the National Museum in Belgrade told BTA on Thursday.

If you happen to be in Serbia on Great and Holy Thursday and you are a foreigner, there is no risk that you will be drawn into the Easter tradition of dyeing eggs, because Serbs follow the same custom, but on a different day of Holy Week.

On Great and Holy Friday, the most solemn day of Holy Week, every Serbian home with Orthodox Christians dyes eggs for Easter.

That is why a bowl in the home of Ivana Milojkovic and Milorad Milojkovic in Belgrade, which stands in a specific place in their house, will be filled with the first red eggs for Easter over the next 24 hours.

“We dye them on Great and Holy Friday, that is how my mother did it, and that is how I do it,” Milojkovic told BTA, adding that she does not know why the ritual is observed not on Great and Holy Thursday, but on the following day, Great and Holy Friday.

In some parts of Serbia, especially in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, however, tradition has eggs dyed early on Great and Holy Thursday morning, and only if households are unable to do so can this happen on Great and Holy Saturday, experts from the National Museum in Belgrade told BTA.

They note that there is still no room for mistake, because Serbian customs allow eggs to be dyed over three days, from Great and Holy Thursday to Great and Holy Saturday.

Plant and geometric motifs dominate Easter egg decoration, while animal images, hens, rabbits and fish, appear less often, and human figures are the rarest of all, the ethnographers say.

Whole phrases can also be written on the eggs, such as the abbreviation HV VV in Latin letters, meaning Christ is risen! Truly He is risen! The person dyeing the eggs can also write his or her own name, or the name or initials of the person for whom the egg is intended.

In the Milojkovic family, the first red egg is set aside for the house and placed before an icon of St Nicholas in their home. To make the custom feel more authentic, they prefer to dye eggs with red onion skins, or put chopped beetroot in the water and boil the eggs longer than usual so the colours become deeper.

The Milojkovic children can hardly wait for Easter to come so they can start tapping eggs to see which one will be this year's champion.