Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is a day of great joy for Christians everywhere as we celebrate Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. In the U.S., believers from different traditions attend church, share meals with loved ones, and sometimes host egg hunts.
While we have many of these celebrations in common with our brothers and sisters in other countries, it’s fun to explore how people celebrate Easter around the world.
Bread and Fireworks in Latin America
Many Latin American Easter traditions are rooted in Catholicism, since that was the first form of Christianity to reach most countries there. People celebrate Semana Santa, or Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. Church services, Passion plays, and religious processionals are popular parts of celebrations during this week. Even people who don’t celebrate spiritually enjoy an extended vacation during this week.
Easter Sunday is the most important day of all. People often start the day with church and spend the remainder of the day feasting and celebrating with family, loved ones, and their communities.
Celebratory foods differ per country. In Guatemala, families bake and distribute pan de yemas, or egg yolk bread, which represents Jesus feeding the crowd of the 5,000. Argentina’s Rosca de Pascua, or Easter Bread, is a decorated sweet bread ring that represents a crown.
Other celebrations include capturing and displaying alligators in Ortega, Costa Rica, which they release on Easter, and Easter morning fireworks in Peru.
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Church and Chocolate in Europe
Holy Week is also important in Europe. Like in Latin America, people attend church and participate in or watch Passion plays and religious processionals, although it could be at different times since Orthodox Christians follow the Julian calendar.
On Easter Sunday, many people attend church and enjoy traditional meals, often centered around lamb or ham. Chocolate is an important part of the day for the religious and the secular, such as parents giving chocolates and Easter eggs to children in the U.K. and Ireland on Easter morning.
Secular Easter celebrations are growing increasingly common, with traditional spring rituals such as the Morris Dancers in the United Kingdom and people decorating willow branches with Easter eggs and ribbons in the Netherlands. Some traditions seem to be a mix of religious and secular, such as French children believing that the church bells deliver their Easter chocolate and Greek people setting off fireworks at midnight on Holy Saturday.
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Devotion and Feasting in Africa
Easter in Africa tends to blend Christian celebrations with cultural and social ones. Many people take the holiday seriously and start observing on Maundy Thursday, the Thursday of Holy Week, attending church services until the joyous celebration on Easter Sunday.
In some countries, Easter is also a time for outreach, as local churches and missionaries organize Jesus Film showings, food distributions, and community evangelism efforts. Where Holy Week and Easter are also state holidays, people take time to rest.
Fasting leading up to Easter is also common, especially in Orthodox countries like Ethiopia. With the restrictions finally lifted, it’s no surprise that food is a big part of Easter celebrations. People often feast with their families, friends, and entire communities. In Namibia, many people enjoy kapana, a grilled meat dish, and in Tanzania they often eat mandazi, spiced coconut milk donuts.
Cultural festivities such as music and dancing blend around church services and often include the popular holiday foods.
Prayer guide still in progress.
Sunrise Services and Traditional Food in Israel
Jesus’s birth, ministry, death, and resurrection all took place in modern day Israel. Local believers and believers from all over the world flock to this area to celebrate Easter, especially to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
There are churches here from all Christian faith traditions and they host services throughout Holy Week. Many participate in solemn processions along the road Jesus took to His crucifixion site on Good Friday. On Easter Sunday, people can attend a sunrise service at the tomb where church historians believe Jesus resurrected.
Families will then gather to eat together. Arab Christians will use natural colorants like beets to dye eggs that they eat or play cracking games with. They also make Ka’ak asfar, a spiced round bread that’s supposed to represent the rock rolled away from Jesus’s tomb.
Messianic believers and other Christians often eat lamb or ham with sides like couscous and fruit. Depending on their traditions and heritage, they may celebrate Passover around this time.
Prayer guide still in progress.
Traveling and Cooking in the Middle East
Christians from all traditions live in the Middle East and celebrate Easter. Some make pilgrimages to holy sites in Israel for this big holiday, especially to participate in the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem where a flame is supposed to miraculously light in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Even if they’re not traveling to holy sites, many people here will travel to spend Easter Sunday with family, often their parents or other elders. Whether they’re traveling or staying home, most will fast and attend church services throughout Holy Week.
Baking ma’amoul, a butter cookie filled with sweet dried fruit, is a popular group activity. It’s traditional for women to bake these cookies throughout Holy Week for distribution on Easter Sunday. The cookies are a representation of Jesus’s burial and resurrection, with the buttery outside acting as the tomb and the sweet inside reminding eaters of the hope of eternal life.
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Flaming Processionals and Egg Cracking Competitions in Central Asia
Christians make up a small percentage of the Central Asian population and even of that small percentage, most are Russian Orthodox. As in Europe, they follow the Julian calendar to celebrate Easter and their celebrations often feature church services and religious processionals. One important processional in Kazakhstan features the Holy Flame, which travels from Jerusalem around the world.
Protestant Christians also attend church and all Christians participate in cultural celebrations connected to Easter, such as dyeing eggs before gifting or eating them. Most people dye the eggs red to represent Jesus’s blood. In Armenia, each person in the family chooses an egg and they tap the end against the end of another person’s egg. Whoever’s egg doesn’t crack is the winner!
Eggs aren’t the only part of Easter feasts in Central Asia. Ritual foods such as paskha, a pyramid-shaped baked dessert representing Jesus’s tomb, and traditional foods such as baked fish all make their way onto family tables.
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New Clothes and Unique Food in South Asia
Easter is a festive occasion in much of South Asia, regardless of Christian tradition. Catholics here, like in most other regions, celebrate all of Holy Week with religious processionals, prayer vigils, and masses.
Protestants will also celebrate at church, especially on Easter Sunday, often wearing new clothes for the occasion. Just like in Central Asia, believers from all Christian traditions will participate in cultural Easter celebrations such as carnivals, dances, and community feasts.
The food at community or family feasts vary depending on the country or state within a country. In Kerala, India, people eat chicken or mutton mappas, a curry dish that often features a spiced coconut milk gravy, and in Mīrpur Khās, Pakistan, people eat beef biryani, a layered rice dish.
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Tourist Processionals and Baptism Services in Southeast Asia
Many Christians in Southeast Asia are Catholic, so they celebrate Holy Week and Easter with Passion Plays, religious processionals, mass, and spiritual pilgrimages. Senakulo in the Philippines is one of the most popular Passion Plays, since it takes place on a public street. The Good Friday procession in Larantuka, Indonesia, where everyone wears black and accompanies statues of Mary and Jesus to the local cathedral, is so popular that it’s become a tourist attraction.
Just like in the rest of the world, Easter is a religious holiday, so people of all traditions attend church and they invite secular people. Depending on the tradition, some may attend at midnight on Holy Saturday or participate in baptismal services.
Also similar to the rest of the world, food is important on Easter in Southeast Asia. In Thailand, upscale restaurants in major cities often host buffets full of local and international food, including khao niao mamuang, a sweet coconut sticky rice dish topped with fresh mango. In countries with a lot of multicultural influence like Singapore, people may eat shepherd’s pie, curry, or seafood.
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Community Service and Good Luck Foods in East Asia
Church is an important part of Easter in East Asia, including sunrise prayer meetings, church parades, and Sunday services. Through their local churches, Christians often participate in community outreach and service during this time as well, especially to the poor.
In countries like China where religious faith is discouraged, Christians still gather for celebration, but so do secular people. Families will often eat special buffet meals together filled with symbolic food that’s supposed to bring good luck, such as tangyuan, sweet balls of glutinous rice that feature a sweet filling. Their round shape represents family reunion and togetherness. People may or may not decorate and eat eggs like people in the West.
Other Western food traditions have reached parts of East Asia, like chocolate bunnies in Japan and hot cross buns in Hong Kong.
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