Painting eggs and consecrating Easter cakes is an Easter tradition that has ancient roots. The Holy Tradition of the Christian Church has preserved the narrative of the event, which can be considered the source of such culinary practice.
It is difficult in modern times to imagine Easter without painted eggs. This folk tradition has so tightly entered the life of a Russian person that even people who do not profess Christianity are engaged in such art.
There is a tradition that after the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, all his disciples and students went around the world preaching about the resurrected Savior. One of the students was the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene, whom the Church calls the Myrrh-bearing wife. She went to the Roman emperor Tiberius to announce the miraculous event of the resurrection of Christ. When the saint came to the imperial palace, she had an ordinary egg in her hand.
Mary Magdalene began to preach about the resurrection of Jesus. Tiberius, being a pagan in essence, did not believe her words, but even laughed in response saying that the resurrection of a person is impossible just like the fact that an egg cannot suddenly turn red. In the eyes of the emperor, a miracle happened - the egg turned red. This had a huge impact on Tiberius. The historian of the first centuries, Suetonius wrote that the Roman emperor even wanted to include Christ in the pantheon of pagan gods, but this was prevented by the Roman Senate.
That is how the tradition of coloring eggs for Easter came about, as a sign of the Christian’s faith in the reality of the events of the resurrection of Christ.
