In modern times it is impossible to imagine a festive Easter table without Easter cakes and Easter. Nowadays, few people think about the symbolic meaning of this Easter meal. However, in the first centuries of Christianity, believers remembered where the tradition of making Easter cakes and Easter came from.
The feast of the Holy Resurrection of Christ was solemnly celebrated from the first centuries of Christianity, despite the fact that believers were persecuted by the Roman authorities. Christians made a real festive feast at home. In the center of the table, bread was always put. This was a symbolic sign of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Later, when Christians were able to openly conduct divine services in churches, the tradition of making Easter artos entered the church liturgical life (artos are baked for the Easter holiday at the present time). Artosy symbolized the ancient tradition of the figurative presence of Christ in the homes of the first Christians celebrating Easter. Arthos was consecrated at the end of the Bright Week and distributed to believers. This is happening now in Orthodox churches.
When the idea that the family is a small Church came into the Christian worldview, believers simply could not leave this home church without their "artos". So there was a tradition to bake cakes like artos in the form of cakes. Thus, the Easter cake was a kind of symbol of the triumph of Christians on the feast of the Resurrection of Christ. This Easter treat symbolized the invisible proximity of the Savior of the World Himself.
Making Easter also has an ancient history. Currently, this product is a curd mass in the form of a kind of elongated pyramid. This form is determined by the memory of the tomb of Christ. Despite the fact that in ancient times Jews buried their people in caves, the form of a kind of tomb of the Holy Sepulcher took place in the minds of Christians. Thus, the Passover was a reminder of the Holy Sepulcher from which the light of the glorious Christ's Resurrection shone. At present, the Easter itself is necessarily decorated with the lettering "ХВ", which means Christ is Risen.
