Cultural awareness: the Christian Orthodox Easter
The cultural awareness is one of the fundamental aspects of the Private Aviation.
It’s important to get deeper into the details of other culture’s tradition in order to reach and surpass customer’s expectations when on a Private Jet.
On this matter, it’s important to mention that Sunday, May the 2nd 2021 will take place the Orthodox Easter.
Which are the Orthodox countries?
First of all it’s important to know that the Christian Orthodox religion is pretty similar to Roman Catholic religion, apart from few details.
They mainly are: the role of the Pope, the discipline of the marriage (a divorced person can marry again and be blessed by the Church), the role of the Holy Spirit and the conception of Mary.
The Orthodox countries are: Greece, Russia, Ucraine, Byelorussia, Moldova, Georgia, Romania, and Armenia.
There are other countries with “mixed” religions such as Estonia, Latvia, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Lettonia and Croatia.
The Orthodox culture refers to the Julian calendar, invented in Egypt and promoted by the Emperor Julius Caesar.
They schedule this calendar on the sequence of the seasons, where Spring is the first.
Consequently, the festivities are celebrated in different dates compare the the Gregorian calendar (the one we use daily).
The day of Easter happens to be on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring equinox.
Easter traditions
Above all, the Easter is for the Orthodox the most important and meaningful festivity of the year.
Likewise the Roman-Catholic’s culture, the meaning of Easter is the same: Jesus has raised.
The holy period starts 40 days before and the most religious people do observe the fast up to the Holy Week (the week that precede Easter).
On the Easter day, the tradition says to prepare home made delicatessen and take them to the church for blessing, usually in a wicker basket.
In Ukraine
On the day of Easter it’s forbidden to cook (everything is prepared in advance) and to use knives.
They eat boiled eggs, and they decorate the shells with flowers or birds motives.
Typical dish is a home made bread, covered with a foam made of egg white and sugar.
They call it “the bread with the hat”.
In Russia
The symbol of Easter is the willow tree and Russians use it to decorate tables during the meal.
They eat colourful, boiled eggs and meat mainly.
Then, a wide selection of desserts such as “paskha” – ricotta-based cake – and “kulich” – a sort of pandoro.
All of them are beautified with the symbol “XB” which means “Jesus has raised” in the antique Slavic language.
This language is still used during the celebrations in the church.
In Greece
Geeks decorate the shell of boiled eggs in red as homage to Maddalena, and use dry leaves of bay as table decoration.
Typical dish is lamb, where thereat is grilled and the guts of the animal are used for the traditional soup – maghiritsa- or they are grilled as well – kokoretsi-.
Other types of meat are also part of the Greek Orthodox tradition.
In conclusion, our goal is to personalise the flight experience in every detail on board Private Jets.
This can be a good opportunity to surpass your customer’s expectations and celebrate their culture and heritage.
The outcome will be just amazing!