Celebrating cultures – Celebrating Wielkanoc

by Natalia Jakubiak

In Poland, Easter, or Wielkanoc, is celebrated according to the Gregorian Catholic calendar, with Easter Sunday falling on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. Some Christian traditions still show signs of old pagan beliefs, reflecting Poland’s history. Today, both modern and traditional families celebrate Easter, often regardless of their religious views, making it an important holiday for many.

Niedziela Palmowa  – Palm Sunday

Easter preparations start a week earlier with Palm Sunday, marking Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Since palm trees don’t grow in Poland, people craft colourful, decorative ‘palms’ with dried flowers and ribbons. In many villages, especially in the south, there’s even a competition for the tallest and most beautiful palm.

Holy Week and Spring Cleaning

The week leading up to Easter – Wielki Tydzień – is a time of reflection, prayer, and deep clean of the home. This symbolises the purification of the soul and space. It’s also when families begin preparing traditional foods, baking cakes, and dyeing eggs.

Pisanki – Colourful Polish Easter Eggs

Another beautiful Polish Easter tradition is making pisanki – colourful, decorative eggs. These eggs are usually hard-boiled and painted or dyed in many bright colours and patterns. People often use natural dyes from onion skins, beetroot or red cabbage, or they use paints and wax to make more detailed designs.

The word pisanki comes from the Polish word pisać, which means ‘to write’. This is because, in the past, people ‘wrote’ on eggs using hot wax before colouring them.

Święconka – Blessing the Easter Basket

One of the most interesting Polish Easter traditions is the blessing of the Easter basket on Holy Saturday. Families fill a beautifully decorated baskets with symbolic foods:

• Eggs (symbol of life)
• Bread (symbol of Jesus)
• Salt (purity and preservation)
• Sausage or ham (abundance)
• Horseradish (the bitter sacrifice)
• Cake (usually a small babka)

These baskets are brought to church, covered with embroidered linens, where they are blessed by a priest in a joyful ceremony.

Wielka Niedziela – Holy Sunday

On Easter Sunday, the most important day of the celebration, most Polish people go to church early in the morning for the Easter service, which includes a Resurrection Mass and a procession. Usually, the whole family gathers for Easter breakfast. Before the meal, the family shares pieces of a blessed egg from the Easter basket and exchanges wishes. The tables are filled with traditional dishes like:

• Biała kiełbasa (white sausage)
• Żurek (a sour rye soup with eggs and sausage)
• Mazurek (a cake with shortcrust base, sweet toppings, and decorations)
• Sernik (polish cheesecake)
• Babka wielkanocna (yeast cake often drizzled with icing)

One popular Easter tradition in Poland is egg tapping, also called egg fighting. Each person chooses a pisanka – hard-boiled egg, which was decorated before Easter. Then two people hold their eggs and tap them together – one person hits the top of the other person’s egg. The goal is to crack the other person’s egg without breaking your own. The game continues with different family members. The person whose egg does not break is the winner. Sometimes people say the winner will have good luck all year.

Śmigus-Dyngus – Wet Monday

The Monday after Easter is called Śmigus-Dyngus, or Wet Monday, a playful tradition where people sprinkle each other with water. It’s said to bring health and good fortune, and although it’s especially popular among children and teenagers, no one is really safe!