The Great Thursday
The Thursday before the Easter is called “the Great Thursday”, “the Thursday of sufferings” or “the black Thursday”.
All the housekeeping must be done by Wednesday, because by Thursday the spiritual tension is the highest. The Great Thursday represents The Death of Our Saviour. In the villages it is custom to light fires in the back yards and in the cemeteries, custom which is still kept even in Bucharest. During the Great Thursday people go to the cemeteries and take care of the graves.
All the services, alms and requiems that were started in the first Saturday of the Great Fast, last only until the Great Thursday, day in which the dead are prayed for again. In some areas of the country it is custom to bring food and drink to the church, which are sanctified and given away as alms for the souls of the dead. This is why, during this day, the dead return every year to their old houses where they stay until the Saturday before the Rusalii. Because during the Great Thursday the temperature is not very high, in the morning, fires are made in the back yards, so as the dead can get warm. It is a sign of love and respect for the dead, which are not forgotten by their loved ones not before or during the Easter Holidays.
Girls and women must finish sewing the new blouses for the Easter until this day. Otherwise they will be punished by Joimarita, a mythical woman who beats or burns them. She is believed to take the laziest girls at her home and eat them.
Another (not so cruel) version goes that Joimarita spells those girls, so that they wouldn’t be able to work all the year.
According to the Romanian tradition, skies, graves, doors of heaven and hell open this day. The dead return to pass the Easter near the loved ones. They will remain at their old houses until the Saturday before the Rusalii, when pies and bowls are doled for their souls. It is believed that the spirits sit on the roofs or in the yards. As it is still quite cold, fires must be lighted in the morning and in the evening, so that the dead could have light and heat. The fires are lighted for every soul or it is only lighten a fire for all the dead souls. The brushwood can only be gathered by children, pure girls and old women, a day before and only by hand (they must not be cut). On the way home they must not be let down and will be placed on a fence or on another object until morning, when the fire will be lighted.
Chairs with blankets are also put near the fire, as it is believed that some souls will sit on chairs and other will sit on the ground. Girls and women carry water buckets to the graves or to the fire, for the dead that will sit there.
Most of the women paint the eggs on the Great Thursday. In Walachia the eggs are painted on Wednesday and taken to the church on Thursday. They are let there until the Easter, as it is believed that they won’t alter. In other regions, twelve red painted eggs are taken to the church until the Easter and they are buried then at the village boundaries, so that the hail wouldn’t come upon it.
Laundry can not be done this day, so that the dead won’t receive the dirty water, but the things that had been doled in their memory.
