🥚 Easter, known as
Fasika in Ethiopia, is the most widely celebrated religious holiday
among Ethiopian Christians—especially followers of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Tewahedo Church. It marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and unlike Western celebrations, Fasika in Ethiopia is deeply
spiritual and filled with rituals that reflect centuries-old
traditions.
Ethiopian Orthodox
Christians celebrate Easter anywhere from a week to two weeks after
the western Church (sometimes, they occur at the same time, due to
the vagaries of the Eastern Orthodox calendar, which Ethiopians
follows). Fasika (Easter) follows eight weeks of fasting from meat
and dairy. On Easter Eve, Ethiopian Christians participate in an
hours-long church service that ends around 3 a.m., after which they
break their fast and celebrate the risen Christ.
The Long Fast Before
Fasika
Leading up to Easter,
Ethiopian Christians observe a two-month-long fasting period called
Hudade, during which they refrain from eating meat, dairy, and eggs.
Most believers fast daily until 3:00 PM, though some may fast until
12:00 PM, except on Saturdays and Sundays. Religious leaders often
fast until 6:00 PM. This period mirrors the biblical sacrifice and
suffering of Jesus Christ.
Easter
Sunday – Joyful Resurrection and Celebration
At midnight or early Sunday morning (around 2–3 AM), church
services are held to celebrate Christ’s resurrection. Families
return home to break the fast with a traditional feast featuring Doro
Wot served with injera. The day is filled with joy as families and
friends gather to eat, drink traditional beverages like tella and
tej, and share laughter. It is the most important Christian
celebration in Ethiopia.
👹 Satan
Hates ♰
Christians: This is The Primary Driver For
The Ongoing Christian Genocide in Ethiopia
🌳 On Holy and
Great Monday We Commemorate The Withered Fig Tree 🌳
❖
Monday (Holy Week). [Matt. 21] ❖❖❖
The Lord goes to a
voluntary passion. We must accompany Him. This is the duty of anyone
who confesses that by the power of Christ’s passion he has become
who he is now, and of anyone who hopes to receive something which is
so great and glorious, that it could not even enter one’s mind. How
must one accompany Him? Through reflection and sympathy. Follow the
suffering Lord in thought; and in your reflection extract such
impressions as could strike your heart and bring it to feel the
sufferings which were borne by the Lord. In order to better
accomplish this, you must make yourself suffer through perceptible
lessening of food and sleep, and an increase in the labour of
standing and kneeling. Fulfil all that the Holy Church does, and you
will be a good fellow-traveller of the Lord to His sufferings.
On Holy and Great Monday
we commemorate the blessed Joseph the All-comely and also the
withered fig tree. In as much as the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ
has its beginning on this day, and as Joseph is regarded as an image
of Christ from former times, he is thus set forth here.
Joseph was the son of the
Patriarch Jacob, born to him by Rachel. Being envied by his brethren
on account of certain of his dreams, he was first concealed in a
dug-out pit, and his father was tricked by a bloody garment and the
deceit of his children into thinking that he had been devoured by
some beast. Joseph was then sold to some Ishmaelites for twenty
pieces of silver; they, in turn, sold him to Potiphar, captain of the
eunuchs of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. His wife was enraged by the young
man's chastity, because not wishing to commit sin, he fled from her,
leaving behind his garment. She slandered him to his master, and he
was put into bonds in a harsh prison. Afterwards, he was released
because of his ability to interpret certain dreams; he was brought
before the king and appointed governor of the whole land of Egypt.
Later, he was made known to his brethren through his distribution of
grain. Having spent the whole of his life well, he died in Egypt,
recognized as being great in his chastity and kindness toward others.
He is, moreover, a prefiguring of Christ. Christ was also envied by
His own people, the Jews: He was sold by a disciple for thirty pieces
of silver and was imprisoned in the dark and gloomy pit of the grave,
whence He broke out by His own power, triumphing over Egypt, that is,
over every sin. In His might He conquered it, and He reigns over all
the world. In His love for mankind He redeemed us by a distribution
of grain, inasmuch as He gave Himself up for us, and He feeds us with
Heavenly Bread, His own Life-bearing Flesh. For this reason, Joseph
the All- comely is brought to mind at this time. He is also
commemorated on the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ.
At the same time, we also
commemorate the withered fig tree, because the divine Evangelists
Matthew and Mark tell of it after their accounts of the palm
branches. One says, "Now the next day, when they had come out
from Bethany, He was hungry" (Mark 11:12); while the other says,
"Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry.
And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on
it but leaves, and said to it, 'Let no fruit grow on you ever again.'
Immediately the fig tree withered away" (Matt. 21:18-19). The
fig tree, then, is the Jewish synagogue, in which the Savior did not
find the necessary fruits of obedience to God and faith in Him, but
only the leafy shade of the Law; He took away even this, leaving it
completely bare. But if anyone should ask, "Why did an inanimate
tree wither and fall under a curse when it had committed no sin to
make it wither?" It was because some people, seeing that Christ
went about doing good to all, never causing real suffering for
anyone, imagined that He had only the power to do good and not to do
harm. The Master, who loves mankind, did not wish to demonstrate His
power on a man and commit such a deed. To convince an ungrateful
people, however, that He also possessed the might to impose
punishment, but not wishing to use that power in His goodness, He
inflicted such punishment upon inanimate and insensible nature.
There is also another
mysterious explanation, which has come down to us from the wise
elders. As St. Isidore of Pelusium says, "This was the tree of
the transgression of God's commandment, whose leaves, the
transgressors, also used to cover themselves. Because it did not
suffer at that time, Christ, in His love for man, cursed it, so that
it would no longer bear the fruit that was the occasion of sin."
It is also quite clear
that sin is likened unto the fig, inasmuch as it possesses the
"delight" of sensual pleasure, the "stickiness"
of sin itself and the "hardness and sharpness" of a guilty
conscience.
The Fathers, moreover, put
the story of the fig tree here to arouse compunction and in relation
to the story of St. Joseph, since he is a prefiguring of Christ.
The fig tree is also every
soul which is devoid of all spiritual fruit. In the morning, that is,
after this present life, if the Lord finds no refreshment in such a
soul, He withers it with a curse and hands it over to the everlasting
fire. It remains standing as a dried-up post, striking fear into
those who do not produce the fitting fruit of the virtues.
Through the prayers of St.
Joseph the All-comely, O Christ our God, have mercy on us and save
us. Amen.
Holy
Monday: Let Us Not Be Like The Barren Fig Tree
