Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as all over the world, are marking Easter Sunday today, the biggest and oldest Christian feast, which is marked in memory of Christ's resurrection.

The Easter Vigil is celebrated the night before Easter Sunday, and many consider it to be the richest liturgical rite in the Church.

The week before Easter is called Holy Week. It is the peak of 40-day long Lent, and it begins with Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion, which celebrates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

The central day of Holy Week is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Good Friday is the Christian commemoration of Jesus’ passion and death.

According to custom, Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina first attend Easter Mass and then gather in their homes with their families to eat blessed food, which usually consists of ham, eggs, bread and spring onions.

They pay special attention to colouring of boiled chicken eggs, which they then share with their friends and neighbours.

Among the older customs that have remained to this day is the ‘egg tapping’, when everyone chooses one, and the winner is the one whose egg remains whole after the eggs hit each other with their tips.

Easter is not marked at the same time every year. Today it falls on the first Sunday after the first spring full moon. Since the first spring solstice can be between March 22 and April 25, this means that the Easter holiday can only fall within that time.

The origin of Easter is in the Jewish holiday of Passover, so there are many biblical texts in the Catholic liturgy that remind of the exit of the chosen people from Egyptian captivity and crossing the Red Sea.