Maundy Thursday of Passion Week is also called Black Thursday or Joimăriţă. On this day, women dye eggs. He who has not finished spinning is still spinning. According to superstitions, Joimărita punishes lazy women, beats their fingers and burns their unspun hemp. There is no work on this day. Borscht is made instead. The Maundy Thursday borscht lasts all year. Whoever sleeps on this day will be lazy and useless, that is, he will not be good at work, until the following year. Girls are casting spells again, to be liked by boys, informs News.ro.
Quoted by stiripesurse.ro, Irina Nicolau writes in the “Guide to Romanian Holidays” (Humanitas, 1998) that “fires are made for the dead from uncut wood broken by hand. Chairs are placed next to the fire, bread and wine are placed, incense is burned. On this day the dead are preparing to come to earth, so they must be helped and welcomed. Water is poured on the graves and lit candles and wood chips are placed. The children walk around the village with a chopper and sing: Chop the stews,/ Thursday, Joimărelele./ Easter pop the cows/ On all the ogashele,/ Easter Sunday”.
People who collide Easter eggs are believed to meet in the other world. The head collides with the head and the back with the back. On the first day of Easter, only head-to-head collisions occur. The smallest one (in age, in importance) holds the egg and the older one hits it: Christ is risen!, He is truly risen!. It also collides on the taken – the one who breaks the egg is allowed to take it, and if the partner refuses to give it, in the next world he will eat it spoiled and smeared with fuel oil. According to some, the eggs collide until the Ascension. Others believe that you can still do it on Great Sunday of Pentecost.
On Maundy Thursday, four things are celebrated: the washing of the feet of the apostles by Christ, the Lord’s Supper at which the Sacrament of Communion (Eucharist) was instituted, the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and the capture of the Lord by those who wanted to kill Him.
Denia for Maundy Thursday is dedicated to the memory of four special events in the life of Jesus: the washing of the disciples’ feet, as an example of humility, the last supper, the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and the beginning of the passions.
First of all, on this day, the faithful go to confession and communion. Also, on this important day, the service of the 12 Gospels takes place.
On this day, believers are not allowed to wash clothes (whether by hand or in the washing machine). Incidentally, Maundy Wednesday was the last of this week in which he could wash.
Also, according to tradition, two foods are totally forbidden, including for people who are not fasting: vinegar and nettles.
It is said that when Jesus was crucified on the cross, he was beaten with nettles, stinging his wounds, and sprinkled with vinegar, to cause even more stings.
In certain areas of the country, on Maundy Thursday, bonfires are made for those who are asleep, so that they “warm up”. The wood used for the fire is not cut, but broken by hand and is not left at all down to the house.
