Easter: What is it and how is it celebrated?

Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar, and is celebrated by thousands of people all over the world.

It marks Jesus rising from the dead, after dying on a wooden cross.

These days, lots of people celebrate by giving and receiving chocolate Easter eggs, and sometimes going on a hunt for them too!

Here's what the weekend's celebrations are all about.

Easter moves around a bit every year.

Easter is always on the first Sunday after the first full moon that follows the spring equinox.

For the purposes of calculating the holiday, the equinox is set at 21 March, even though it can actually vary a bit from year to year.

This year, Good Friday is on 29 March, and Easter Sunday is on 31 March.

There are different days of celebration for Easter because they follow different events in Jesus' life.

On Good Friday, Christians commemorate Jesus' execution, when he died on a wooden cross.

It's a day of mourning in the Church, and services are held to reflect on Jesus' pain and suffering.

After Jesus died, his body was taken to be buried in a tomb. It was heavily guarded by Roman soldiers, and a huge boulder was placed in front of it.

Two days after, on the Sunday, a woman called Mary Magdalene and some of Jesus' disciples (or followers) visited the tomb, only to find the boulder pushed to one side and the inside completely empty.

Later that day, they found Jesus alive, and realised God had resurrected him. This is why Christians celebrate Easter Sunday.

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All over the world, there will be services in churches to commemorate Jesus rising from the dead on Easter Sunday.

But the most recognisable feature of Easter is the Easter egg.

Eggs represent new life - when Jesus rose from the dead - which is why the symbol is used to mark the occasion.

Traditionally, chicken eggs would be hard boiled and then painted and decorated. Nowadays, it's much more common to get given chocolate ones wrapped in foils, or even find them on an Easter egg hunt!

There are lots of other ways that people celebrate Easter across the world, too.

In a small town in southern France, people stick with the egg theme and share an omelette made of over 15,000 eggs.

And on the Greek island of Corfu, pots are thrown out the window.