So, this week is the Easter week here in Norway (and everywhere else, I imagine). Most Norwegians take off the whole week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday are legal holidays, as is “Easter Monday”, the day after Easter Sunday. The quintessential way of celebrating this holy week, if you’re a Norwegian, is to go up to your cabin in the mountains and ski. Alternatively you’ve got “bypåske”, or “City Easter”, which means you don’t go anywhere, but stay in town and enjoy the vacation by checking out the city sights.

There have been several articles in the paper about bypåske. They list all the different stuff you can do during the Easter week, mostly geared towards the ever-noble “barnefamilier”, or families with kids. (I guess so the kids don’t dhrive the parents nuts during the break.) Stuff like Easter egg hunts, museums that are going to be open with special activities, matinees, suggestions for walking trips, etc.

Only one place in all this påske-coverage have I seen anything about going to church. At the bottom of a list of things like opening times of pools and cinemas were listed two religious activities, one of which is some kind of a parade or something (”korsvandring”? cross-wandering?) that ends at a bar where a jazz and blues band will be playing.

The Norwegians just looove their religious holidays. This is a Christian state, after all. They would never want their state not to be Christian, because then they’d have to give up all the religious holidays. Check out this list of legal religious holidays in Norway. (Here’s a link in English that discusses Norwegian public holidays in general, and another one that actually lists all the days. )Ascension day, Pentecost and the day after…I’ll bet that most Americans who actually go to church don’t even know when those holy days are.

86% of Norway’s population are members of the Norwegian Church, and to be a member of the Norwegian Church, you have to be christened in the Norwegian Church. Around 70% of the babies christened in the church go on to be confirmed later in life. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, however, and the Norskies don’t seem to be too hungry: only 20% of Norwegians believe in god and only 3% of Norwegians go to church services on a regular basis. From what I hear, most Norwegian kids choose to get confirmed because it’s a big deal here where you get lots of presents and money and get to have a big party. Looking at Norwegians’ Easter customs, this kind of opportunistic hypocrisy is apparently a life-long and country-wide habit.