Monday, April 6, 2026

It is the 6th of April 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

A very happy Monday to you- Easter Monday- just as Christmas begins on the 25th, so too is Easter Sunday the beginning of the Easter feast, taking us to the Ascension and Pentecost.

We have a very appropriate question for today- it comes from long-time listener Eric in OH- IO. Eric writes:

Do you know anything about Dyngus Day? Apparently, it's a Polish festival connected to the day after Easter? There is a big celebration here in Cleveland on April 6.

I have found very little information about where this tradition comes from, but I am curious about it ... in no small part because I think it is funny to say, "Dyngus Day," and I thought it was completely made up.

Eric, “Dyngus Day” is indeed fun to say- but what if I told you that this day is also called Śmigus-dyngus and it has been so popular (but controversial) that all the way back in 1410, we have an edict from an Archdiocese in Poland titled “Dingus Prohibetur” or “the Dingus is Prohibited”.

The day is a very curious blending of Easter celebration, pagan rite, and American festival for Polish immigrants along the lines of St. Patrick’s Day for the Irish and Oktoberfest for the Germans.

“Dyngus” might refer to a ransom, while “Smigus” refers to a lashing. Its origins are typical for various pagan spring rites- eggs or other treats are given out door to door, willow branches are used as switches to playfully strike one another, and various water games are played. As is often the case, we find cultural and pagan spring rites, then “baptized” into a hybrid of general frivolity with Christian meaning imported in.

You might read that “Dyngus Day” celebrates the baptism of King Miesko of Poland in 966 on Easter Monday. Ok, so he probably wasn’t baptized on easter Monday- but don’t let that get in the way. It marked the entrance of the Poles into Christendom. Miesko was the first of the Piast dynasty- he battled both the Bohemians and Kyivan Rus for territory, eventually marrying a Bohemian princess and converting to western Christianity. If you’re wondering why the Poles are historically Catholic instead of Eastern Orthodox like their neighbor, there is your answer. His baptism recalls that of Clovis and the conversion of the Franks a few centuries earlier.

The water games, then, are an homage to the baptism. Hitting each other with willow branches makes sense if you know that in Northern Europe and other places that don’t have palm branches, these are the stand-ins, and if you’ve ever been to a Palm Sunday service with palm branches, you know what the kids get up to once the service is over.

There are also roosters- we talked about Roosters this weekend on the show- what do they represent? Weather vanes? Peter? Repentance? Dawn breaking and scattering the darkness? Sure- and fertility. Eric, I want you to also be on the lookout for people dressed as bears- tradition has the name “Miesko” meaning “bear” (it probably doesn’t, but let's not make proper etymology get in the way of a good time).

We have records of Dyngus Day festivities going back to the late 1800s in immigrant Polish communities- by the middle of the last century, we have them centered in places like Buffalo, New York, South Bend, Indiana, and Eric’s own Cleveland, Ohio. It’s a day for Polka and Pierogis and Pilsner- in some places it is specifically Polish (look for the red and white) but has also blended with other generally Slavic Catholic and Springtime rites.

Imagine my surprise a few years ago when Inside the NBA with Shaq and Charles Barkley came back from break on Easter Monday with a willow branch on the table and Shaq pulling out water guns and Ernie Johnson signing off from the program by wishing us a happy “Dyngus Day”. So- get your water guns, share eggs and treats, and raise your Krupnik in honor of our Polish friends. Thanks for the email, Eric. You can send me your questions at Danv@1517.org

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Psalm 118:

The Lord is my strength and my defense;
 he has become my salvation.

Shouts of joy and victory
 resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!

The Lord’s right hand is lifted high;
 the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”

I will not die but live,
 and will proclaim what the Lord has done.

The Lord has chastened me severely,
 but he has not given me over to death.

Open for me the gates of the righteous;
 I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.

This is the gate of the Lord
 through which the righteous may enter.

I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
 you have become my salvation.

The stone the builders rejected
 has become the cornerstone;

the Lord has done this,
 and it is marvelous in our eyes.

The Lord has done it this very day;
 let us rejoice today and be glad.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 6th of April 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man with a small shrine to St. Hyacinth- the Polish patron saint of weightlifters and pierogi- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man writing this show next to a place called the “Polish Nail Salon,” but I might be pronouncing that wrong- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.