Vasilopita – A New Year’s Day Custom

Many of us have traditions in our families that we repeat every year or every holiday and they bring a sort of comfort, mostly because of their familiarity. In an ever changing, fast-paced world, “familiar” feels really good. However, oftentimes as each generation continues the tradition, the reason behind it gets lost and we don’t know “why” we’re doing it other than because we always have! This past Sunday in church, we had our annual New Year celebration of the Vasilopita (St. Basil’s bread). It is a custom that began in the 4th century. Now here is “the why” that I don’t think I ever knew, and yet my mother probably did while she baked this bread every January.

St. Basil the Great was the father of philanthropy (loosely translated from the Greek: friend of the people). In his effort to secretly distribute money to the poor, he commissioned several women in his Diocese to bake sweetened bread. He arranged to place gold coins randomly in these loaves so the families would be surprised to find a desperately needed gold coin in the bread as they cut into it. This bread sustained them in feeding their families as the new year began, and the gold coin into the next few months.

Today, as we celebrate this family tradition of cutting into the Vasilopita, on or about New Year’s Day, there is a certain excitement, especially for the children, to see who gets the piece with the coin in it. This coin is considered good luck to the person who receives it, for the whole year! This is a tradition, I might add, in many other ethnic groups, as well, but called something different.

Now as I sit and eat a lovely piece of toasted Vasilopita, I wish us all a very happy and LUCKY New Year! Chronia Polla!

See you  next time!