Are you celebrating?

  The great Christian holiday of Easter is approaching, which, according to the old Christian belief, gives humanity hope for life after death or resurrection. According to Christian belief, Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday. But on Sunday, he rose from the dead. Thus, in Slovenia, horseradish reflects the nails with which Jesus Christ was attached to the cross. The red colored eggs symbolize his drops of blood and the bread and pastries his crown of thorns on his head. 

Of course, the whole world is not Christian. In the entire world population of more than 8 billion, which includes Christian, according to the latest data, only 31% on a global scale. Of these, 50% are Catholics, 37% Protestants and 12% Orthodox Christians. 1% is shared by all other Christian churches. 

We no longer know a strictly monotheistic Christian state, with the exception of the Vatican. All modern societies, and thus also countries, nowadays like to boast about religious freedom, which often means a multi-religious population in one country, or the presence of several religious organizations, churches, sects... When we wish someone a happy holiday in such countries, we do not know if that person celebrates this holiday at all. For someone, this holiday is a great holiday, for another, something they don't believe in at all, and for a third, something completely foreign or even repulsive. This can happen to us in our everyday plural, democratic and multicultural environment. 

Nowadays, we don't hang out, we live and work together, only those who are of the same origin, religion or never and are culturally identical at all, which means that we have the same cultural habits, which also includes the celebration of holidays. To avoid the awkwardness of sending a greeting for holidays that are not celebrated, it is best to check each holiday in that country first. If this holiday is a national holiday, we can't do much damage to our interpersonal relationships. 

Questions about religious affiliation are often unwanted in our culture, even though different religious affiliations often mean differences in holidays, meals, clothing culture, interpersonal relationships... We are all too unaware of such consequences of a multicultural society and also of religious plurality. We can hope that we naturally know our capacity to accept such cultural differences. Of course, we certainly know less about the cultural values ​​of our interlocutors, neighbors, colleagues, especially if questions on this topic belong to the so-called "taboo" topics and could simply read like this: "What religion are you? What do you believe in? What days of the year are holidays for you and why?..."