Sweet egg breads, popularly known as babka or challah, are more than a holiday culinary tradition for Orthodox Christians. For the Greek Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox, the breads take on a deep spiritual significance that reflects the message of Easter.

In Russian the sweet egg bread is called kulich (pronounced cool-eech) and is shaped like a bell tower because it is baked in a juice can or coffee can.

In Greek it is called tsoureki and is often a long, braided loaf with a shiny surface that beckons to be sliced and placed into a toaster, the perfect mate for a cup of coffee.

But you have to wait to enjoy it, according to the tradition. The breads are baked during Lent, a time when the Orthodox abstain from

eating meat and even drinking milk, and are saved for Easter morning, when they are ceremonially blessed at church and then liberally distributed to friends and family.

Orthodox Easter is April 19, and that's a long wait, indeed, for the parishioners of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Bridgeport. They baked dozens of loaves of the braided sweet breads during the week of St. Patrick's Day.

"After the resurrection, we eat this with eggs and a special meal [often of lamb] to celebrate the resurrection. It has a sweetness to it, and it has all the special spices, a very unique taste," said Kalli Tsitsipas, a member of the Holy Trinity parish.

As she spoke, a dozen grandmotherly women in kitchen smocks and head scarves

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rolled out thick ropes of firm dough in the kitchen at the church, working the dough with their hands. In another room, loaves were cooling, showing the shiny, golden color that sets them apart from everyday breads.

The Easter bread is sweet and eggy: it tastes more like a dessert than a food staple.

"It's very fluffy bread, and very great toasted. It goes with a meal or just with your coffee," Tsitsipas said. "It is great toasted with butter, and you can freeze it as long as you like and then defrost it and it is good, like you just baked it."

For the Orthodox, the bread is part of a spiritual observation. They bring the sweet egg breads to the church to have them blessed on Easter morning, which for the Orthodox always follows the Jewish Passover and the first full moon after the spring equinox.

"Bread is the symbol of life, and of course we use bread for the holy sacrament of the Eucharist. We consecrate it and it becomes the body of Christ, along with the wine which we bless," said the Rev. Dimitrios Recachinas, pastor of Holy Trinity.

That's a big job for a loaf of bread, but the sweet egg bread is up to the task.

"We are reminded of the life to be granted to us on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we bless it. It reminds us that God gives us the opportunity to inherit life everlasting," Recachinas said.

On Easter day, one of the loaves is placed in the center of the table as a centerpiece, adorned with a boiled egg that has been dyed red, the color of Easter eggs for the Orthodox.

"They put the red egg on it to symbolize life. It's very important to commemorate this bread at Easter and have the promise of life to come," Recachinas said.

Why red, and not purple, pastel blue or green? Because according to the Orthodox tradition, St. Mary Magdalene's eggs turned red after Jesus Christ rose from the dead, said Matushka Ann Lardas, wife of the Rev. George Lardas of the Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Stratford.

The Greeks and Russians have amazingly similar Easter traditions, bound in the Orthodox tradition they share.

"Mary Magdalene went to tell Pilate that Jesus Christ was risen, and he didn't believe her. He said, 'I'll believe it when those eggs you brought me as a gift turned red.' And they turned red," she said, recounting the legend.

For the Orthodox, making these sweet egg breads during Lent is a bit of a challenge because they are bound by the rules of their Lenten observance to not eat it until Easter.

It is like a child waiting for Christmas Eve to open the wrapped presents, only worse, because the bread smells so inviting and wonderful.

"We use the eggs and butter and milk to make this bread because we can't eat them during Lent and they accumulate," Lardas said.

Making sweet breads for Easter, and having Easter foods blessed at church on Easter morning was practiced for generations by Catholics, as well, but that old immigrant tradition mostly faded out in the U.S. by the 1960s. For the Orthodox it is still quite strong.

Every European country seems to have its own version of the sweet egg bread. For the Orthodox it takes on a spiritual significance.

"The Russian bread is flavored and colored with saffron and raisins, to be yellow," Lardas said. "We glaze it with a glaze made of powdered sugar and lemon juice, and decorate it to say "XB," for "Christos [Christ is risen] Voskresye." If you put a whole lot of them on a table, it kind of looks like St. Basil's Cathedral, without the crosses."