Skinny Dipping on Maundy Thursday

In the Czech Republic, today is known as Zelený čtvrtek, or Green Thursday, according to the tourism guide My Czeck Republic, which offers several explanations for the name's origins. It could be because green vestments traditionally were used for the Mass that day, or because penitents wore sprigs of green herbs today, or possibly because only vegetables used to be eaten today.

Among the more unique aspects to Maundy Thursday in the central European nation, children are to go skinny dipping.

On Zelený čtvrtek in the Czech Republic, the children must go out very early in the morning and bathe – naked! – in the river. This is supposed to be a cure for laziness. And when they come in, shivering and complaining that they’ve just been made to do something they would be punished for in summer, when they would enjoy it, the rope-like jidášky are eaten. Jidášky are served with honey at breakfast. These breakfast cakes, made to look like rope, suggest the fate of Judas Iscariot, who "went and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:5 NKJV) in remorse after he had identified Jesus to His enemies.