Hasse invariant and group cohomology

Let p be a prime number. The Hasse invariant is a modular form modulo p that is often used to produce congruences between modular forms of different weights. We show how to produce such congruences between forms of weights 2 and p+1, in terms of group cohomology. We also show how our method works in the contexts of quadratic imaginary fields (where there is no Hasse invariant available) and Hilbert modular forms over totally real fields of even degree.