Fr. Stephen is a retired Archpriest of the Orthodox Church in America. He is also author of Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe, and Face to Face: Knowing God Beyond Our Shame, as well as the Glory to God podcast series on Ancient Faith Radio.
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Truly He is Risen!
He is Risen indeed, Alleluia !
Just returned home at 4:00 AM, Sunday morning, April 27, to read this message from a friend. I think all of you can relate, as you are probably just arriving home too after the Great Pascha celebration, our shared rejoicing in Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, as most of the world slumbers. It really isn’t Greek Easter. Is is the Resurrection of Christ and Salvation of the world! Birds are already waking now and joining our morning song.
God Bless All of You! Christ Is Risen!
Subject: Greek Easter
“Greek Easter” Essay, by Rita Wilson
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:42:38 +0000
Actress Rita Wilson, whose mother and father both were born in Greece , is widely credited with landing Nia Vardalos a movie deal for ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding.’ Wilson and her actor husband Tom Hanks had their own ‘Big Fat Greek Wedding’ in 1988. They have two children.
Posted by Rita Wilson on April 8, 2008 12:57 PM
A piece worthy of sharing …
Why Easter is Greek to Me: Xristos Anesti!
by Rita Wilson
Once every few years, Greek Easter falls the same week as ‘American Easter,’ as it was called when I was growing up.
In order for ‘Greek Easter’ to be celebrated the same week as ‘American Easter,’ Passover has to have been celebrated already. We Greeks don’t do Easter until after Passover, because how can you have Easter BEFORE Passover. Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, after all. Unless it is one of the years when the two holidays align. Like last year.
Here are some of the things that non-Greeks may not know about Greek Easter: We don’t do bunnies. We don’t do chocolate. We don’t do pastels.
We do lamb, sweet cookies, and deep red. The lamb is roasted and not chocolate, the sweet cookies are called Koulorakia and are twisted like a braid, and our Easter eggs are dyed one color only: blood red. There is no Easter Egg hunt. There is a game in which you crack your red egg against someone else’s red egg hoping to have the strongest egg, which would indicate you getting a lot of good luck.
Holy Week, for a Greek Orthodox, means you clear your calendar, you don’t make plans for that week at all because you will be in church every day, and you fast. Last year, in addition to not eating red meat and dairy before communion, my family also gave up sodas for the 40-day Lenten period.
During one particularly str essful moment, there were many phone calls amongst our kids as to whether or not a canned drink called TING, made with grapefruit juice and carbonated water was, in fact, a soda and not a juice, which our then 10-year-old decided it was, so we had a Ting-less Lent.
No matter where I find my self in the world I never miss Easter, or as we call it, Pascha. I have celebrated in Paris , London , New York City, Los Angeles , and in Salinas , California at a small humble church that was pure and simple.
When we were kids, our parents would take us, and now as parents ourselves we take our children to many of the Holy Week services including the Good Friday service where you mourn the death of Jesus by walking up to the Epitaphio, which reperesents the dead body of Christ, make your cross, kiss the Epitaphio, and marvel at how it was decorated with a thousand glorious flowers, rose petals and smells like incense.
Some very pious people will crawl under the Epitaphio. I have always been so moved to see this. There is no self- consciousness in this utter act of faith. There is no embarrassment to show symbolic sorrow at the death of our Saviour.
At a certain point in the Good Friday service, the Epitaphio is carried outside by the deacons of the church, as if they are pall bearers, followed by worshippers carrying lit candles protected from dripping on your clothes and on others by having a red plastic cup that sits below the flame to catch the wax drippings. Every Greek person knows all too well the smell of burning hair.
One time, in London , I smelled something and turned to look at where the smell might be coming from, only to be horrified that it was coming form me and my head was on fire. But I digress.
It is somber and quiet as we follow the Epitaphio, in candlelight, from the altar to the outdoors, in order for it to circle the church before it returns back to the altar. We s ing beautiful lamentations that make your heart break with their pure expression of sadness and hope.
One of my favorite services during Easter is Holy Unction. This happens on the Wednesday of Holy Week. Holy Unction is a sacrament. It is for healing of our ills, physical and spiritual. It is preparing us for confession and communion. This sacrament has always been so humbling to me.
When you approach the priest for Holy Unction, you bow your head and as he says a prayer and asks you your Christian name, he takes a swab of blessed oil and makes the sign of the cross on your forehead, cheeks, chin, backs of your hands and palms. It is a powerful reminder of how, with faith, we can be healed in many ways.
The holy oil is then carefully dabbed with cotton balls provided by the church so you don’t leave there looking as if you’re ready to fry chicken with your face, and before you exit the church, you leave your cotton balls in a basket being held by altar boys, so as not to dispose of the holy oil in a less than holy place. The church burns the used cotton balls.
There have been times when I have left church with my cotton ball and have panicked when I am driving away. At home I take care of it. Imagine a grown woman burning cotton balls in her sink. But that is what I do.
Midnight Mass on Saturday night, going into Sunday morning is the Anastasi service. We will arrive at church at around 11 p.m., when it starts, and listen to the chanter as he chants in preparation for the service. My kids, dressed in their suits and having been awakened from a deep sleep to come to church, groggily sit and wait holding their candles with red cup wax catchers.
As the service progresses, the moment we have all been waiting for approaches. All the lights in the church are turned off. It is pitch black It is dead quiet. The priest takes one candle and lights his one candle from the one remaining lit altar candle, which represents the light of Christ’s love.
From this one candle, the priest approaches the congregation and using his one candle he shares his light with a few people in the front. They in turn share their light with the people next to them and behind them. In quiet solemnity, we wait until the entire church is lit with only the light of candles, the light that has been created by one small flame has now created a room of shared light.
And at a moment that can only be described as glorious, the priest cries out, ‘Xristos Anesti!’ ‘Christ is Risen!’ We respond with ‘Alithos Anesti!’ ‘Truly, He is Risen!’ We sing our glorious Xristos Anesti song with the choir. That moment, which happens about an hour, to an hour and half into the service and seems as if the service is over, actually marks the beginning of the service. The service then continues for another hour and a half.
When I was a kid, after the se rvice was over, we would go to the Anastasi Dinner that the church would throw in the church hall, where we would break our fast, drink wine and COKE at 2:30 in the morning, dance to a raucous Greek band and not go home until our stomachs were full of lamb, eggs, Koulouraki, and we saw the sun rise. Or was it the Son rise?
But usually now, after Midnight Liturgy, we drive home with our still-lit candles. I always love seeing the looks on peoples faces as they pull up to our car seeing a family with lit candles calmly moving at 65 m.p.h. down the highway. When we get home, we crack eggs, eat cookies, drink hot chocolate (so not Greek) and I burn a cross into our doorways with the carbon from the candle smoke to bless our house for the year.
There have been many times when painters touching up the house have wondered why there was this strange black cross burned into our doorways. The next day is usually followed by a late sleep in, then getting up and doing the same thing you just did but in the daytime at the Easter Picnic, usually held at a local park.
I have to say, the Greeks know how to do Easter. Make no mistake. This is the most important holiday in our church. It is a beautiful week. I haven’t even begun to touch on what the week is really like. This is a sampling of a sampling of what it is like. It is so much more deep, so much richer than I have written here.
But one thing is clear. It is a powerful, beautiful, mysterious, humbling, healing and moving week. It is filled with tradition and ritual. It is about renewal and faith. And even though it is still too early to say, Xristos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
Христос Воскресе, радост донесе! – Christ has Risen and brought the Joy!
Truly He is Risen!
Thanks for the article, Mary. I got home at 5 a.m. and as tired as I still am, it was beautiful.
Only fasting from red meat and dairy BEFORE Communion? What’s with that? But having only gotten about 3.5 hours sleep (I need to go back to bed for another hour before I have to get ready for Agape Vespers at noon), I might not be totally coherent.
Indeed He is Risen! A joyous Pascha to Father Stephen and all!
Last night I attended a divine liturgy for the first time. It was quite an introduction. I have never been to a church that has celebrated the resurrection as such a reality. The service is long over, but the truth remains: Xριστός ανέστη! He has trampled death by death and to those in the tombs is granting life.
Our third Holy Pascha as Orthodox Christians! The blessings to our family continue to flow! God be praised! Christ is Risen!
Our parish being a pan-ethnic parish the following is printed in the buliten… and much fun is had at with some of the pronuneations by the poor southern converts. 😉
Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
Christos anesti! Alithos anesti! (Greek)
Al Massiah qam! Haqqan qam! (Arabic)
Cristos vaskres! Va-istinu vaskres! (Serbian)
Khristos voskrese! Voistinu voskrese! (Russian)
Cristos a inviaht! Adevarat a-inviaht! (Romanian)
Cristo ha resucitado! Realmente ha resucitado! (Spanish)
Kriost eirgim! Eirgim! (Gaelic)
The Gaelic was new this year.
Im Glad you feel the same way too – geart blog – He’s risen!
Христос Воскресе!
Christ Is Risen!
I cannot possibly express in words all my feelings in this joyous moment of the Feast of Feasts!!
Rita’s piece is so expressive and yet, as she says, words cannot fully express the majesty and power of any of the Holy Week services.
He is risen indeed!
“Only fasting from red meat and dairy BEFORE Communion? What’s with that? ”
Theodora Elizabeth.
Possibly just a misplaced truncation. I don’t think Rita meant “before communion” only, but for the entire 40 days.
Christos Anesti!
Alithos Anesti!
Revelation
I go away … was all we heard
the night we crossed the little Kedron.
Revelation began like that,
a painful secret.
The garden had secrets too.
So like a kiss the calm
beneath the trees, our eyes
gave in and our arms
curled about our hearts
as if to cure
the agony of those words
with medicine of sleep.
A little sleep,
a little folding of hands,
slipping truant from His side
we drew away in slumber.
And come again …
Had we dreamed it between the flashes
of winding streets, the snowy colt,
the rain of palms, the disturbing glory?
And then
the everlasting conspicuous death,
the scissored earth, bludgeoned sun,
the steep of Hell invert ―
That Dawn!
So like a kiss
the joyous divulgence
Thy Kingdom Come!
Feast of Great Pascha
Indeed He is Risen!
Hope you have a wonderful Bright Week, Father!
Truly He is risen!
Indeed He is Risen! Happy Pasca! Joyous Bright Week!
Indeed He is Risen!
I was received into the Church on Palm Sunday so this is my first pascha as an Orthodox Christian!
Christos Anesti!
This was my first experience of Orthodox Lent and Easter, and I pray that next year at this time I am no longer a catechumen.
Praise God for all things 🙂
Воистину Воскресе =) Hello from Russia and Happy Pasha =)
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