Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
He rises again
Orthodox Christians celebrate Pascha
There won’t be any sunrise services this weekend when Arkansas’ Orthodox Christians celebrate the Resurrection; the faithful can sleep a couple of hours extra — with the church’s blessing.
In most locations, the celebrations begin late this evening and continue into the pre-dawn hours Sunday.
“Instead of doing it in the morning on Easter, we do it in the middle of the night,” said Father Joseph Bittle of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Little Rock.
If able, members of the congregation remain standing throughout the Pascha (Greek for Passover) service.
“We come in about 11 p.m. and start the service,” he said. At Holy Trinity, it finishes at roughly 2 a.m.
“Then we stay and have a feast,” he said.
Things typically wrap up by 4 a.m. Worshippers frequently take baskets of food to have them blessed.
After avoiding meat for nearly nine weeks, many Orthodox Christian carnivores are eager to break the fast.
Those who have adopted a vegan diet for Lent will resume eating dairy products as well.
“There’s going to be lots of meats,” Bittle said. “Of course we’re in the South, so people bring some barbecue.”
JAM-PACKED HOLY WEEK
For the Orthodox, Easter is the culmination of a jam-packed Holy Week.
“It’s the feast of all feasts. It’s the Resurrection Sunday. It’s the party of all parties,” said Father Samuel Seamans of St. Thomas the Apostle Orthodox Church in Mountain Home.
Since Palm Sunday, many congregations have held daily services, gathering twice on Wednesday and Thursday.
Good Friday is typically even busier.
“For Orthodox Christians of all ages … Friday is typically a day [that] people will spend at church, young and old. If possible, they get out of work,” said Father Nicholas Verdaris of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Little Rock.
“It’s also a day for people to kind of leave the world and spend time in the church cleaning, decorating [and] getting everything ready so that they’re in tune with the great celebration to come,” he said.
Verdaris expects roughly 300 people will be present for tonight’s services.
“At 12 midnight, that is when … the glorious news echoes that Christ is risen from the dead. So that is the pinnacle service of the church year,” he said.
FREQUENTLY UNALIGNED
Orthodox Easter and Protestant and Catholic Easter are frequently unaligned.
For centuries, most Christians tried to celebrate Easter on the same date, aiming to hold it on the first Sunday after spring’s first full moon.
Unfortunately the Julian calendar, which dated to the time of the Caesars, miscalculated the length of each year by roughly 11 minutes.
By the 16th century, the manmade calendar had fallen roughly 10 days behind the actual seasons.
To remedy the problem, Pope Gregory XIII instituted a new, more precise calendar to nearly eliminate the problem moving forward.
In his realm, the calendar was also bumped forward 10 days. Sunset on Oct. 4, 1582, was followed by sunrise on Oct. 15, 1582.
Catholic countries were quicker to adopt the change than many Protestant countries.
England and its colonies didn’t switch until 1752; to catch up, it had to advance the calendar 13 days.
Orthodox churches, on the other hand, stuck with the traditional calendar. Subsequent refinements have not eliminated the gap.
FIVE WEEKS APART
As a result, Orthodox Christians only rarely celebrate Easter on the same day as Catholics and Protestants; at times, the celebrations occur as many as five weeks apart.
Orthodox Pascha celebrations have been held in Central Arkansas for well over a century.
In 1913, when Verdaris’ congregation formed, services were held in Greek and many of the worshippers were of Greek ancestry. Today, the congregation is diverse and multi-ethnic. English is the favored tongue, but the Paschal menu continues to reflect the old country.
“It is a mix of traditional breakfast elements as well as the custom of serving lamb and potatoes,” Verdaris said.
The liturgies that are used are ancient.
At Saints George and Alexandra Holy Orthodox Church in Fort Smith, congregants hold what is essentially a Good Friday funeral service for Jesus, complete with a burial shroud.
“It starts somber, but it ends in joy,” said the mission church’s priest, Father John Maxwell.
Worshippers are aware that between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, good things are happening, he said,
“[Jesus] said to the thief, ‘Today, I’ll be with you in Paradise.’ Jesus is active. He’s not just dead in a tomb,” he said.
In Fort Smith, the worshippers will light candles this evening and process out of the sanctuary, symbolically overcoming the darkness.
‘WE OPEN THE DOORS’
Later, they will proclaim the “King of Glory, the Lord of Hosts” and the beginning of Pascha, Maxwell said.
“We open the doors, we start singing about ‘Christ is risen,’ and we come into the church,” he said. “There is no service on Earth so joyful as this.”
Like others around the world, worshippers at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Springdale will hear the news of Jesus’ resurrection proclaimed in a variety of languages. It’s an indication that the good news is for all the people of the earth, said Father Paul Fuller, the congregation’s pastor.
“Somebody doesn’t necessarily have to be a deep student of theology. They can come to the church services and really pick up what the Church teaches because that’s what we sing and pray,” he said.
“The idea is for us to be encompassed with our senses and what’s happening,” he said.
“The use of incense, the use of candles, the use of iconography [and] of icons” helps to enhance the experience, he said.
“The idea is that we’re worshipping God with our whole being, so [our] body and soul and our mind,” he said.
After catching some sleep, congregants will return for a traditional Agape vespers service, where the New Testament account of Jesus’ resurrection will be read in multiple languages, he added.