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Happy Easter, the Orthodox way

Orthodox churches will celebrate this weekend. It has everything to do with the moon.

By PETER SCHWEITZER
Published April 30, 2005

If you thought Easter had come and gone this year, think again.

Many Orthodox churches are celebrating Easter this Sunday, not on March 27, when Catholic and Protestant churches held their Easter celebrations. The reason for the difference dates back more than a thousand years.

According to Father James Rousakis of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Clearwater, it's a matter of keeping faith with the early church.

"The First Ecumenical Council in 325 A.D. prescribed that Easter should be celebrated after the Jewish Passover and during the first full moon after the spring equinox," he said. "So it's just a matter of fidelity to tradition."

The date of Easter fluctuates primarily because the Jewish calendar, which determines the date of Passover, is lunar, based on the phases of the moon. While the Catholic and Protestant churches kept the tradition of Easter after the Jewish Passover, they didn't link the date of Easter with the date of the full moon, as the Orthodox churches did. Hence, the separate Easters.

Many Orthodox churches throughout the Tampa Bay area are celebrating Easter events this weekend. Most services are not open to innovation.

"The divine liturgy we celebrate is the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. It doesn't change," said Father Sebastian Skordallos, dean of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Tarpon Springs. The service begins at 11 tonight and runs until about 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

At the Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity in Safety Harbor, Father Peter Tutko will begin the Easter commemoration with a compline service at 11:30 tonight. It will be followed at midnight by the Paschal Matins and the divine liturgy. Unlike the Greek Orthodox services, this service will be chanted entirely in English. The church is part of the Orthodox Church of America and not affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church.

"While we chant all the services in English, the traditional hymn Christ Is Risen will be sung in eight languages: Arabic, Slovanic, Greek, Albanian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. We do this because we have parishioners who speak each of these languages," Tutko said.

Each Orthodox Easter service has the same principal components: a ceremony of light, a procession during which the Resurrection Gospel is read, and the divine liturgy. The ceremony of light begins when the churchgoers gather in a completely dark church. The priest lights a large white candle, called the Paschal or Easter candle. As he turns to the congregation, he says, "Come, receive the light."

The church is illuminated from the first candle. There is great symbolic value to the dark-light theme, Rousakis says.

"It represents for us the darkness of Christ going down to Hades and then the light of the Resurrection, when Christ is revealed as the light of the world through his resurrection," he said.

At Trinity Greek Orthodox in Clearwater, those attending the service will receive red eggs.

"Tradition has it that Mary Magdalene distributed red eggs announcing Jesus' resurrection. The color red is used to symbolize the red blood of Christ. The egg shell represents the tomb, which, when broken open, gives new life," Rousakis said.

On Easter Sunday morning, the Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity in Safety Harbor and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Tarpon Springs will hold an Agape Vespers service.

"The service gives us an opportunity to reflect on the love that God showed us and an opportunity for us to show that same love to each other," Skordallos said.

[Last modified April 30, 2005, 00:51:14]