Воистину
It was a grey and miserable Easter weekend. The temperature dropped to 40 degrees, the winds rose to 10mph, and raindrops punctuated our Easter greetings. Some say that we should have celebrated Easter last weekend along with everyone else, but part of the charm of Russian Orthodoxy is the look people give you when you tell them you're busy on January 7 because of a family Christmas dinner. Also, our Easter never occurs before Passover, which, by all accounts, is more consistent with the Bible.
On Easter I always feel like I am part of a secret cult performing mysterious and slightly illegal rituals, and I imagine that anyone who happens to drive by a Russian Orthodox church at night and see a procession of people with candles accompanied by bells and Byzantine chanting must be full of curiousity and envy. Maybe I am mistaken.
The Church and I go way back (I was a Christmas bunny in one of the first official Christmas celebrations in Moscow; yes, a Christmas bunny: I wore a big fluffy bunny suit and hopped around the stage of some important Moscow auditorium with hundreds of captivated people in the audience), but nowadays I don't make it to service more than twice a year, and every time I go back I notice how disconnected I've become from this place that felt so comfortable 8 years ago. I spent most of the service watching little balls of wax be devoured by flames while pondering these deep questions of faith and religion and making peace with things I said when I got drunk at Bridget's earlier that day.
The Easter service is an awkward one. Since it only happens once a year, no one quite knows what's going on--priests hurriedly whisper to each other trying to remember how to perform a certain aspect of the intricate ritual, the chorus mumbles most of its lines, only singing the "theme song" in unison, and certain privileged church members rush around yelling at everyone to go outside or come back in or move forward or make way for the chorus. The end of the service is probably the most awkward part of the whole night. Every single church member must go up to every priest and perform the traditional Easter greeting: "Christ is risen! Truly is risen!" followed by three kisses on the cheek. Except it's really disconcerting when you're kissing a 70-year-old man you hardly know, who doesn't want to kiss you either, so you end up kissing the air around each other's head. This part is necessary if one wants to receive a red painted egg blessed with holy water, and since our own eggs turned out a brownish-grayish-disgusting color this year, my mother, brother, and I did the rounds and returned home triumphantly bearing/eating our gifts.
On Easter I always feel like I am part of a secret cult performing mysterious and slightly illegal rituals, and I imagine that anyone who happens to drive by a Russian Orthodox church at night and see a procession of people with candles accompanied by bells and Byzantine chanting must be full of curiousity and envy. Maybe I am mistaken.
The Church and I go way back (I was a Christmas bunny in one of the first official Christmas celebrations in Moscow; yes, a Christmas bunny: I wore a big fluffy bunny suit and hopped around the stage of some important Moscow auditorium with hundreds of captivated people in the audience), but nowadays I don't make it to service more than twice a year, and every time I go back I notice how disconnected I've become from this place that felt so comfortable 8 years ago. I spent most of the service watching little balls of wax be devoured by flames while pondering these deep questions of faith and religion and making peace with things I said when I got drunk at Bridget's earlier that day.
The Easter service is an awkward one. Since it only happens once a year, no one quite knows what's going on--priests hurriedly whisper to each other trying to remember how to perform a certain aspect of the intricate ritual, the chorus mumbles most of its lines, only singing the "theme song" in unison, and certain privileged church members rush around yelling at everyone to go outside or come back in or move forward or make way for the chorus. The end of the service is probably the most awkward part of the whole night. Every single church member must go up to every priest and perform the traditional Easter greeting: "Christ is risen! Truly is risen!" followed by three kisses on the cheek. Except it's really disconcerting when you're kissing a 70-year-old man you hardly know, who doesn't want to kiss you either, so you end up kissing the air around each other's head. This part is necessary if one wants to receive a red painted egg blessed with holy water, and since our own eggs turned out a brownish-grayish-disgusting color this year, my mother, brother, and I did the rounds and returned home triumphantly bearing/eating our gifts.
posted by inna at
5:18 PM
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