I’ve been way to busy lately to blog, but “Thank God it’s (Good) Friday.” At least for Orthodox Christians. Indeed, today marks the beginning of the Easter weekend here in Macedonia and throughout the Orthodox Christian world. Personally, it’s a much needed break from my teaching, particularly as Monday’s my busiest day and I usually spend half the weekend preparing for it.
Naturally, I’ve been doing plenty of Easter activities this week with my younger language students, something one can do in an all-Macedonian school, where being Christian is just part of the culture and thus assumed. I’ve been sharing what I perceive to be American and my family’s traditions, such as what we eat, Easter egg hunts (which they don’t have here), and dyeing eggs. However, I’ve also spoken to some adult students and friends to gain a better understanding of the rules and rites of this time of the year, and have been interested to hear a few things in particular.
For one, dyeing eggs should only be done on the Thursday or Saturday before Easter, and must be done before sunrise. Thus many of my students yesterday told me how their mothers arose at 4am to dye eggs. Further, the color of the eggs may run the gamut, but it will primarily be a dark red, representing the blood of Christ. The eggs are decorative until Sunday, when everyone takes one in hand and breaks it over another person’s egg. Of the two eggs clashing, the one with that which doesn’t break is brought good luck and fortune. (Several egg salads and sandwiches follow, of course!) Further, young children should have a red egg in the bath with them on Easter, as it’s believed to bring health and prosperity.
I’ve asked several students what a traditional Easter lunch is, and this is something that’s not dictated by any rite necessarily. Some said they would eat pork or chicken or lamb, the latter being the traditional Easter meal in previous times. However, only a small minority of students said they would eat lamb, though one was rather looking forward to slaughtering a lamb in her family’s village!
One unique thing about the period before Easter (“Post”—our Lent) is that those who practice here will fast (“posti”). Well, I haven’t quite determined if fasting is exactly what it is, as they restrict their diet by not eating oil, meat, and eggs, for example, but they do still eat. And they may do this for 40, 14, or 7 days. It seems that the idea of Lent is thus a bit different, as instead of giving up something for 40 days they have options of for how long and what it is they give up (though it is usually one if not more of the aforementioned; and in the sandwich shops & bakeries recently there has been the option of bean sandwiches...)
What occurs in churches here is another ballgame as well. Whereas Orthodox view the role of the church/temple differently (see below) and don’t attend church in the same fashion as most church-goers in the US, this weekend is a time when many will gather in mass for ceremonies. These are today, tomorrow evening before midnight, and Sunday’s Easter mass. However, the notion of a priest addressing his parishioners and giving a spoken Easter mass is less likely to be seen than the priest chanting and swinging an incense holder while the former stand in quiet contemplation (hesychasm). As in the US, on Easter the priest will say “Hristos voskrese”—‘Christ is risen’. However, in Macedonia people will actually greet each other in and outside of church on Easter saying this, to which one should reply: “Navistina voskrese”—‘Indeed he has risen’. One last rite I heard of is that those attending midnight mass tomorrow evening will enter the church and crawl under a decorated table, which is to represent the grave/tomb of Christ (And interestingly, in some towns people will then go in droves to the local cemetery to light candles for their deceased loved ones.)
Anyhow, it’s a fascinatingly more complex array of traditions than most Americans have, and I would now like to share what I wrote to my family last year after attending an Easter mass at a Serbian Orthodox Church in Indianapolis. Having had more time on my hands then, I did some research into the history of the Orthodox and Catholic churches and wrote about the former specifically.
“Historically, the [Orthodox] Church was the earliest form of Christianity. Its saints were apostles and disciples of Christ who spread his message of goodwill towards mankind. The religion slowly spread into Europe, the Near East, and N. Africa in the first millenium AD with the growth/affluence of the Byzantine and Roman Empires. Until 1054 the Church was a unified hierarchy of councils and patriarchates, with major seats in cities such as Rome, Constantinople (modern Istanbul), Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria (Egypt).
In 1054, however, the Great Schism occurred and Christianity branched for the first time. Rome split from these ecumenical councils and declared itself autonomous, having papal supremacy, and thus all powerful. Crusades ordained by the Pope, particularly the 4th (which was the insanely bloody sacking of Constantinople [today’s Istanbul] by French and Italian Catholics pillaging and plundering Orthodox Christians in 1204) cemented the schism.
The Roman Catholic Church was therefore established in the west (and dominates in W. Europe), and the Orthodox Church in the east. Since then, Catholicism has spread to represent half of the world's Christian population (ie, there are approximately one billion Catholics), whereas Orthodoxy is in a distant second place behind it (as there are approximately 150 million Orthodox Christians).
What is fascinating to me is that the Orthodox church is not a church with a strong political voice, such as the Vatican. The head of the Church is not an all powerful figure with “papal infallibility” like the Catholic Pope (this is in fact explicitly rejected by the Orthodox Church), but a spiritual and administrative leader. And thus the traditions of the Church are left very much as I experienced them yesterday, and which I did on several occasions in Macedonia: they are seance like in the monotone chanting, singing, and incense burning of the priest, and the followers are present to share in the hesychasm—the meditative closing off of the outside world in order to allow the introspective, hermit-like self-analysis that includes digesting the original message of Christianity: that being selfless is always better than being selfish.
Thus the brief voiced message of the priest at the end of the introspective, hour long ceremony yesterday was that we as a human race are in a critical time, with war and hatred being perpetuated, people starving and dying of disease, and globalization destroying our planet. There was little talk of "God" or of morals, an afterlife or missionizing, and the anti-globalization message is very much in line with modern liberal thinkers such as Howard Zinn (he has actually has a new book out on this).
Therefore, the joy of Orthodoxy is the joy of celebrating humanity and equality; appreciating all life & nature, friends and family. To them Christ is a symbol of that positiveness that humans *can* embody and act on. This is what I wanted to share, and what I hope you will better understand in differentiating (as they do in the rest of the Judeo-Christian world) the difference between Protestant Christians/Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians.”
СРЕКЕН ВЕЛИГДЕН!—Sreken Veligden!—Happy Easter!
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