Easter and a Moment of Reflection
A conference in a nearby city and the bus travel involved made waking up at 3:00am a bit tough but Easter celebrations here are an amazing experience that you just can’t pass up.
The alarm on my phone is ringing for the third time after me hitting the snooze button repeatedly. It’s that dreadful alarm sound, the one that irks the core of your brain even if you hear it somewhere else. But this time I’m getting up, throw on some clothes, grab the tattered backpack of my camera stuff and out the door.
I know I’m gong to make it on time after seeing a few shadows in the street carrying baskets of Easter bread, “Paska”, to be blessed at the church. I’m alone this morning, a much different experience than the one I had with my host family just over a year ago. The amount of people on the street increases as I approach the church. A quiet group mills around in front and the songs of the church choir can be heard through the large open front doors.
I drift in through the crowd, this is an unusual setting for me. I don’t partake in weekly church gatherings and have only been inside this church once before though it is across the street from the school where I work every day. I can here a few whispers from strangers as I pass, “Is that the american?” or “He’s not russian.” There are lots of people visiting family for the weekend who wouldn’t have seen me before. I see a few of my students and greet their families quietly as I head inside. On this day people say a special greeting, it’s “Christ has risen” responded with “Truly he has risen.” Христос Bоскрес (Hristos Voskres), Bоистину Воскрес (Vostino Voskres).
The choir is being directed by a young man who I’ve met before. His hands lucidly rising and falling with the pitch of the voices almost as if they are controlling him. I spend several minutes just listening and taking in the beauty of the inside of the church before heading back outside.
I find a place in the circle of baskets that is forming around the church. Next to a guy I used to lift with at the gym and his girlfriend. We begin to talk about family and he asks me about mine, if I miss them. Easter is a big holiday here, one that people always spend with their families. I tell him that I do miss my family and my girlfriend but that getting to skype with them helps.
People begin to light the candles in their baskets, illuminating the food inside as well as their hands and faces and the faces of those around them. They illuminate the large circle surrounding the church, about the size of a city block, there must be several hundred people here. The volume of the choir increases as they exit the church with the procession of the father. The procession comes around the circle twice, first with a blessing and the second time the father is spraying holy water from a silver basin.
I’m waiting packed close together with members of the crowd forming this circle. Everyone is tending to their candles as wind gust repeatedly put them out. We can hear the procession approaching but cannot see them yet they are on the far side of the church. As they approach their figures become more obvious and then I begin to see individual faces. The procession is led by the father spraying holy water onto the crowd and the baskets of food extinguishing most of the candles as he goes along. He finally reaches us, murmurs from the crowd increase as his sprays of holy water are casted out over the baskets and the faces of the people watching. The water is cold and blurs the lens of my camera as it reaches me.
The procession heads back inside and the crowd begins to disperse home to a big table of food or a nap before a long day with the family. Today will be a large feast for those that have participated in the fasting of lent. I would take the nap option then head to the other church in town with my landlord to see the same ceremony.
I arrived in Ukraine about three weeks before easter last year and spent it with my host family in Radyanska Sloboda. It was a very interesting experience at a time when I was really new here with very limited language skills and cultural knowledge. Living out the experience again this year brought a realization of the length of time that I’ve spent here, just over a year. Its a crazy thing looking back on it all, the experiences that I’ve had this year, the difficulties of being away from my family and girlfriend. And the really hard times that came from a variety of factors including this years super cold winter. It’s been a year of substantial growth for me as a person and a major mile marker in my life experience. What will the rest of my time here entail, what choices will I have to make and what will the outcome be?