While most Christians marked an extremely early Easter, Orthodox faiths' observance is this weekend
LYNDORA — While Easter came early for most churchgoers in Butler County this year — March 27 — for members of the Orthodox faiths Easter arrives Sunday, which is as late as it can fall.
There are two reasons Easter is celebrated both March 27 and May 1: the way the holiday relates to the Jewish observance of Passover and the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
The Rev. Joseph Wargo, pastor of St. Andrew Orthodox Church, 201 Penn Ave., said, “Our Easter is celebrated after the first full moon after the vernal equinox and is always after the Jewish Passover and never before.”
“Biblically it makes sense,” Wargo said.
Christ celebrated the Last Supper on the first day of Passover, Wargo said, and the Crucifixion occurred on the second day of Passover.
These days are known now as Holy Thursday and Good Friday, Wargo said.
But if all Christians calculate Easter the same way, why do Western Christians and Orthodox Christians usually (though not always) celebrate Easter on different dates?
It's because the Orthodox churches continue to calculate the date of Easter according to the older, astronomically inaccurate Julian calendar, while Western Christians calculate the date according to the much more accurate Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar in use throughout the Western world.
The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.
Currently the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.
And, according to Wargo, since in the Orthodox tradition, Easter must always be after Passover and also the first full moon after the vernal equinox, since the last day of Passover was Saturday and the full moon was April 22, Easter is May 1.
The Rev. Pasius McGrath, pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 21 Evergreen Road, said his church also follows the Julian calendar in deciding Easter.
“We use the same formula, but the vernal equinox is always March 21. And Easter can never fall before Passover. This year is the latest it can be,” McGrath said.
“Next year, everybody will celebrate Easter on the same Sunday (April 16). This happens every five or six years and usually follows a year when Easters are the furthest apart,” McGrath said.
Still, the lateness of Easter this year won't dim the rituals at SS. Peter and Paul.
“We start on Good Friday (April 29) with a 7 p.m. service. It's called the Unnailing,” said McGrath, who's been pastor of the 90-member congregation for the past nine and a half years. “We take Christ the corpus off the cross. I wrap him in white cloth and place him in the altar.”
“A winding sheet featuring an icon of Christ laying in the grave is brought out for a procession,” said McGrath, who said the sheet is taken outside and brought back into the church to be placed in a wooden grave set up in the nave.
“Then on Saturday we do the first service of the Resurrection. It's called the vesperal liturgy of St. Basil, named after the 4th century church father who wrote it,” he said.
McGrath said a second service takes place Saturday evening.
“Traditionally in the Orthodox church what we would do is have it at midnight, but we start at 8 p.m.” in deference to the ages of some of the congregation, he said.
McGrath said normally the Saturday service could run from 11:30 p.m. to 3 a.m.“When we start the Mass, the church is completely dark,” he said. “The priest comes out of the royal doors with a candle and lights everyone's candle.”“We go in procession outside the church, outside to the parking lot. We stop outside and sing “Christ is Risen” a short hymn, and have a Gospel reading,” McGrath said.“Then with three knocks of the cross on the doors, everybody comes back in, and during the procession a group of men have been lighting candles and disassembling the 'grave,'” he said. “So, when we come back in the church is all lit up and we continue with the service.”There is another service at 10 a.m. Sunday.“During the liturgy, I carry a special triple candle around, a special candle used only at Easter and with an icon of the Resurrection,” McGrath said.He said Orthodox Ukrainians are expected to be at all three services.“What's unique about the Orthodox, at the end of the liturgy is the artos, a loaf of leavened bread baked with a seal depicting the Resurrection that is blessed during the service.”McGrath said the artos is then placed on a small table where it remains throughout the week after Easter, called Bright Week.On every day of Bright Week after the liturgy the artos is carried in a solemn procession around the church exterior.Then the next Sunday, St. Thomas Sunday, the artos is cut and distributed.The congregation of St. John's Byzantine Catholic Church, 105 Kohler Ave., Lyndora, also marks Easter on May 1, said its pastor, the Rev. Leo Schlosser.His congregation of 120 families is “in Communion with the Pope,” he said, but since St. John's is using the liturgy of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom “we're more like the Orthodox Church in our liturgy and canon law.”St. John's was founded in 1915 by families of Subcarpathan Rus, people who came from Carpathian Ruthenia which rests on the slopes of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, now a part of Ukraine.“Everybody fought over us,” Schlosser said. “We had three years as a free country, but mostly we have always been under somebody.”McGrath said there are advantages to observing two Easters.“Many people are from mixed marriages. It gives them the opportunity to celebrate with family regardless of which Easter date is celebrated,” he said.Easter being later is something his parishoners are used to, McGrath said, and it allows the holiday to get out from under the commercialism that surrounds the earlier Easter.
