What makes Easter so important for me? The religious significance? The unusual and beautiful church service which runs from around 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.? Or is it simply that after seven weeks of Lent, the prospect of chocolate and cheese and eggs seems appealing?
For my family, Easter has become much more than colorful pink bunnies and egg-shaped chocolates. Like for many others, it has become a time of self reflection, community and family.
It is a time where college students come home, and where my church community comes together to put on a pre-Easter Bazaar with tables laden with kulich and cheese pascha. It’s a time where all around me I see smiling faces and friendliness unmatched at any other time of year.
It’s February, at the end of Maslenetsa, or what I like to call Pancake Week (pretty much a Russian Mardi Gras, but for a week). On the last day, the day before Lent starts, tradition has us ask all the people we know for forgiveness so we can start off Lent on a good note. It’s still cold outside, and spring and Easter seem very far away. We stock up on peanut butter and soy milk because those become staples in our diet during Lent when we cannot eat meat.
It’s March, and the weeks get counted off. Third week of Great Lent. Fourth week. Fifth. The snow begins to melt, and my mom starts collecting onion skins to dye our eggs with. Email lists go out to parish members, organizing kulich baking systems. The choir quietly practices Paschal hymns on Sunday afternoons. I stumble over the familiar yet incomprehensible words in a language that I still do not understand fluently.
It’s April, and the house is cleaned and polished. My mom buys bags of groceries of tantalizing temptations that we must wait to eat.
The Sunday before Easter, there is a huge carnival-like tent set up in the churchyard. Tables are covered in arrays of beautifully decorated cakes and pastries. My dad lets me pick out this year’s treat, just as I did when I was six. Eggs are boiled with all those onion skins. From beneath the waxy layers, rich dark-red colored shells emerge. We attend services almost every day that week, and my legs begin to get sore from standing. My sister comes home from college. It’s good to see the faces reappear again together.
It’s midnight and the church air is filled with smoky incense. In the choir, voices around me sing indefatigably, “Hristos Voskresi! Christ is Risen!” My stomach rumbles and I shift on my feet. I know every- one around me is tired and hungry but they also look so happy that those long hours are made to be worth it.
Every year is constant, familiar. I can count on the people to come back, though they may change over the years. I can count on the traditions, the happy faces, the family. I can count on the excitement and knowledge that spring is finally here. These experiences become a part of me, an annual cycle of constancy, yet growth; experience, yet awe.
Different people regard this holiday in different ways. Some may view it as a marketing scam, another excuse to sell candy in differently colored wrappers. Others may celebrate it with their families and communities, while still others may see it as some strange ritual that doesn’t make sense.
Even for those who choose to celebrate Easter, the holiday may take different forms. For example, this year, in the Orthodox church, we celebrate Easter a week after many other sects do. Our services may look different, and traditions about Lent, food, community and others have their different looks for various cultures, denominations and communities.
I can’t make sweeping statements about Easter as a whole, because it has come to mean so many different things. All I can say is that, for me, there is something really comforting about having a tradition that I know has been around, and will be around, to provide a reason to come together, be happy and celebrate the things I value in a constant and unifying way.
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