www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization How does your parish celebrate Pascha?

Dear Friends,

After the Midnight Office in my parish, the Bishop and priests go out to circumambulate around the church before Paschal Mattins.

During the time they are outside, the people inside busy themselves with removing the tomb, flowers, candles and the Cross.

Do all parishes basically do this? Our Cross is collapsable and is then taken away from sight.

How does your parish go about this?

Alex

Same process but at a different time. Usually a few of the parish men take down the Tomb, etc. and put the Tetrapod, icon stands, candles, all back up.

It is done on Easter Morning during the Paschal Matins (starts at 8am), which is right before the DL (starts around 9am).

I have seen the same process done at several UGCC parishes and at UOC parishes.

-uc

XB!

Alex,

I'm confused... Do you only your clergy go around the church? This would be unusual. Maybe I read your post wrong.

After the Midnight Service, everyone is to go around the church in procession, three times, singing, "Thy Resurrection, O Christ our Savior," while a few stay inside and ready the church by remvoing the tomb, and as the ustav says, "light all the candles."

It is always glorious. Absolutely nothing like it!

This past Friday night (Matins of Holy Saturday) it rained, so we could not go around the church with the plaschenitsa, as is also our custom, singing "Holy God." I kept telling one of the altar boys, "Go outside and see if it is still raining," right up until the last minute, at the Great Doxology. I remember being disappointed when I was 6-years old that we could not go around the church - nothing has changed for me 36 years later!

But we did go around for midnight service on Saturday/Sunday. The rain held off. We have our liturgy separately, on Sunday morning (a local custom) and the weather was glorious, even though the forecast called for "heavy thunderstorms." There was not a drop in the sky all day, and it was a beautiful 72 F. We also go around the church after Liturgy in a cross procession, and read the resurrecton gospels on the four sides of the church and blessing it and all those present with Holy Water (this is normally the custom for Bright Week liturgy, but we do it since we split the Matins and Liturgy).

Priest Thomas

Bless, Father Thomas,

Christ is Risen!

Yes, most of the people went outside to accompany the Bishop and Priests with our Deacon of great worth . . .

My parish church is the church that was used in the filming of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

So now you know how truly magnificent our Paschal celebrations were!

We also had an operatic singer visiting here from England who sang the "Plottiyu Usnuv."

That hymn is always amazing and reduces one to tears . . .

I'm always amazed at how you clergy do it, the long services and all!

It must be because you have great faith!

Also, could I purchase a copy of the Akathist to All Saints of North America that we briefly talked about a while ago?

Alex

I just re-inquired about it today to one of our workers at the chancery. He said that the head of our liturgical music departement is off for a few weeks, so it won't be ready until then. For more info, contact dlucs@oca.org .

Alex,

Speaking of "Plottiyu Usnuv," we had a male chorus of about 10 of us sing it in the middle of the church at Matins (I did double duty, came out of the altar and directed!). It was glorious. It is the same one that is on the St. Vladimir's Pascha recording ("In the flesh Thou didst fall asleep...").

And I might say, we did it just as well as St Vlad's!

PT

Bless, Father!

Thank you and thank you!

I was going to church rather regularly this Holy Week.

And on Bright Monday, I got up and did what I always do, anoint my still sleeping wife with water. But since it was early, I used warm water this time . . .

Then I felt a great pull to get dressed and go to Church . . .

And I couldn't, since I had to teach.

My spirit would have preferred attendance at Church though . . .

We all just need to let ourselves be caught up in the dynamic liturgical life of our parish and then we'll feel the pull toward the Lord!

Do you celebrate your Namesday this Sunday, Father Thomas?

If so, a blessed Namesday to you!

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

Fr Thomas,

It was quite beautiful! I was too busy listening to you and them singing to record it on my digital camera. I did record the procession and a few other parts of matins.

The choir at St Nicholas is quite good. I'm so glad I decided to attend since I didn't have a chance to sing at OCA parish near my house, due to my being in Pittsburgh.

My BC parish in California processes just once around the church which never seemed to be quite fulfilling.

Steve

Christos Anesti!

We go straight from paschal matins to the liturgy, so when the procession goes out a few people stay behind and moved things out of the way. It was raining like crazy here so we had to �process� inside this year.

This was the first year we took our kids to all of the Holy Week services our church was holding, so it was about 3-5 hours of church every day. Holy Thursday was the roughest because we had a liturgy and the 12 passion gospels one right after the other. We also had some altar boys that were AWOL on Friday so I got pressed in to service to take the corpus down off the cross during the Apokathelosis and I also got to be one of the Epitaphios bearers during the Lamentations procession. That was kind of neat I have to admit.

I had one of the strangest Paschal meal combinations yet this year after the liturgy. I had garlic infused lamb, arni psito me patates, kobasa, scotch eggs and �ljivovica, and also one of the best Paska�s I�ve ever tasted (usually it just tastes kind of bland). We didn�t get home until 4 a.m. and my kids were up at 7 because that�s when they get their Easter baskets. That was all of course followed up Sunday night by what else but more Lamb. I was still completely exhausted all through Renewal Monday yesterday.

I�m actually sad Holy Week is over, though it's nice to be off the fast again.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!

I think that you are going through what my friend calls 'Holy Week withdrawal'!!! LOL!

...actually, I think that we are all probably going through it even though we are physically exhausted, and even though being off the fast is definitely nice!

I am still rejoicing and basking in the awesome and profound beauty of the Eastern Pascha as well as in its love by listening to my two favorite cd's of the Pascha service in the car: that of 'Eikona' and that of St. Vladimir's Seminary...and they are both completely in English!

Does your church have the psito arni at two in the morning? At two in the morning, we serve a special traditional soup called 'mayeritsa' in the Church hall (along w/cheese, olives, easter eggs, and the sweet Easter bread we call 'tsoureki') This soup is supposed to make the transition of light fasting foods to heavy lamb the next day more easy.

(...ofcourse I have noticed that transition never seems to be a problem with men's carniverous appetites! :rolleyes:
While we eat the soup, our priest is served a sirloin steak, much to the envy of all the other men that have to wait until the next day! )

Let us rejoice in the Resurrection!

With much love in the Risen Christ,
Alice

Don't worry, Father! Your "local custom" is also the local custom of Carpatho-Rus, parts of Romania and Serbia (and the Studion Monastery in Constantinople, so I've read)!

How many parishes in the OCA Western PA diocese follow this custom? (There are a bunch in the Eastern PA diocese that still do this.)

XB! BB!

Dave

Does anyone have any interesting egg lemon soup stories?

Also, what is everyones experience with fireworks and Greek Bombs right after Christos Anesti!

Steve,

Christ is Risen!

I'm so happy that you were able to attend, although I wish you would have introduced yourself so that we would have had a chance to talk! Did you have an opportunity to attend our Liturgy on Sunday morning? There was a much bigger crowd, about 250 people. That's the bigger service there. The midnight service is usually sparcely attended (60 including choir?). I'm not sure if it's due to the area or what, but it never really was well attended, unfortunately. Last year we had a large Russian contingent from Cirque du Solei.

Well, I'm glad you had an opportunity to join us for the Paschal celebration. Please come back again and let's get to know each other!

Priest Thomas

Dave,

Christ is Risen!

I'm not really sure how many parishes in my area still follow this practice; maybe half? I know there have been several discussions on the list about this, and I do understand that it seems to be a practice that is entrenched in various areas. However, just for the record, the ustav is very clear about the order of the services, and assumes they are being served together and at the earliest possible time.

I was raised with this practice (splitting the liturgy off) but to be honest, my experience at seminary (SVS) and working at an Antiochian church in Louisville, KY left a deep impression for the beauty of serving these services together at midnight.

Practically speaking, it's very difficult to have the Nocturn/Matins at midnight, then go to bed (without eating or drinking!), then get up about five hours later to prepare for Liturgy. Personally, I'm usually in a funk that morning being so discombobulated. But, God softens my heart (he seems to perform this miracle every year, second only to the Paschal Flame in Jerusalem!) so that I feel the Paschal joy during liturgy and seeing all the joy on the people's faces.

It's a pastoral dilemna for me. I want to give my parish the opportunity to celebrate it together in this manner - the converts especially want to do everything "by the book," but the attendance would suffer - I know it. We usually get about 75 people for midnight (it was down this year) and about 200 for morning Liturgy (it was way up this year). At one time, I had approached the bishop while my father was still living and serving about me doing the Nocturn/Matins/Liturgy at midnight and then he would serve another Liturgy at 10 a.m. in the morning. It would have been an uncomfortable compromise to be sure (ideally everyone should be gathered at one time), but God had other plans for my father anyway.

So, in my area, maybe half of them split it? But I've seen some creative "solutions" to it. The Ukranian Orthodox church a block away does the Nocturn/Matins/Liturgy at around 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Our sister OCA parish in the South Side of Pittsbugh does the same thing at 8:30 Sunday morning. Some, of course, begin at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night and go all the way through. A few, so I've heard, start even earlier. One priest told me that the bishop informed him that as long as the anaphora was after midnight, he could start earlier.

So, you can see that there is a wide variety of practices out there. Without criticizing any of them, you can see that priests are grappling with the issue in various ways.

Hope this helps.

Priest Thomas

Alex,

Christ is Risen!

I'm one of those lucky ones that gets two names days (Sunday after Pascha and October 6), like those who take St Mary of Egypt as their heavenly patron, although usually those are quite close together.

OK, well technically it's only October 6, but don't tell anyone, OK? I can use all the good wishes I can get!

Priest Thomas