Eastern Orthodox Churches Preparing for Their Easter Rites : Holiday’s Timing Is Based on Passover

On Saturday night at 11:30, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection will begin in a darkened Van Nuys church. Flowers and vestments, which have been purple throughout the week, will be white.

At midnight, Father John Bartke will enter St. Michael’s Orthodox Church carrying a single burning candle. He will invite parishioners to receive Christ by lighting their candles from his. This done, the congregation will file out a side exit to reassemble at the front door. Father Bartke will knock three times, then fling the door open to reveal the church interior as a lighted, empty tomb.

The service continues until about 2 a.m., when the congregation adjourns to another building for a feast.

“It’s often said that you haven’t seen an Easter service until you’ve seen an Orthodox Easter service,” said Father Bartke. “It is a very important time, very rich in tradition.”

3 Churches in Valley

St. Michael’s is one of three Eastern Orthodox churches in the San Fernando Valley. The others are St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge and St. Innocent Orthodox Church in Tarzana. The congregations differ in their ethnic makeup, but not in their rituals. Attendance is at its highest and services at their most elaborate during Holy Week, which began last Sunday. Each night one of the events of the week is re-created, from Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem to his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection.

Bartke expects an overflow crowd of about 350 for the Pascha service that begins Saturday night. About 120 families make up the congregation of St. Michael’s, according to Bartke, and their heritage is predominantly Arabic.

“About half have roots in Lebanon,” he said, “and they’re probably second- or third-generation Americans. Another 5% are actually from Lebanon. About 10% come from Jordan, and the remainder are converts, as I am. They grew up in any other church and made a decision to become Orthodox.”

The largest of the three Valley Orthodox churches is St. Nicholas, where most members are of Greek extraction. Father Tom Zaferes estimates that 1,000 or more people will attend the Saturday night service, and that many of them will be forced to stand outside. He said 30% to 40% of the congregation is non-Greek and that the number of converts is growing.

“People are looking for a faith that doesn’t change with the mood of the day,” Father Zaferes said. “The most important aspect with us is our connection to the past. The church can trace its heritage unbroken back to the apostles. All the important places in the Holy Land--the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Tomb of Lazarus in Bethany--are administered and maintained by our church.”

Father Andrew Harrison of St. Innocent expects about 300 people for the Resurrection service. His congregation is part of the Orthodox Church in America, which was called the Russian Orthodox Church in America before 1970. During Holy Week services, Russian-influenced churches are decorated with pussy willows instead of the palm leaves found in other Orthodox churches. The tradition began because the palms mentioned in the Bible could not be obtained in Russia. Harrison said a third of his congregation is non-Russian in background.

Estimates of the number of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide range from 75 million to 150 million, with 2 million of them living in North America.

Search for Faith

Bartke of St. Michael’s, which is part of the Antiochian branch of Christian orthodoxy, said he converted to his present faith after a lot of looking.

“I was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian church in Concord in Northern California, but I was dissatisfied,” said the 33-year-old priest. “I wanted to belong to a church that was like the early Christian churches, so I went on a spiritual search.

“Over a period of seven years, I probably went to 500 churches before I found what I wanted. One of the things I like is that the theology here is the same that was preached in the city of Antioch in southern Turkey 1,800 years ago.”

At tonight’s service, Bartke will walk through the church carrying a cross, signifying Christ carrying the cross to his crucifixion. Friday afternoon a funeral bier decorated with flowers will be placed before the congregation. At Friday night’s services, which enact a joining with Christ in the tomb, the bier is carried to the front of the church and parishioners holding candles enter by walking under it.

“You might say that we’ve Christianized a Hebrew holiday and the Protestants and Catholics have Christianized a pagan holiday,” Bartke said. “With us, a very key element in the observance is the idea that the events are happening today, that all of this is real and current, not symbolic. It’s 33 AD right now, today, and you are there. We want the congregation to feel that they are participants.”

Joy Corey, a member of St. Michael’s congregation, agreed.

“We celebrate Easter as though it is happening now through the miracle of faith.”

Yearlong Celebration

Throughout the year in the Orthodox Church, there is never a service that doesn’t mention the Resurrection, said Bartke. “For us, it’s the major feast day. Of course, we don’t really use the word Easter, because it comes from pagan myth. We use the word Pascha, which comes from the Hebrew word for Passover.”

Many years during the 4th through the 7th centuries AD, Easter was observed on three different days by various parts of the Christian world. This year the holiday has its usual two observances--the one that will take place Sunday in Eastern Orthodox churches, and the one that was celebrated March 30 by the rest of the Christian world.

Next year, the two Easters will fall on the same day, April 19.

“Ours never can come before theirs,” explained Bartke. “The reason is that Orthodox churches figure Easter according to the Jewish Passover. The Bible says Christ was crucified on Friday, and that year Passover began Friday at sunset. So for us, it’s the first Sunday after Passover.

“Other Christians say Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, which comes from an ancient festival of spring.”

In the centuries after Christ’s death, as Christianity spread west, churches in Europe experimented with various way of calculating the date of Easter according to the arrival of spring. Orthodox churches, which are loath to change any aspect of their worship, clung to the Jewish Passover as a guide. The differences resulted in as many as three Easters being celebrated.

For nearly 2,000 years, efforts have been made to bring agreement between Christian churches of Eastern and Western origins on a single date for the Resurrection holiday, whether it is called Easter or Pascha. In the early 1970s, the World Council of Churches polled members and found that a large majority favored such a change. No formula acceptable to both sides has been found.