The Lenten period of reflection begins next...

The Lenten period of reflection begins next week for both Western and Eastern branches of Christianity because Easter will fall on the same day this year, April 15, for the two traditions.

Because of differences in determining the date of Easter, the holiday coincides only at irregular intervals, the last occasions being in 1984 and 1980.

Lent will begin Monday for Eastern Orthodox churches and on Ash Wednesday for Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches. In traditional Ash Wednesday rites, parishioners receive an ash smudge on their foreheads as a reminder to do penance--a ceremony especially popular among Latino Catholics. For observant Christians generally, Lent is a time of increased worship, church activity and abstinence.

The most important Orthodox services inaugurating Lent will be celebrated on March 4, the so-called Sunday of Orthodoxy. Orthodox liturgies feature a procession of icons--paintings of Jesus and the saints--held by priests and worshipers. The observance commemorates the return of icons to churches in the year 843 after they had been banned by the Byzantine Empire for half a century.

At St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles, the largest-capacity Orthodox church in the region, an annual pan-Orthodox vespers service at 7 p.m. on March 4 will be hosted by Bishop Anthony of San Francisco, the prelate for Greek Orthodox faithful in Western states.

Bishop Tikhon, San Francisco-based bishop for the Western Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America, will be the speaker. The Very Rev. James Adams, dean of the cathedral, said the service will include two dozen priests from Greek, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Antiochian Orthodox churches.

“I’m sure that special prayers will be expressed on behalf of Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe,” Adams said. The political changes leading to church reopenings and freedom of expression “overwhelmed everyone here, many who still have relatives over there,” Adams said.

MEETINGS

Religious groups that have advocated racial reforms in South Africa are to meet tonight at Lynwood United Methodist Church for an ecumenical service and celebration keyed to the recent release from prison of anti-apartheid figure Nelson Mandela. The event, scheduled to start at 4 p.m., will also honor civil rights leaders and film actors Danny Glover, Denzel Washington and Zakes Mokae, among others. Sponsored by the Southern California Ecumenical Task Force on South Africa, the event also marks Black History Month.

More than 70 religious publicists from 14 denominations and faiths are to convene Thursday at First United Methodist Church in Pasadena. The five-hour conference on improving media relations, organized by the Southern California chapter of the Religious Public Relations Council, is to begin at 10:30 a.m. with discussions with press and broadcast representatives.

Mormons with an intellectual bent are to open a three-day symposium, starting 6:30 p.m. Friday, at the Doubletree Hotel in Pasadena. Organized by the Salt Lake City-based Sunstone Foundation, the meeting will begin with a panel discussion on opening night examining “Attitudes About Race Among Church Members.”

Christopher Lasch, author of “The Culture of Narcissism,” is scheduled to expound on his thesis that the terms “liberal” and “conservative” have outlived their usefulness during a forum on Catholics and politics next Saturday at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. The forum, to begin at 9:30 a.m., is sponsored by the New Oxford Review, a Catholic monthly.

DATES

The Rev. Josef Tson, a Romanian Baptist pastor in exile who made a triumphal return visit to that country last December, is scheduled to speak Sunday at Rolling Hills Covenant Church in the 8, 9:30 and 11 a.m. services. Tson, once pastor of Second Baptist Church in Oradea, Romania, was exiled in 1981 for “disseminating propaganda,” but after settling in Wheaton, Ill., he reached a larger Romanian audience through weekly sermons broadcast by Radio Free Europe. Tson spoke to 10,000 people at an arena in his native Oradea on Dec. 31, and announced during that visit that he will seek election to the new parliament expected to be formed this spring.

Lawrence Schiffman of New York University is to lecture on “New Light on the History of Judaism From the Dead Sea Scrolls” at noon Tuesday at USC’s Annenberg School for Communications.