CAMARILLO : Greek Parish Gets Ready to Celebrate Easter

Parishioners at Ventura County’s only Greek Orthodox Church will celebrate their Pascha, or Easter, on Sunday, a week after other Christian churches observed the day they believe Christ rose from the dead.

On Friday, in keeping with Greek Orthodox tradition, the women of St. Demetrios in Camarillo spent six hours decorating a copy of Christ’s tomb with more than 1,000 flowers in preparation for a Good Friday procession replaying Christ’s last hours, while the younger girls carried baskets containing tiny flowers to throw on the tomb.

As part of the procession, the priest took a likeness of the body of Christ off the cross, wrapped it up and placed it in the tomb.

The Greek Orthodox religion--which separated from Catholicism in 1054--celebrates Easter on the Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox that falls after Passover. Other Christian churches do not take Passover into consideration when scheduling Easter.

“For us, it’s a little anachronistic to celebrate Easter until Passover takes place,” said the church’s pastor, Father Cyril Loeb, “because Christ was celebrating Passover on the night before he died.”

At 11 tonight, parishioners will gather again in the church to sing hymns lamenting Christ’s death before celebrating his Resurrection at midnight.

During that part of the service, all the lights are turned out and the priest lights a candle that is used to light candles held by all the parishioners.

Although Father Cyril said he looks forward to the celebration, he thinks the Greek Orthodox Easter gets slighted by the commercial world.

“We’re like forgotten stepchildren,” he said of the 125 families that practice the religion in the county. “All of the Easter sales have passed and all of the Easter eggs are gone from the shelves, and we’re just entering into our celebration.”