Orthodox Churches Ready to Celebrate the Resurrection : Easter: Pascha, the greatest holiday in the church’s calendar, occurs one week after traditional western observances.

More than 250 million Orthodox Christians throughout the world will observe Easter on Sunday--one week after the traditional western Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Known as Pascha in the eastern Christian tradition (from the Jewish word Pesach, meaning Passover), the holiday is the greatest and oldest observance in the Orthodox Christian calendar.

In the early church, Christian converts from Judaism in some parts of the eastern Roman Empire celebrated Easter as they would have Passover--on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, regardless of what day of the week that was. Other churches in the East and West celebrated Easter on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan. That connected the celebration of Easter with the observance of the Jewish Passover.

But in other parts of the West, the date for Easter was set by independent calculation, based on the day of vernal equinox, when days and nights are of equal length, and the question of a proper date for celebrating Easter was brought before the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325.

The council formulated the following regulations based on the Julian calendar then in use--regulations still followed in the Eastern Orthodox traditions: Easter must always be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, and its date must be calculated according to the date of Passover.

For Orthodox Christians, preparations for Pascha start six weeks earlier with Great Lent, which this year began on March 6.

Among their preparations, Orthodox fast from meat, fish, poultry, oil and dairy products for the entire period (though fish may be eaten on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25; the Saturday of Lazarus, and on Palm Sunday).

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The Orthodox Resurrection service takes place at midnight on Holy Saturday. A few moments before, every light in the church is switched off and every candle extinguished.

The priest or presiding bishop emerges from the altar carrying a large candle lit from the vigil lamp on the altar table. As he sings “Receive ye the light from the unwavering Light and glorify Christ who rose from the dead,” he lights the candles of those near him who, in turn, light those of others. This continues until all worshipers’ candles are lit.

The priest gives each worshiper a traditional Easter egg dyed red, which is cracked by tapping it against that of a fellow worshiper, as participants exclaim “Christ is risen.”

The egg has symbolic significance for Orthodox Christians. The red color signifies the blood of Jesus; the shell signifies his three-day entombment, and its breaking, the Resurrection.

The cracking of the red eggs among Orthodox also stands for a mutual wish to break the bonds of sin and misery and for entering the new life signified by the Resurrection.