Easter is around the corner!!! What do you do special for this time of the year?!!

[Mary of Bethany]

We have 16 services between Palm Sunday morning and Pascha afternoon. I'm in the choir.

I'll probably be there more than I am at home.

Yep. I love, love, love the Holy Weeks services.

Mary

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Plus most of the chocolate isn't Lenten so it seems only appropriate to break the fast with it.... and massive amounts of cheese and meat.

YUMMY!

YouTube - The Cheese Rap

 

[daydreamergurl15]

I'll proclaim His death the same way I do every Sunday, Communion!

1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.​

 

[vanshan]

Attend the midnight service at our parish, feast until the wee hours of the morning on ham, cheese, and many other things we've been fastign from, sleep in til noon Sunday morning and then attend the Agape Vespers prayer service and enjoy our annual parish picnic all afternoon. We normally have a lamb roasting over a spit for everyone to enjoy, ham, etc.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Attend the midnight service at our parish, feast until the wee hours of the morning on ham, cheese, and many other things we've been fastign from, sleep in til noon Sunday morning and then attend the Agape Vespers prayer service and enjoy our annual parish picnic all afternoon. We normally have a lamb roasting over a spit for everyone to enjoy, ham, etc.

That is amazing...

 

[Dorothea]

Most of the secular Easter stuff makes sense contextually. What in the pagan world was a symbol for fertility is transformed in Christianity to be about Resurrection and the New Life in Christ. So these old symbols which are taken from creation are themselves remade as creation is. That's where the eggs, rabbits, chicks etc come from.

Candy and chocolate are not, I think, symbolic - just celebratory.

I must confess I am always perplexed when people say they don't see the connection. I don't have any problem with them as part of family celebrations - I think that as well as our community celebrations as Christians, we can have these little family rituals.

Sorry. I just never knew what you told. I still don't understand bunnies leaving eggs...sounds like they're laying eggs even though they can't. LOL

 

[Dorothea]

In fact, MKJ, growing up, Easter consisted of eating chocolate bunnies and finding hidden eggs. We didn't believe in the Easter Bunny, but that's all I really knew about Easter - nothing about Christ's resurrection that I can recall. I don't know if mom didnt bring up the religious part because she was not really a full practicing Orthodox, and dad was a non practicing Christian. Thank God we all came home to the Church in the mid 1990s.

 

[Dorothea]

Attend the midnight service at our parish, feast until the wee hours of the morning on ham, cheese, and many other things we've been fastign from, sleep in til noon Sunday morning and then attend the Agape Vespers prayer service and enjoy our annual parish picnic all afternoon. We normally have a lamb roasting over a spit for everyone to enjoy, ham, etc.

yep. The lambs on the spit are yummy.

 

[katherine2001]

We've got one of our members who runs a Greek restaurant cooking our lamb this year! I can't wait. I'd never had lamb until I became Orthodox, but I love it now!

 

[Dorothea]

We've got one of our members who runs a Greek restaurant cooking our lamb this year! I can't wait. I'd never had lamb until I became Orthodox, but I love it now!

yeah, it sure helps having parishioners who own reataurants. We have two families that do. One's a Greek restaurant, the other a Palestinian and his Jordanian wife at a small steak and bake deli at the local mall. It's awesome that at coffee hours we can sometimes have delicious Greek, M.E. or Romanian food to die for.

 

[-Kyriaki-]

Holy Week! I went and got my Holy Week book out a few minutes ago, I forgot how enormous that book is, and we're going to do all the services in the next week. Awesome madness And all the Bible readings...all the people that say that the Orthodox don't know or use Scripture really need to come hang out with us for Holy Week

This is the book I use: Greek Orthodox Holy Week Easter Prayer Book I'm not a huge fan of the translation (he gets a bit free with it sometimes, I dislike his version of the Akathist for the same reason) but it's the only book I know that's actually good and has the Greek which is essential since most of our services are done in Greek (but we have these books everywhere for those that need them).

Dressed all in black for the week, with Church Sunday morning (Palm Sunday), Bridegroom Matins Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, Holy Unction Wednesday afternoon, Matins of Holy Thursday Wednesday night, Holy Thursday (Last Supper) Liturgy, Crucifixion service with the twelve Epistle readings and twelve Gospel readings (I always cry, ALWAYS), Holy Friday holding vigil and decorating the funeral bier and tomb of our Lord, and the lamentations from His funeral... we eat very little this week, too busy to cook fancy food and it's not the right mood for it anyway, mostly soup and bean stew, and avocado on toast, grabbed when needed, and lots of tea and coffee...

And then Holy Saturday dressed in black and red (first glimmers of victory), at Church for a loud and crazy liturgy where we make a holy racket commemorating Christ smashing the doors of Hades, and the priest throws bay leaves which hint at the Resurrection to come...and Andrew and my sister in law and I decorate the Cross shaped cookies that we will give out as gifts at Church at the Resurrection Service that night with "Christ is Risen!" in Greek or English, or roses and vines, and the women of the house put the finishing touches on the food which will be served for supper which we've been cooking all week. The men make sure that the lamb or goat for the next day is ready too, along with the spit, and many of them have been serving in Church and need to rest (especially Andrew, who holds a rank which in practice is something like a subdeacon in the Greek Church, and spends half of Holy Week lighting candles, directing people and making altar boys behave themselves). My Mother in Law has a custom of making the prosforo (loaf of bread, special for Holy Communion) every year this day as well, which is beautiful, and she's promised to teach me how.

And then Holy Saturday evening we all go to bed early, for a nap, before being at Church in bright colours - red, gold and white, (no black, except perhaps in a dress skirt or pants) at 11pm for the first service of the Resurrection - matins, before going outside at midnight for the proclamation of the Resurrection, with lit candles and the Gospel proclaiming the empty tomb...and the joyful Resurrection Liturgy, with Holy Communion for everyone, and then handing out cookies and greetings to all we know and home for supper: cheese pastries, chicken, egg and lemon rice soup, chocolate, wine, cookies, so many rich things...

To bed at 5am when I can no longer stand up due to exhaustion, and then up again at 11 to get ready to visit family for the Easter Sunday feast - lamb or goat, sausages, salad, cheese, so many special delicacies - this year I'm making an italian cake with almond meal and lemon in it and honey zabaglione mixed with marscapone for the filling and icing and figs on top (it's delicious).

By Sunday night we don't want to ever see rich food again but we are happy and joyous at our Lord's Resurrection. For the next week there are services every day for those who can attend all joyfully proclaiming the Resurrection and victory over death and sin of our Lord and Saviour. Even in our daily prayers we replace all mention of sorrow and sin for that first week with the joyful song:

"Christ is Risen from the dead, having trampled upon death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!"

For that week, all is joy and gladness and hope

 

[vanshan]

Each Holy Friday for the past 3 years our church has had an all-night vigil at which we read the Psalms all night at the "tomb" of Christ set in the middle of our chapel literally all night.

Basil

 

[Ortho_Cat]

Each Holy Friday for the past 3 years our church has had an all-night vigil at which we read the Psalms all night at the "tomb" of Christ set in the middle of our chapel literally all night.

Basil

Yep, this seems to be a pretty common EO practice from what i've read on here.

 

[Isolation]

I do not celebrate easter!

*rebel* jk

 

[Philothei]

I do not celebrate easter!

*rebel* jk

Hi Isolation
Do you celebrate Passover? It is on Tuesday is it

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

I do not celebrate easter!

*rebel* jk

We are invincible

http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Criteria=rebels&t=NASB&sf=5
"rebels"
occurs 6 times in 6 verses in the NASB

NASB) Ezekiel 20:38 and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me;
I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.

YouTube - THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN/ INVINCIBLE PAT BENATARhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF9703NMD_c&feature=related

 

[Isolation]

No ma'am I do not celebrate passover. the only day i celebrate is january 6th.

and lol lloj, i just noticed your avatar has a church tank..

 

[Ortho_Cat]

No ma'am I do not celebrate passover. the only day i celebrate is january 6th.

and lol lloj, i just noticed your avatar has a church tank..

I think he calls that the 'heretic hunter'...

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

No ma'am I do not celebrate passover. the only day i celebrate is january 6th.

and lol lloj, i just noticed your avatar has a church tank..

Just click on the link in my siggy....but instead of shells, it shoots out Bible tracts in different languages...
But when it rolls into Italy and Rome, for some reason it starts shooting out Jack Chick tracts....my tank crew is working on that glitch now

http://www.christianforums.com/t7441192/
Whatcha think of Jack Chick's tracts

 

[Philothei]

Can we please for the purposes of this thread say.......his church mobile is an ......egg hunter???? lol.....