Young people receive communion at St. Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church. Courtesy photo

BY FATHER THEOPHAN MACKEY
St. Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church
Los Alamos

For most of you, readers, Easter has come and gone. “Christ has risen!” has rung out at a sunrise service, and whatever discipline you adopted during Lent has been completed.

The time has come for my obligatory column explaining why Western Easter and Orthodox Pascha are on different dates. I have to write this, this year, because next year, 2025, they will coincide on April 20 and then again in 2028.

For Orthodox Christians we have just passed the half-way point of the Great Fast (Lent) with the Sunday of the Cross, and this year, the Annunciation.

Both dates, east and west, are computed the same way, just with different starting points.

Pascha is the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox. It’s that simple (or complex). Both Easter and Pascha are computed the same way.

The difference arises out of the date of the vernal equinox. The west uses the actual equinox, while the east uses the traditional date for the equinox. If a full moon rises between those two dates, our celebrations will be on different Sundays. If there is not, our celebrations will coincide.

As an aside, Pascha always falls after the Jewish Passover as a matter of course, but that celebration does not come into play with the Church’s calculations.

This year we will celebrate Pascha on May 5. Our celebration at Saint Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church will begin at 11:30 Saturday night on May 4. The service begins in the dark, with Jesus Christ still in the tomb. But then, with a procession outside the church, Christ rises from the dead and we sing for the first time this year, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!” All the lamps are lit and we join with the women disciples of the Lord whose grief turns into the joy of the resurrected Lord.

The timing of the service has us receiving communion as early on the day of Pascha as possible. Christ rose from the dead, “before it was light” so 2 a.m. is as probable as just before sunrise. At around that time we bless Pascha baskets filled with all sorts of treats, meats and cheeses, etc. that we have been abstaining from for nigh on 50 days. Then we sit down to properly break the fast together. Since we’re mostly converts here at Saint Job, we fire up the grill and put pizza in the oven. But there is plenty of kovbasa, paska and kulich, and krashanky, as well.

You are welcome at our Holy Week and Paschal Rush Services, but, if you have never been to an Orthodox service, that would be akin to jumping in at the deep end of the pool. We will serve about 10 services during Holy Week, in preparation for the Bright Resurrection of our Lord.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns about attending services, or Orthodox Christianity in general.

May your journey be blessed.