Sunday, April 16th, marked the biggest holiday of the Orthodox Christian calendar and one of the biggest holidays throughout Moldova: Easter, called Paște in Romanian. Here's a description of Easter from the book A Glance at Moldova: Cross Cultural Handbook (2001): "Easter is celebrated at churches in traditional all-night services with the congregation standing the entire time. There are no seats or benches in Orthodox churches. In the early morning, the people exit the church and form circles surrounding the building. Each family prepares a display on the ground or in a basket which includes special sweet bread (pasca), red colored eggs, wine, sausage, and a lighted candle. It is quite an impressive sight as the many people stand behind their candle-lit arrangements expectantly waiting as church bells peal in the near-dawn darkness. Then the priests and attendants file out of the church, and chanting, they begin the walk of many circles. The priest dips a branch of basil into a large bucket of water carried by a young attendant, and splashes generous droplets of holy water over the people and their food in a traditional blessing. Everybody is supposed to eat the blessed food first thing in the morning for three consecutive days. Easter Monday is also celebrated as an official holiday. The grown-ups exchange presents of eggs and pasca and visit their parents and grandparents saying, "Hristos a înviat!” [Christ is risen!] The children visit relatives and are given colored eggs, cookies, candies, and money. For forty days after Easter, the greeting is ”Hristos a înviat”with the response ”Adevarat a înviat” [Truly he is risen]. On the fortieth day [after Easter], people say "Hristos a înălțat,” [Christ is exalted] with the response ”Cu adevarat s-a înălțat.” [Truly he is exalted]" Please check out the links below to hear & see other Peace Corps Volunteers' experiences with Orthodox Easter in Moldova! Scroll down to the April 16, 2017 post on Mark's Trail for a variety of beautiful photos showing the blessing of food, from which I stole the above photo of a family's food display. Beth explains some common traditions leading up to Easter as well as her experience with the holiday itself in this post, from which I stole the above photo of pasca. Katrina shares about her experience last year with the food blessing process, which the above photo shows.
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Rebecca LehmanHealth Education volunteer serving at Boris Dînga Middle & High School in Criuleni, Moldova. Archives
May 2017
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