Easter East and West, Together This Year

This is one of those years, which occur from time to time, when the Western and Eastern Christian churches agree on the date of Easter. (Oddly, next year is another.) So today marks Good Friday (or in the Eastern Tradition, Great and Holy Friday), for Christians in the Middle East as well as in the West; tomorrow is Holy Saturday/Great and Holy Saturday (Apocalypse/Bright Saturday among Copts); and Sunday Easter/Pascha. The Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox (Copts, Armenians, Syriac Orthodox) as well as the Church of the East (Assyrians and some others in India and beyond) follow the eastern date, but this year, the two dates coincide.

For technical reasons having to do with the obscure calculations behind the varying dates for Easter, years when the two dates are the same are also years in which Easter coincides closely with Passover, as is the case this year, with Passover still under way. And though we tend to forget it in the West, especially in English where we have an old Teutonic word "Easter" as our name, in the Eastern churches and some Western languages the name for the holiday is derived from Hebrew Pesach directly; the Eastern churches call it Pascha.

Anyone who has seen an Easter service in any Eastern tradition is already aware that it is a profoundly important and impressive liturgy. The Eastern Churches at their best can make a Roman Catholic Solemn High Mass look as austere as a Baptist gospel sing, and throughout the service the priests and deacons keep shouting "Christ is Risen!" (Al-Masih Qam if the liturgy is in Arabic) and the worshipers respond. The Orthodox generally douse all the lights in the church before midnight, and the worshipers circle around the outside of the church, lighting candles and singing, until at midnight the doors are thrown open, the lights come up, and the joyful celebration begins. And since Orthodox Lent is far more rigorous than it ever was in the West, and certainly more than it is today in the Latin rite of Catholicism (Eastern Catholics still keep a strict Lent), the contrast is even greater.

So a Happy Easter and a Glorious Pascha to Christians West and East, and continuing Passover greetings as well.