Why Easter is Greek to Me: Xristos Anesti!

Washington Post ^ | April 8, 2007 | Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks)

[Bokababe]

Once every few years, Greek Easter falls the same week as “American Easter,” as it was called when I was growing up.

In order for “Greek Easter” to be celebrated the same week as “American Easter,” Passover has to have been celebrated already. We Greeks don’t do Easter until after Passover, because how can you have Easter BEFORE Passover. Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, after all. Unless it is one of the years when the two holidays align. Like this year......

[Bokababe]

Beautiful sentiment on the Greek Orthodox experience of Easter. And nice to see that even in Hollywood, there are some who are still profoundly religious!

But I think that she meant "Tang", not "Ting"! LOL! She's old enough to remember the stuff, but not quite old enough to remember the name correctly.

[Bokababe]

Balkan Ping

[struwwelpeter]

And a belated Xristos voskres to you too!

[Bokababe]

Thank you! Vajstinu Voskrese! Truly He Is Risen!

Among the Orthodox, it is not uncommon for people to continue to say the Easter Greeting until after Pentecost.

[Albion Wilde]

bump! Happy Easter / Xristos Anesti!

[Bokababe]

Alithos Anesti!

[Honorary Serb]

Xristos anesti!

In our Serbian Orthodox Pascha morning liturgy, we said “Christ is Risen!” in Slavonic, Serbian, Greek, and English. We sang the Paschal Troparion in that most-beautiful, heartwarming Serbian tone. And at the Paschal lunch, the lamb seemed never to stop coming. There was enough for firsts, seconds, and to take some home! Of course, we had those red-dyed eggs, and the egg-cracking game. No Tang, though. There were lots of exchanges of “Hristos voskrese!Voistinu voskrese!”, complete with triple-kisses. And we had live Serbian folk music, too.

It was a wonderful day.

[dangus]

>> But I think that she meant “Tang”, not “Ting”! <<

Read her description of it: “Ting” was ready-made carbonated grape-fruit juice. “Tang” is mostly a powder of citric acid, sugar, and orange coloring, with a vaguely orange flavor, usually added to flat water.

[Bokababe]

"Read her description of it: “Ting” was ready-made carbonated grape-fruit juice."

After I posted that "Tang/Ting" statement, I re-read it and realized that I was wrong about the drink -- especially when she said it was her "ten-year old" who was talking about it.

[Bokababe]

Made in the UK, but sold primarily in the Carribean:

[MadelineZapeezda]

Truly He is Risen! Red eggs and chocolate crosses for us.....and of course the whole roasted lamb on the spit, not in the front yard!!!

Enjoyed her article, thanks!

[vladimir998]

Quote from the article: “We Greeks don’t do Easter until after Passover, because how can you have Easter BEFORE Passover.”

Simple, stop being Jewish.

I wonder how influenced Wilson is by her Muslim father?

[Andrew Byler]

We Greeks don’t do Easter until after Passover, because how can you have Easter BEFORE Passover.

I've heard this explanation many times, but it seems many times western Easter Sunday falls after the first day of Passover, yet the Orthodox still celebrate Easter a month later. I suspect the explanation is much more complicated.

[Bokababe]

Here is a complete explanation of how the computation for Easter came to be and here is the gist of it:

The regulations of the First Ecumenical Council concerning the calculation of the date of Easter were handed down to us by the Council of Antioch in 341 A.D., which had received the decision concerning Easter from the First Ecumenical Council. This is also corroborated by the testimonies of Athanasius the Great and St. Epiphanius of Cyprus.

These regulations of the First Ecumenical Council are as follows:

1. "That Easter must always be celebrated on a Sunday".

2. "That Easter must never be celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Passover".

3. "That Easter should never be celebrated on or before the vernal equinox of any year".

It should also be noted here, that Cyril the Patriarch of Alexandria, in his Paschal Circular, stated:

"The Ecumenical Council unanimously voted that the Church of Alexandria, because of its noted astronomers, would announce to the Church of Rome every year the date of Easter, and Rome in turn would announce it to the other Churches".

[Bokababe]

"Simple, stop being Jewish."

From a theological point of view, you can't divorce the New Testament from the Old Testament and still call yourself a Christian. For Christians, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The New Testament makes very clear the Lord's Jewish lineage on his mother's side. If it was "unimportant", why would the writer have bothered?

There is a relationship between the lamb sacrificed to save the Jews during the Passover and the Lamb who Sacrificed Himself to save us. The Bible tells us that Christ celebrated the Passover as the Last Supper, and was crucified & died during that Passover week. To divorce those events from each other -- and from Easter-- makes no sense.

"I wonder how influenced Wilson is by her Muslim father?"

Obviously, from this article, not very much. I was suprised at just how much of a dedicated Orthodox Christian she and Tom were, I really had expected them to be nominally Orthodox.

We don't even really know if her father was ever spiritually "a Muslim" -- only that his first name is one that usually denotes a Bulgarian Muslim. But from what I understand in that region from where he is from, Bulgarian Orthodox and Muslims intermarry and religious differences really didn't meant very much, especially during the communist period.

We get our first names from our parents; we don't name ourselves. Do you really think that Iranian-raised, Christiane Amanpour is "a Christian" just because her firstname says that she is? Sarajevo-born, Emir Kusturica is a devoted Orthodox Christian convert who gave up his city and his country to convert -- frankly, I'd say that this act makes "more Christian" than those of us who have had to sacrifice nothing for our Faith.

[vladimir998]

Please be honest. How many Jewish festivals do you keep?

Do you identify yourself as a Jew or as a Christian?

I am not divorcing Old Testament from New. I am simply realizing the obvious truth - Christians are not Christ deniers. Christ is our God. As such I am a Christian. I share many things with my “elder brothers”, the Jews, but I am not Jewish. I need not be circumscribed. I need not follow the Mosaic laws about ritual purity, the kosher laws. I need not sacrifice animals at the Temple. And I need not follow the Jewish calendar.

I am not a Jew who denies Christ, but a Christian who affirms Christ.

[Bokababe]

"Please be honest. How many Jewish festivals do you keep?"

None, but it is irrelevant as to whether I kept them, the fact is that our Lord kept the Passover a few days before he was crucified. And the early Christian Church, when there was only one Christian Church, believed that this was significant enough to figure into the calculations to determine the date of Easter.

"And I need not follow the Jewish calendar."

Perhaps not, but you should respect that He did.

"Do you identify yourself as a Jew or as a Christian?"

I am a Christian -- a follower of Jesus Christ whose Divinity was from God and whose humanity was Jewish.

"Christians are not Christ deniers"

Not quite true. What about Peter denying Christ three times before the cock crowed?

However, for you to completely divorce Christ's celebration of Judaism from Christian history, is really to divorce the Old Testament from the New Testament (whether you like it or not) and that is theologicaly unsupportable from a Christian perspective.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“None, but it is irrelevant as to whether I kept them, the fact is that our Lord kept the Passover a few days before he was crucified. And the early Christian Church, when there was only one Christian Church, believed that this was significant enough to figure into the calculations to determine the date of Easter.”

True enough. Then it changed. Those things happen. If you don’t stick to celebrating Jewish festivals, then sticking strictly to the Jewish calendar is no longer relevant. Then again, you don’t stick to the Jewish calendar either!

“Perhaps not, but you should respect that He did.”

I do. But that doesn’t mean I must do as He did in that case. He was also circumcised. I need not be. I respect that He was. But I am not required to follow that practice. I am not a Jew. I don’t follow the Jewish calendar.

“I am a Christian — a follower of Jesus Christ whose Divinity was from God and whose humanity was Jewish.”

His Jewishness was from a Jewess - our Blessed Mother. His humanity came from Adam and Eve. His flesh came from Mary.

“Not quite true. What about Peter denying Christ three times before the cock crowed?”

Peter denied knowing Jesus. He did not deny who Jesus was.
He said he didn’t know the man (meaning Jesus). He never said, that man is not the Messiah, and not the Son of God. There’s a big difference there. Peter was speaking out of fear, not out of a Jewish theological need to deny the divinity of Christ. I am surprised you would conflate the two as if they were the same thing.

“However, for you to completely divorce Christ’s celebration of Judaism from Christian history, is really to divorce the Old Testament from the New Testament (whether you like it or not) and that is theologicaly unsupportable from a Christian perspective.”

I divorce nothing here. I recognize things as they are. Not following a Jewish calendar does not mean I divorce one testament from another. It means I am not Jewish, and have no Judaizing tendencies as such.

[apro]

Alithos Anesti, to you Bokababe. Thank you for posting that article. :)

[apro]

Greek Orthodox morning liturgy does the same thing, Honorary Serb, its called the Agapi=Love liturgy and the bible is read in different languages. I believe all Orthodox Christians have a similar liturgy on Pascha morning. :)