Orthodox church celebrates Easter

A Christian faith has lasted in the heart of the people long after the Christian Empire has ceased to exist.

Orthodox Easter is the “feast of feasts.”

Our human nature becomes godlike and it is transfigured during this time of the year.

We start sharing the joy that the disciples experienced when they saw first the risen Savior.

We as believers greet the news of joy unparalleled with any other joy: “Christ is risen!”

Easter, or Pascha (“pass over”), will be celebrated Sunday; Easter in the Western church was last Sunday.

Pascha is the passage from death to life, a more mystical approach.

Orthodox Christians observe the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The prophet Isaiah, speaking about the Lord says: “like a lamb to the slaughter was brought ...” (Isaiah 53: 7).

For Orthodox Christians, Christ is the lamb of salvation of all humanity.

During Holy Week and the lamentations burial service on Friday, we chanted about the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Exodus 12: 46).

He is offered as food for our eternal life.

St. Paul explains and tells us that we need to make every effort to receive the Holy Eucharist during the Divine Liturgy.

Easter has been celebrated since the beginning of the Christian world, but there were regional differences.

Differences on the date of Easter celebration gave rise to serious discussion and controversy.

The first worldwide Christian Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D., adopted the general practice, based on the calculation date of Easter in Alexandria, a city at the time that was known for its science of astronomy.

The council established that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

The council’s calculation was not adopted by all Christians.

The Gregorian, not the Julian, calendar was used by the Western Church to calculate the date of Easter with the spring equinox being March 21.

Most Orthodox churches follow the calculations established by the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ not only gives us victory over sin, but through it a victory over death itself.

With God, we walk toward immortality.

Resurrection opens us all a triumphal entry into the heavenly life starting here on earth and continuing our citizenship in heaven.

It is the victory and glorification that we humans live at Resurrection.

It brings us to that holy feeling with God who is without sin.

With the Risen Christ, we ourselves become “sons of the Resurrection,” defeating sin and death.

Orthodox Christians share the faith that during the Resurrection Day and the week after (the Bright Week) the doors of paradise are opened and those to hell are closed.

He who dies in this time frame is received in heaven, whatever sins he has committed because all is forgiven because of the Resurrection.

For an Orthodox Christian, Easter is the central event.

When the night of Resurrection comes, Sunday morning, we are happy to have again the Easter joy with us.

The Holy Resurrection is a reality of the divine power that has been shown in human life.

This divine miracle of human history filled with heavenly gifts flooding our hearts are above everything earthly.

We now testify that the crucified and buried Christ is risen from the dead in this third day.

Another miracle of Resurrection is that humankind shares the gift of Christ’s Resurrection and takes a step toward heaven, immortality or eternity.

Some of us have deceased family members. But now, at resurrection, we pass with them all from death to resurrection, because we will no longer live for ourselves.

As St. Paul said “Christ lives in us!”

Now we participate at the Resurrection together with the angels, the Holy Myrrh-bearing women, the Holy Apostles and all the disciples from the beginning, in Jerusalem, at Emmaus, in Galilee, in the mountains, the plains and everywhere where the Risen Christ appears, in a movement of light, telling the familiar voice of them all, “Enjoy” and “Peace be with you.”

In this season of spring, we come as participants to the miracle of the Resurrection of our Lord, crucified and buried for three days, but risen by God’s power.

With God, everything turns into a victory, because “if God is with us,” said St. Paul, “who can be against us?”

The Rev. John Dumitrascu is pastor of Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church and chaplain with the U.S. Air Force Reserve in Dayton.