Paște Fericit - Happy Easter

Normally, the Orthodox Easter is exactly 1 week after the Roman Catholic Easter, but this year it ended up being a whole month later and no one was able to explain this. As Moldova is 98% Orthodox, Easter is a very important holiday in the country.

Post - or lent - lasts 40 days and is extremely strict, especially for the last week. There is to be no meat, dairy, fish, eggs or fat (in short - no animal products whatsoever) eaten. Alcohol is out except for a wee bit of wine. Needless to say, the countdown is in full swing just before the holiday. Lunch at the school cafeteria got down to tea, bread and some boiled potatoes. But, on the bright side, Easter marks a second spring vacation for a week.

My friend Oleg Saracuta invited me to Easter services, and so we headed to the far side of Ialoveni to a tiny church that was packed at 11pm on a Saturday evening. We bought candles and purchased prayers for friends and relatives who are living (Easter is not a time for buying prayers for the deceased), and headed into the main sanctuary where we stood in one spot for over 4 hours. The service was very beautiful and was mostly sung with call and response from the priest and the choir. There was an oil anointing, a confession of sorts, a form of communion and many, many sung prayers and repetitions that "Christ is risen, truly he is risen."

Everyone's feet were pretty sore, legs were stiff and faces looked weary until the final blessing of the Easter bread and colored eggs (and anything else that required blessing. The priest walked by with a bunch of sweet basil and holy water and drenched everyone. Oleg told the priest to bless us with some "soul" and we were pretty wet afterward. It was nice to see the priest smile as he pelted us with water in the wee hours of the morning.

The altar area separate from the people.