I’m not really feeling the blog today but am heading to Novosibirsk for a few days and also took part in a Magic the Gathering Tournament on Sunday so the amount I have to blog about is significant. Therefore I’ll get this Easter one out of the way as I said I would do it and then it won’t be hanging over me.
As said in the last post the Orthodox Church follows a different calendar so my Easter was a week later than Easter in England. However Easter really begins with Lent and Pancake day, the latter of which was the day after I arrived in Tomsk. I think it was a little disorientating to be honest, to be plunged straight into an aspect of Russian culture especially when I wasn’t fully aware of the calendar differences at the time. We did eat pancakes though and the following day Lent began.
The Orthodox Lent is a lot stricter than anywhere I’ve come across before. All meat and dairy products are forbidden, as well as eggs and mayonnaise and because of its strictness children don’t have to properly follow it. Fish is also allowed to be eaten on some days during Lent that are holidays but generally people eat a lot of different soups and potatoes. Church services are also apparently different, with the songs being more subdued, I haven’t been to an ‘average’ service yet but comparing Easter day to Palm Sunday, I guess there was a difference in tone. However Easter Sunday was always going to be one of the more exuberant services anyway.
Easter Week started with Palm Sunday, which I’ve already covered, but there are other special days during the week as well. Maundy Thursday for example in Russia is ‘Clean Thursday’, the most significant thing here being that after the evening service a candle bearing holy fire was brought home in a special lantern. This was then used to burn a cross on the ceiling in almost every room in the flat, I’d already noticed these crosses before (there’s one on the ceiling next to my window for example) but they are ‘re-done’ I suppose on the Thursday before Easter. I’ve also noticed them in the stairway over the stairs and the window too. This seems to be the usual place for them, that and over the icons as well, like in the kitchen.
Good Friday doesn’t seem to have as much going on, although I was told that there is a complete fast (as in not eating anything at all) until lunchtime. Similarly not much happened on the Saturday other than preparing for celebrations on Sunday, this is because we went to the night service on Saturday leaving no real time to prepare anything on the Sunday. I ended up feeling a bit confused as I went to bed at about 9pm and got up again at 11pm for the service. Apparently it was two services back to back (one for the Saturday and then one for Easter Sunday) and it went on until about 3/3:30am. The most notable features were: the procession around the church with candles while the church bell was rung and people producing large amounts of food at the end of the service for the priest to bless (like with the willow branches from the week before). Mostly people brought decorated eggs, large bready/cakey things and tvorog (sweetened curds pressed into a pyramid shape). I was also told that the egg shells would not be disposed of normally; they would probably be burnt because they had now been blessed and were holy. There were also many calls of “Христос воскресе!” (Christ is risen) with the response “Воистену воскресе!” (He is risen indeed) during the service, which is certainly a thing in common with English churches. After the service we came home and ate all the things that had been forbidden during lent and then went to bed at about 6am.
On Easter day my host family’s family turned up to celebrate at about 1pm and there was a lot of food and a lot of vodka (and of course toasts) and dancing and singing until about 6pm. Russian’s certainly know how to party.
So that was Easter really, apologies that it’s not written more enthusiastically but it truly was a great time and I enjoyed myself immensely. I should hopefully have more adventures to write about after Novosibirsk and I certainly want to mention the Magic Tournament at some point even though the majority of people reading this won’t know what it’s about.
Monday, 30 April 2012
Friday, 13 April 2012
My First Experience With the Orthodox Church
So Easter is a couple of days away here, today is in fact Good Friday, but I wanted to briefly blog about my first impressions of the Orthodox church before I tried to capture the whole festival of Easter in my next post.
I went to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on what was Palm Sunday here. In England it was Easter Sunday, which is the first difference between the Orthodox and Protestant churches. Orthodox churches are a week behind as they follow a different calendar. It’s also called Вербное Воскресенье (or Willow Sunday) over here because, let’s face it, palms are hard to come by in Siberia and willow is also the first plant to flower in spring. This is what I was told at any rate; there may be other significances to using willow. We also didn’t have any kind of procession into the church which made me miss the Palm Sunday services of home, where we’d wave palm branches, sing, bang drums and generally make a lot of noise along the high street and into church.
What we did have on the way into the church were several people selling willow and even more people lining the street begging. I suppose it is potentially true that religious people are more generous or willing to give money to beggars; this is at least what the homeless people of Tomsk seemed to think. The other thing that was noticeable on the way into church was the building itself, because it had three large gold and silver gilded domes. I don’t know if this is a feature I’ll see at other churches but this church was certainly striking as the domes caught the light. The third noticeable thing before actually getting inside the church was how much people were crossing themselves: before going up the steps, before crossing the threshold and then before entering the church proper.
I was struck by how many people there seemed to be, I was told that because it was a special day there were a lot more people that usual but there was also an awful lot of movement. People were buying candles and other things from the shops either side of the main entrance and people were also coming and going a lot. There generally seemed to be a lot of disorder and people were free to wander around the church during the service. This was mostly in order to get to icons to place candles in front of them. The icons were also kissed and some people touched their foreheads to them and crossed themselves. The fact that there were no pews and the whole service was conducted with people standing made the moving about easier though.
All the women also had their heads covered, be it with a head scarf or a hat, even female babies and toddlers, which I imagine must have got quite warm. I’d bought a scarf especially for church, which to be honest I was far too excited about owning, whether I liked having my head covered or not. It’s one of those things that someone will have to explain the significance of to me; otherwise I will just end up being indignant at the fact that men don’t seem to have to do anything. I could probably apply this feeling to many aspects of the Orthodox Church to be honest because there’s quite a lot that’s different to what I know from home and does seem strange to me.
For example the service being in the Old Slavic language, which even the Russians don’t necessarily understand, seems to me very strange but then I suppose it’s very much comparable to Catholic services being in Latin. I found communion stranger to be honest because very few people other than babies, toddlers and the elderly seemed to receive it. I didn’t ask the person I was with about this, but perhaps it was because there were simply too many people there. Children seemed to be receiving communion whether they wanted to or not and there was an awful lot of crying. People first had the bread and the wine together on a spoon, then a priest wiped their mouth with a red cloth and they kissed the chalice. After this they moved off to one side, drank some water and ate more bread, I actually saw one crying child tipped up to be given water before being righted to continue crying.
At the end of the service everyone surged forward, holding their willow aloft in order to have it sprayed with holy water by the priest. He used a large brush which managed to throw a fairly hefty amount of water into the congregation with each flick, so everyone got rather wet. After this there was even more pushing forwards as every person came to the front to kiss the cross that the priest was holding. As he held it he seemed to be giving some kind of sermon and occasionally spraying more water on the willow branches that people were holding.
So that was my first experience with the Orthodox Church. I realise that this blog is hardly informative and that if you’re looking for real information on the Orthodox Church you should probably check Wikipedia, as I only ever seem to list things that I see in this blog. However this time I’m wary of passing judgement I think. I am certainly no-one to say what’s right or wrong in religion and I’m not going to condemn the Orthodox Church just for being different to my church in England. As ever religion is a personal matter and there’s only one person qualified to pass judgement on it. I hope you’ve been vaguely entertained by the events listed here though. Next time’s blog will hopefully be all about Easter and even if you’re not religious, the cultural comparison should still be interesting.
Until next time then.
I went to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on what was Palm Sunday here. In England it was Easter Sunday, which is the first difference between the Orthodox and Protestant churches. Orthodox churches are a week behind as they follow a different calendar. It’s also called Вербное Воскресенье (or Willow Sunday) over here because, let’s face it, palms are hard to come by in Siberia and willow is also the first plant to flower in spring. This is what I was told at any rate; there may be other significances to using willow. We also didn’t have any kind of procession into the church which made me miss the Palm Sunday services of home, where we’d wave palm branches, sing, bang drums and generally make a lot of noise along the high street and into church.
What we did have on the way into the church were several people selling willow and even more people lining the street begging. I suppose it is potentially true that religious people are more generous or willing to give money to beggars; this is at least what the homeless people of Tomsk seemed to think. The other thing that was noticeable on the way into church was the building itself, because it had three large gold and silver gilded domes. I don’t know if this is a feature I’ll see at other churches but this church was certainly striking as the domes caught the light. The third noticeable thing before actually getting inside the church was how much people were crossing themselves: before going up the steps, before crossing the threshold and then before entering the church proper.
I was struck by how many people there seemed to be, I was told that because it was a special day there were a lot more people that usual but there was also an awful lot of movement. People were buying candles and other things from the shops either side of the main entrance and people were also coming and going a lot. There generally seemed to be a lot of disorder and people were free to wander around the church during the service. This was mostly in order to get to icons to place candles in front of them. The icons were also kissed and some people touched their foreheads to them and crossed themselves. The fact that there were no pews and the whole service was conducted with people standing made the moving about easier though.
All the women also had their heads covered, be it with a head scarf or a hat, even female babies and toddlers, which I imagine must have got quite warm. I’d bought a scarf especially for church, which to be honest I was far too excited about owning, whether I liked having my head covered or not. It’s one of those things that someone will have to explain the significance of to me; otherwise I will just end up being indignant at the fact that men don’t seem to have to do anything. I could probably apply this feeling to many aspects of the Orthodox Church to be honest because there’s quite a lot that’s different to what I know from home and does seem strange to me.
For example the service being in the Old Slavic language, which even the Russians don’t necessarily understand, seems to me very strange but then I suppose it’s very much comparable to Catholic services being in Latin. I found communion stranger to be honest because very few people other than babies, toddlers and the elderly seemed to receive it. I didn’t ask the person I was with about this, but perhaps it was because there were simply too many people there. Children seemed to be receiving communion whether they wanted to or not and there was an awful lot of crying. People first had the bread and the wine together on a spoon, then a priest wiped their mouth with a red cloth and they kissed the chalice. After this they moved off to one side, drank some water and ate more bread, I actually saw one crying child tipped up to be given water before being righted to continue crying.
At the end of the service everyone surged forward, holding their willow aloft in order to have it sprayed with holy water by the priest. He used a large brush which managed to throw a fairly hefty amount of water into the congregation with each flick, so everyone got rather wet. After this there was even more pushing forwards as every person came to the front to kiss the cross that the priest was holding. As he held it he seemed to be giving some kind of sermon and occasionally spraying more water on the willow branches that people were holding.
So that was my first experience with the Orthodox Church. I realise that this blog is hardly informative and that if you’re looking for real information on the Orthodox Church you should probably check Wikipedia, as I only ever seem to list things that I see in this blog. However this time I’m wary of passing judgement I think. I am certainly no-one to say what’s right or wrong in religion and I’m not going to condemn the Orthodox Church just for being different to my church in England. As ever religion is a personal matter and there’s only one person qualified to pass judgement on it. I hope you’ve been vaguely entertained by the events listed here though. Next time’s blog will hopefully be all about Easter and even if you’re not religious, the cultural comparison should still be interesting.
Until next time then.
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