What, it's not Easter today???

On Friday Garry told me it wasn't Easter on Sunday. Of course, it is Easter at home in Canada, but not here in Ukraine. This is the third Easter we have been in Ukraine, and we had not noticed this before, so I did a little research on wikipedia. Turns out that Easter - the date of which changes every year, falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, ever since 325, when Council of Nicea decided it. The different Easter dates are because the Eastern churches, like the Orthodox church here in Ukraine follow the Julian calendar for setting the date, instead of the Gregorian one. The last two years Easter here happened to be on the same Sunday as at home, but this year Ukrainian Easter is a week later, and in 2012 Easter will be on March 31st in North America, and on May 5th here. So I will know what's up next year!



Today it was foggy for the entire drive from the village to church. We had a sermon about Palm Sunday, and I noticed many people carrying bunches of pussy willow branches today in the city, I don't know if you can tell in the photo. It seems that they are traditional here for Orthodox believers, like you might see palm branches in some churches at home.











So I can wait til next week to practice my Chris-tos vos Chris-t which is Christ is Risen and everyone will be saying it to everyone in the street next week with the reply of He is risen indeed (which I need to practice- it seems to have left my mind since last year.)

Garry tells me he found out that in Soviet times Easter was "replaced" with a Clean up Day, so there are jokes of how they replaced a holiday with a work day. It seems to be the holiday of the year with many people keeping Lent, and non-religious people enjoying a party for the spring holiday time. There will be colored eggs and paska bread to share, and the Monday after is also a holiday next week.