Orthodox Easter celebration is Sunday

If you missed the Easter celebrations in March, you have another chance on Sunday.

St. John of Damascus Orthodox Church at 16903 Espola Road in Poway, will be celebrating Orthodox Easter, called Pascha, on Sunday, May 1 and visitors are welcome to join in worship and celebration.

Orthodox Christians celebrate their Holy Week later than other Christians due to following the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian calendar, said Father Alexander Federoff, archpriest of St. John of Damascus. They also wait until the Jewish celebration of Passover, which began on April 22 this year.

The membership of St. John of Damascus is varied, including both born Orthodox of Russian, Georgian, Romanian, Serbian, Macedonian, Greek and Arabic origin, as well as numerous converts. As such, services are conducted in English.

“The Orthodox Church of America has people of all backgrounds,” said Federoff. “The thing we share is our Orthodox faith.”

Federoff said about 60 to 70 percent of the members of St. John of Damascus are converts to Orthodox Christianity.

The Pascha celebration begins at 1 p.m. on Sunday, with the Agape Vespers, where the Resurrection Gospel will be read in 12 languages. This will be followed by a potluck picnic on the church grounds, which will include marinated lamb and carne asada.

While the traditional Greek and Russian are part of those 12 languages, Federoff said members of the church have read the gospel in a variety of languages in the past, including Chinese and Vietnamese.

The evening prior will include a midnight service beginning at 11:30 p.m., with a candlelight procession. Midnight service lasts for about three hours, said Federoff.

Following the midnight service, the church will bless Easter baskets, which are traditionally filled with foods that are not eaten during the lenten season, such as meats, dairy products and sweet breads.

Federoff said that in the Orthodox church, Holy Week features more intense services, to give the experience of what Christ went through in his last days.

The church itself as been in Poway since 1974, and in its current location since 1985, where it started from a modular building before constructing the current church in the early 90s.

The church is still a work in progress, as it is having icons painted in the altar area, to match the lavish icons decorating the walls and domed ceiling of the rest of the church.

The icons were supposed to be finished by Easter, said Federoff, but are now expected to be completed in four to six weeks. The painting of the icons began in December. “It’s going to be spectacular when it’s done,” said Federoff.

For more information on Easter services at St. John of Damascus church, call 858-674-1931 or visit www.stjohnofdamascus.org.