Orthodox EASTER 2015

Easter

The Bulgarian Orthodox church celebrated this Sunday with massive feasts and prayer to commemorate the end of Lent and the ascension of Jesus Christ to Heaven.

The Orthodox church is the third largest Christian church in the world with 200 million to 300 million followers. It is based mostly in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Balkans and in Bulgaria too.

Because Orthodox churches follow the Julian calendar, they celebrate their holy commemorations on days different than most Christians, who follow the Gregorian calendar. 

Easter eggs and sweet breads (kozunak) are actually a religious part of Orthodox Easter and are handed out in the millions on Easter. In Bulgaria the eggs are painted mostly in red to symbolize the blood of Christ.

Easter Holy breads (Kozunak)

 

 

Pic: Thinkstock/Guliver Photos

Why in Bulgaria we celebrate Easter differently from other Christians?

Jesus Christ was resurrected after the Jewish Paques, so the Christian holiday is dependent on Jewish. Paques, or Pesach is the holiday in connection with the Exodus from Egypt. The First Ecumenical Council of 325, it was decided the Resurrection of Christ to celebrate on Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox. If Easter for some reason can not be on Sunday after Passover, then according to the decisions of the council should be celebrated one month later. Until the entry into force of the Gregorian calendar in the fourteenth century there was no difference between eastern and western Easter. West Catholics and Protestants calculate the date of Easter on it. While our church for moving holidays like Easter guided by the old Julian calendar, and to still the so called corrected Julian corrected in the 20s of last century by Greek astronomers. It is guided and other Orthodox Christians. Exception of Jerusalem, Russian and Serbian Orthodox Church. 

It is correct to say western and eastern, not Catholic and Orthodox Easter, because the West and Catholics and Protestants celebrate Easter on the same Sunday, while in the East there are differences. Ancient Chalcedon as Armenian churches celebrate Easter on the Gregorian calendar, and some Protestants as a Pentecostal church in Bulgaria - together with the Orthodox. So there is no unity in the East nor the West. But in some years, Western and Eastern celebration of Easter coincide.

Autor: Prof. Archpriest Nikolay Shivarov