The Orthodox Church at Drochia.
Easter eggs are usually dyed red and decorated here.
Me and Lee at the entrance to Drochia.
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25 April...Pasti Fericit...Happy Easter in
Romanian. Easter has come to Moldova and I have had a lovely week
with Lee here from the U.S. and with my friend Irina's generous
invitation to have Easter dinner with her family in Drochia (a town in
the north of the country). Easter is a BIG holiday in Moldova, bigger
than Christmas, though I am told New Year's is an even bigger holiday
than Easter. We get a whole week off from school and the weather
has been fantastic. I actually rented a car and Irina, Lee, and I
visited all the fantastic places there are to see in this fascinating
land (more on touring Moldova to come).
Well over 90% of Moldovans claim Orthodox Christian heritage.
The Orthodox Church celebrates Easter at a different time than we
do in the States (they still use the Julian calendar while we use the
Gregorian). Even throughout the Soviet years, the Orthodox Church
continued to operate and many Moldovans were baptized and had icons in
their homes. The Soviets officially embraced atheism and did
repress religion in a number of venues and monasteries were closed and
some churches were turned in museums or even destroyed in extreme cases.
Since the fall of the USSR, the church has regained prominence and
influence in the life of the people and of the nation.
Easter in the Orthodox tradition is celebrated by spending the night
at church waiting to celebrate the moments of the resurrection.
Not everyone stays for the whole night and most people come around 4 am
with a basket of food for the priest to bless. Once the priest has
blessed the food, then the family will go out and eat it--usually bread
and hard-boiled eggs and then everyone goes home and gets some sleep
before the big Easter dinner in the afternoon.
My friend Irina invited me and Lee to her home about 2 hours north of
Chisinau to celebrate Easter at her family's dinner table with her
parents and sister. I am not sure that I have ever eaten as many
different dishes as we did that day! There were wonderful salads,
cold meats, fish, sausages, fresh tomatoes and cheese, and marinated
mushrooms followed by entrees including chicken and cabbage, fish and
potatoes, and pork and buckwheat. THEN came desserts--prunes in
cream, cookies (some made in the shape of
mushrooms) and cakes--lemon, nut, chocolate, and banana--and fresh
fruit! Afterwards while we were chatting, a box of chocolates
appeared. Honestly, it was all so good and I ate so many things--I
thought I would never eat again (until the next day when Mrs. Nicorich
had us back for lunch as we returned to Chisinau from Soroca. Mrs.
Nicorich is from the very northern part of Russia but she has learned
Romanian in Moldova and was happy to say "Mancati, va rog"...which means
"eat, please" and I did! |
