FACTBOX. On April 20, Orthodox believers will celebrate Easter, the principal feast of the Christian Church. In 2025, the holiday falls on...
FACTBOX. On April 20, Orthodox believers will celebrate Easter, the principal feast of the Christian Church. In 2025, the holiday falls on the same date for both Orthodox Christians and Catholics.
Holiday's name
Easter, also called Paskha or Resurrection Sunday, is the principal feast of the Christian Church that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus, symbolizing the triumph of life over death. The story is told in all four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Orthodox Christian holiday was named Paskha after the Hebrew word "pasah," which means "to pass by" (hence Pesach, or Jewish Passover, a holiday celebrated to honor the Exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian captivity). The word has acquired a different meaning in the Orthodox tradition, which interprets it as "passing from death to life, from earth to heaven."
Movable feast
The date of the feast is calculated annually according to the lunisolar calendar. In the year 325, the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (today’s Iznik, Turkey) decided to celebrate the holiday after the Jewish Passover, or on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. However, if the full moon falls on a Saturday or Sunday, Easter is pushed to the following Sunday.
Therefore, Easter is a movable holiday that falls on different dates each year - usually it is celebrated between April 4 and May 8 (or between March 22 and April 25, according to the old calendar). The dates of Easter and its related holidays and fasts are determined annually through a calculation known as "computus paskhalis" (Latin for ‘Easter computation’).
Easter celebrations usually fall on different days for Catholics and Orthodox Christians, since Western Christian churches use the Gregorian calendar, while Eastern Christianity follows the Julian calendar. As a rule, Catholics celebrate the holiday earlier, but every few years both Easter celebrations land on the same day (the last time this happened was in 2017).
Easter in Russia
Easter was a public holiday in pre-revolutionary Russia, and the first days of the festive Bright Week (or Renewal Week) were non-working days. After the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik Party that seized power in Russia began the struggle against "religious prejudice" and things changed in the country. Although the holiday itself was celebrated, only Sunday and Monday following Easter remained days off. In 1928, all days of the Bright week became working days. There was no official ban on the celebration, yet the authorities tried to replace Easter with secular events, such as meetings of Communist youth (so-called "Red Easter" or "Komsomol Easter"). Attending church services became unsafe for parishioners as it could be grounds for dismissal from work or even for criminal prosecution on political grounds.
Only once did the Soviet authorities allow believers to celebrate the holiday openly - after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in 1941. On the night of April 5, 1942, the curfew was lifted in Moscow. Easter services were held in the capital and in the Moscow region. According to the Moscow department of the Soviet Interior Ministry, they were attended by 85,000 people. Divine services were also held in churches of besieged Leningrad and other cities and towns in the country.
The unofficial ban on the celebration of Easter remained in place for the next 40 years. The 1000th anniversary of the Christianization of ancient Rus (1988) marked a shift in Soviet policy concerning the church and the rights of believers. On the night of April 7, 1991, the Easter midnight service at Epiphany Cathedral at Yelokhovo in Moscow (such services have been held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior since 2001) was broadcast live nationwide by central radio and television.
On April 18, 1993, then Russian President Boris Yeltsin attended the Easter celebrations for the first time. Since then the country's top officials have traditionally attended Easter services.
The Russian president annually congratulates Orthodox Christians and all citizens of Russia on the Easter holiday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been attending Easter services at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow since 2000. Only twice did he participate in Easter festivities outside Moscow - in 2000, at St. Petersburg’s St. Isaac’s Cathedral and in 2003, when he attended services at the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Dushanbe while on a visit to Tajikistan.
In 2020, for the first time during his presidency, Putin skipped Easter service due to the coronavirus pandemic and lit a candle in the chapel at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. Since 2021, the Russian president takes part in divine services in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Preparing for Easter
Preparation for the feast begins during Holy Week, the last week of Lent during which the faithful reflect on the final days of Jesus Christ's life. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the "high holy days" of the entire Church year.
Maundy (also Holy) Thursday remembers the Lord's Last Supper with his disciples, when he established the sacrament of Holy Communion prior to his arrest and crucifixion. Therefore, on Holy Thursday believers come to the temple and take communion.
During the service a special rite is performed in the cathedrals: the bishop washes the feet of 12 priests or monks in memory of how Christ washed the feet of his disciples, giving them an example of humility and mutual love. It is customary to put the house in order, start baking Easter cakes and dyeing eggs on this day.
On Good Friday (or Great Friday in Russia) believers remember the crucifixion and martyrdom of Jesus Christ. The liturgy is not celebrated on this day. The Holy Shroud is taken out of the altar on Friday afternoon (it is believed to be an image of Jesus Christ's holy face, left on a cloth used to cover His face at burial after the crucifixion). The priests then read the Virgin Mary's Lament. Good Friday is the only day of the year when church bells fall silent, marking the period of the passion of Christ. The Friday fast is the strictest fast in the Orthodox tradition.
Holy Saturday is the last day in the sober season of Lent before the paskhal season of rejoicing begins on Sunday. The Orthodox Church celebrates Christ’s descent into Hell (Hades), from where he led the souls of the righteous and the first people. Every year on Holy Saturday there is a miracle that all Orthodox Christians are waiting for - the descent of the Holy Fire from Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Church candles are lit from it, and after the service, many people carry the enlightened lamps to their homes, where they try to maintain the fire for a year.
Easter Celebrations
All forty days of Eastertide, the season starting with Easter Sunday to the Feast of the Ascension, are considered festive in Christianity. However, the Eastertide's first week is most solemnly celebrated. It is called the Bright Week (or Renewal Week), and all its seven days are seen as "one day," like Easter Sunday. The Services of Bright Week are done with the Royal Doors (central doors of the iconostasis) fully open, and bells are rung past midnight everywhere.
The Easter Vigil begins on Saturday night around 11:00 pm and lasts several hours. The first part of the service is called the Midnight Office. In the Russian tradition, a shroud embroidered with the image of Christ is brought to the altar and laid on the communion table, where it will remain for 40 days until the Ascension.
The bell ringing announces the beginning of the feast. At midnight the solemn early service of Matins begins: the altar servers and parishioners walk in a procession around the church three times, against the sun or counterclockwise, which symbolizes the procession to meet the Risen Christ. It also follows closely the procession to the tomb of Christ of the Myrrh-bearing Women who were the first and unerring witnesses of the Resurrection of Christ. During the divine services, believers exchange greetings, saying "Christ is risen!" and responding, "He is truly risen!"
Then the Divine Liturgy is served and a special bread called artos (Greek for "leavened loaf") or prosphora is consecrated. It is a symbol of the bread that the disciples would leave on the table for their invisibly present teacher. During the services of Bright Week, the bread is placed on the analogion in front of the iconostasis, and between services - in front of the open Royal Doors, before the icon of Christ. During the cross procession, which takes place daily during Easter week, the artos is carried around the church, then returned to its original place. On Holy Saturday the consecrated bread is divided among all the participants of the service.
The main colors of the Easter service are white and red: while the first signifies divine light, the second represents God's supreme love for humanity.
Traditions
On Saturday, churches begin consecrating kulich (a special Easter bread), a cottage cheese-based dessert called paskha and dyed eggs. The Easter kulich is a homemade analog of artos - a dome-shaped yeast bread made of pastry. It is baked with raisins, candied and dried fruits, nuts and chocolate. During the Easter meal, the consecrated kulich symbolizes the presence of the Lord near believers just like artos.
Paskha is made of sweetened cottage cheese in the shape of a truncated pyramid, which symbolizes the Holy Sepulcher. The dish is decorated with images of the cross, spear, flowers and other symbols of Jesus Christ's suffering and resurrection.
The custom of dyeing eggs was widespread among the Eastern Slavs before Christianity and is associated with spring pagan cults. The Christian tradition introduced a new meaning: the Easter egg is a symbol of life, and its red-colored shell resembles the blood Christ shed for people. It is customary to give eggs dyed in one color or either painted with patterns (or "krashenka" and "pysanky" in Russian) to one's relatives and guests.
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