Santa Fe's Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter

May 4—As the sun slowly set over the Sangre de Cristos, parishioners at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church circled the church on Cordova Street while chanting and holding candles, and re-entered under a decorated wooden funeral bier, where they ended the rest of the solemn service in candlelight.

The bier stood in the center of the sanctuary for the rest of the Lamentations service, which represents keeping watch at Christ's tomb after the crucifixion and was followed 12 hours later by a Holy Saturday service, where nine new members were baptized.

Those were just two of the many services during Orthodox Holy Week, which concluded Sunday with Easter, or Pascha, the most important day of the church year.

"His resurrection is the beginning of our resurrection," said the Rev. David Starr, rector of St. Juliana of Lazarevo Russian Orthodox Church.

The week is sacred to Orthodox Christians around the world, including the small community in Northern New Mexico.

Celeste Ryder, who operates the Ryder Studio and also serves as choir director at St. Juliana's, described Holy Week as a time when another reality feels closer.

"One may seek God in his or her daily spiritual journey, but there are certain times of the year when one somehow senses the Lord's holy and loving presence are more available, more tangible," she wrote in an email. "... The Lord loves us and is saving us, truly."

Catholics and Protestants celebrated Easter more than a month ago on March 31. The two different feast days come from two different calendars. Both Easter dates are calculated based on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. But while the Western churches use the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date, which was adopted in 1582, almost all Orthodox churches continue to use the older Julian calendar.

That led to a dramatic spread in the two dates this year, as the Western date was one of the earliest dates Easter could have been and the Eastern one of the latest.

Orthodox Holy Week began on Saturday, April 27 with a service celebrating Jesus' raising of Lazarus and continues through Sunday afternoon with a vespers service. But unlike Western churches, the main Easter service begins not Sunday morning but late Saturday night.

The service starts in darkness and includes a procession around the church, reading of hymns, chanting and the veneration of icons, which are an important part of Orthodox Christianity.

The Rev. Jesse Robinson of Holy Trinity said the aim of the long Holy Week services is not to try to reenact anything but to spiritually experience the resurrection story.

"We're not LARPing, we're doing our best to ritually participate in the actual event," he said.

Leaders from Santa Fe's three Orthodox congregations — Holy Trinity, St. Juliana and St. Elias the Prophet Greek Orthodox Church in Eldorado — all say that while Easter is important for every Christian the observance has a singular intensity in the Orthodox tradition.

"We take it very seriously, which is not to say other people don't," Starr said.

The Pascha service continues until the early hours of Sunday morning and is followed by a feast, which is used to break Orthodox Christians' strict Lenten fast, which includes abstention from meat, eggs, olive oil dairy products and wine or all alcohol.

"We're basically vegans," said Robinson.

Santa Fe's three Orthodox churches belong to different traditions — Holy Trinity is part of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, St. Elias is under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Denver and St. Juliana belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Priests from the three churches said their congregations are a mix of people from their church's originating countries and new converts from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The Rev. Dimitrios Pappas of St. Elias said about 120 people belong to St. Elias, some of whom come from as far away as Trinidad, Colo. Services are in a mix of English and Greek, with some Spanish as well, he said, and congregants come from a range of backgrounds.

"Mostly here in Santa Fe there's less of the Greek population, they have passed away since they first came to Santa Fe and Albuquerque," he said.

Starr said St. Juliana is a mix of Russian and Ukrainian families who founded the church and people who have converted to Orthodoxy. The majority of the services are in English with some Old Church Slavonic interspersed.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been "very painful" for the mixed congregation, Starr said, but not something that affects the church's day-to-day activities.

"I would do almost anything I could to stop it but there's not much I could do" except pray, Starr said.

The church's backgrounds inform the traditions involved with Easter, which vary place to place but typically involve celebrations with a lot of food, music and dancing.

"Each area and each country has their own little traditions," Pappas said.

One Pascha tradition involves dying eggs red to symbolize the blood of Christ, which Pappas said is likely where the tradition of Easter eggs originated. Easter baskets with the food people have been abstaining from during Lent are also given out.

"I've been in Russian churches where there's vodka shots going around," Robinson said. "Not in a partying way but they're really kind of toasting and celebrating the resurrection."

This Easter season is the first for Holy Trinity since master iconographers came in the fall to complete the third phase of the iconography that decorates the church's interior walls and ceiling.

Many of the scenes depicted are from the passion narrative, including a large depiction of the resurrection that covers the north wall.

"To have that icon there for the feast day — it's going to be really special," Robinson said.