Twice in a month

(from magazine of St Martin on the hill, Scarborough)

I shall be celebrating Easter twice this month. Once according to the Western rite on the 12th. Once according to the Eastern rite on the 19th. I have been invited to share the Orthodox Triduum with the Coptic monks at the Monastery of St Athanasius at Langdale End.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is the national church in Egypt and Ethiopia. Its patron is the Evangelist St Mark and it claims to be the first church established outside Palestine.

St Antony was born in Egypt in 251 and became the father of Christian monasticism. He died in 356 and is buried in the cave in the Eastern desert where he lived and prayed for many years. Below the cave stands the first monastery of his disciples. St Athanasius was a contemporary of St Antony and following his contributions at the Council of Nicea in 325 he became the Coptic Patriarch.

The East-West divide in Christendom is narrowing and will one day be bridged. Anglican-Orthodox relations are well established and ongoing.

The Feast of Feasts in Orthodoxy is reckoned by the Julian calendar whilst in the West we follow the Gregorian calendar. This is why their date sometimes coincides with ours but at other time is one, four or five weeks later. This year it is just one week later.

The Church's Year, with its sequence of fasts and feasts, is something of overwhelming importance in the religious experience of Orthodox Churches. Hammond in 'The Waters of Marah' writes:

"Nobody who has kept the great Lent with the Greek Church, who has shared in the fast which lies heavy upon the whole nation for forty days; who has known the desolation of the holy and greatFriday, when every bell tolls its lament and the body of the Saviour lies shrouded in flowers; who has been present at the kindling of the new fire and tasted the joy of a world released from the bondage of sin and death - none can have lived through all this and not have realized that for Greek Christians the Gospel is inseparably linked with the liturgy that is unfolded week by week in his parish church. Not only among Greeks but throughout Orthodox Christendom the liturgy has remained at the very heart of the Church's life."

Even on Good Friday the Orthodox Church sounds a note of Resurrection. Calvary is always seen in the light of the empty tomb. The Cross is an emblem of victory. They agree with John Chrysostom: "I call Him king, because I see Him crucified".

We worship thy Passion, O Christ:

Show us also thy glorious Resurrection!