Christ is Risen! - Easter moments

Last night was the Easter service at St. Nicholas Mission. We met around 9ish and took turns reading from the Book of Acts. Then at midnight we had the Easter service where we received the Light, and then the procession outside the church, then sang the Paschal Canon and served the Divine Liturgy. We were done that around 2:30, then we all ate and I left the church around 4:20. Here were some of my own personal favourite highlights:

• While we were reading the acts of the Apostles, I went to get something from the back room, and saw Fr. Nicholas sitting with Anamaria, practicing reading the Gospel in Romanian. He put so much effort, it was so cute! Then later, during the Liturgy, hearing him read it was really nice as well. What a great man.

• Hugh coming in wheezing halfway through our reading of Acts. I was afraid he was having an asthma attack or something, but it turns out, the poor guy biked there from work. Darn you TTC union, for striking at the worst time ever!!!

• Andrew reading in Spanish from Acts, and four different people reading in French. What a great parish :D

• The following quote:

Suzi: I like the French text better than the English.
Nick: Why?
Suzi: I dunno...
*later*
Suzi: Probably because the English (version that we were reading) is archaic and the French is modern.
Nick: I thought it might be that. But I was thinking it differently: The English is beautiful, while the French is plain.

• During the procession, having everyone singing at different times lol.

• The four verses that the priest sings, in front of the closed door. "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered!"etc. Lovely melody.

• Singing Hristos a Inviat in Romanian with Anamaria.

• Fr. and Anamaria singing Christ is Risen in French.

• Hugh and Nicholas singing Christ is Risen in Greek.

• Kissing and wishing everybody Christ is Risen in a variety of languages after the Paschal Matins.

• The Gospel, John 1:17, read in English, Slavonic, Romanian, Spanish, and French.

• Two very tired little boys, 6ish and 9ish, fast asleep at the back of the Church during the Liturgy. We served Liturgy till about 2:30 am, so no wonder the poor guys were exhausted. So adorable though! And then during Communion their mom woke them up and was standing behind one of them with hands on both sides of his head, basically keeping his head up.

• All the FOOD!!! Wow there was probably enough food for triple the amount of people we had. I lost my egg-cracking contest with Anamaria, but that's ok, because I wanted to eat the egg anyway. It was all delicious! Meaty, cheesy, and eggy. Andrew also made a salad, to keep us all from blocking all our arteries right then and there.

• Andrew telling us about a radio show he was listening to where they were discussing the public transit strike, and this one Greek man calls in and is MAD, saying "DON'T THEY KNOW IT'S ORTHODOX EASTER?? HOW COULD THEY DO THIS, THIS IS RIDICULOUS, PEOPLE NEED A WAY TO GET TO CHURCH, WE NEED TO CALL IN THE ARMY!" (I may have paraphrased it from Andrew's paraphrasing, but the army part was definitely said).

• I have no idea what they were talking about, but I caught this snippet of conversation from the priest's side of the table:

Fr. Nick: ...again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord...

• One of the little boys woke up, and as we were clearing everything up he was playing scary movie suspenseful death music on the organ/keyboard. LOL it was completely clashing with the whole theme of Pascha (Easter).

• Trading Easter eggs with people, since we all brought sooo many, and going around at the end giving out the last of my eggs. "Here have an egg" and I'd just hand it to them. It was a lot more effective than announcing that people should help themselves to eggs.

• In the car on the way home at 4:30 am, Anamaria telling me about the trends in Orthodoxy within the last century. It was a surprisingly animated discussion considering it was the middle of the night, and the day had been exhausting.

And one from two nights ago, from Great and Holy Friday, after the service:

• In the choir we couldn't agree on a particular point that we were going to sing, so we asked the priest how it should be done:

Andrew: Fr, help us out, we're having a sort of Proto-Pentecost here, all speaking in different tongues. (this is especially hilarious b/c Orthodox don't believe in the whole "speaking in tongues" thing that some Protestants practice).

All in all, the services were lovely. Though next year we are definitely going to master the Paschal Canon. Definitely.