Beneath a cloudless blue sky, a girl in a yellow costume held a basket of freshly baked candy bread often known as “paska,” eggs dyed with onion pores and skin right into a deep crimson, cheese, butter, pork fats and kielbasa, symbols of indulgences that the devoted had given up for 40 days earlier than the resurrection of Jesus.
Washington
D.C. area Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter amid war and worry
To Solomiya Gorokhivska, 40, who introduced her basket for Orthodox Easter celebration at Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Silver Spring, Md., the second felt bittersweet. The vacation symbolizes a brand new starting after the giving up treats akin to meat and music and dancing, she mentioned, including, “After you endure, it’s a sort of a feast for soul and physique.”
However like most of the 1,500 individuals from throughout the Washington area who converged Sunday on the sloping garden behind the cathedral with a golden dome, Gorokhivska was acutely conscious that for Ukrainians caught within the Russian invasion, the struggling didn’t finish on Easter.
“We can’t actually have fun as a result of we’re nonetheless in that crucifixion stage,” mentioned the musician and mom of three who moved to the Washington space from Ukraine in 2008. “Cities are destroyed and persons are displaced. That’s the saddest half. They can not have fun as we have fun right here.”
As an alternative, parishioners described listening to horrifying stories from family and friends members in Ukraine. “My niece left Kyiv, so that they’re nonetheless alive,” mentioned Ludmilla Murphy, a retired economist who now lives in Silver Spring. Murphy mentioned she fled Ukraine at age 7, through the Second World Warfare. “The final image I’ve is of Kyiv burning, and now I see the photographs of Kyiv burning.”
As for her family there now, “They actually went to the Carpathian Mountains to attend issues out,” she mentioned. Had been they celebrating Easter? “My niece is an excellent baker, however she mentioned, ‘We don’t have something, flour or eggs, however most of all we don’t even have an oven. We’ve got a scorching plate.’”
Even a lot of these nonetheless of their houses had been dissuaded from attending the celebration so integral to Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, mentioned the Rev. Volodymyr Steliac, who led the Sunday morning service in addition to a midnight service hours earlier. “The clergymen and bishops needed to discourage individuals from coming to have fun Easter as a result of the Russian Federation” will “make the most of individuals gathering in a single place,” he mentioned.
Lidiaa, 68, fled town of Kharkiv final month, forsaking her son and his household. She is staying together with her daughter Lana, 45, in Silver Spring.
“They can not go to church at present as a result of it’s on a regular basis bombing,” mentioned Lana, who didn’t wish to give her surname for worry of reprisals towards relations in Ukraine. “They should shelter on a regular basis,” she mentioned. “Even at present persons are dying, there may be bombing. It’s actually arduous to be separate from the household, each day calling to see if they’re alive.”
Orthodox Christianity is the dominant faith in each Ukraine and Russia, however the Ukrainian Orthodox Church break up from its Russian counterpart three years in the past after greater than 300 years of being linked. Russian Patriarch Kirill has supported the assertion by Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine is an inseparable a part of the better Russian world, alienating some Orthodox believers.
“Some Ukrainians who would usually go to Russian church. Right now they got here right here as a result of they didn’t wish to go to church in Russian,” Gorokhivska mentioned.
There have been additionally Russians who opted for the Ukrainian service. Vadim Zhitnikov, 38, is from Perm, Russia, and exemplifies the difficult ties many individuals have between the 2 international locations. “That is my first time being right here, as a result of I felt compelled to indicate my help,” mentioned Zhitnikov, a nurse who lives in Virginia. “I’ve prolonged household in Russia and I’ve prolonged household in Ukraine.”
Zhitnikov mentioned he has posted statements in regards to the battle on Russian social media for which “they’ll arrest me if I am going again and step off a airplane.” Of relations in Russia, he mentioned, “They’re completely brainwashed. I say to my aunt, ‘Ought to I belief what you’re saying or my household in Ukraine who’s going by it?’ and she or he doesn’t wish to hear that. She ended the dialog.”
Some buddies in Russia have thanked him for his posts, whilst they rapidly delete them to guard themselves. “I really feel just like the Russian authorities is afraid to see Ukrainians succeed, as a result of then the Russians will begin scratching their head and say, ‘Effectively, why can’t we stay like that?’”
When the battle started, the church started gathering and packing donations together with nonperishable meals and child objects for Ukraine. The hassle has continued, 12 hours a day, six days every week, mentioned Tamara Woroby, the parish council president. The church has shipped 200 tons of humanitarian provides, she mentioned, including that subsequent week it’s sending $6 million value of medical provides.
“The Amazon truck arrives nearly each quarter-hour making deliveries,” she mentioned. “A couple of weeks in the past two of the Amazon drivers questioned why they had been coming so typically, and as soon as they came upon it was packing for humanitarian help, they requested in the event that they themselves may assist volunteer to pack on their days off.” (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Put up.)
Steliac made his method up a path the place parishioners had lined up with their baskets, ready for a blessing, the faint scent of incense wafting within the air. “Christ is risen,” he mentioned, in Ukrainian and English, and other people replied, “He’s really risen.”
After the service, households sat down for picnics underneath dappled daylight and youngsters in conventional embroidered shirts performed on a swing beside a pond. However even right here, the sting of loss of life was shut by.
“Final Sunday and Monday, two of our younger volunteers who got here to assist, they misplaced their fathers in Ukraine,” mentioned Steliac, who is also an Air Drive chaplain. “So we is likely to be in Washington, however we’re straight impacted as a parish neighborhood by the battle. This battle has no boundaries.”