Orthodox church readies for Easter Flowers adorn Christ’s tomb for ceremonies

BANGOR – Members of St. George Greek Orthodox Church spent Friday morning preparing for a funeral service and the burial of Christ.

They arranged cut flowers that were placed in the kouvouklion, a structure that represents the tomb of Christ, and white candles were placed at the top of the tomb. At a Good Friday service that evening, the epitaphios, a red-and-gold tapestry depicting Christ’s death and which has a relic sewn into it, was to be laid across the structure to represent his body.

Easter services at St. George on Sanford Street in Bangor will begin at 11:30 p.m. today and continue into the early hours Sunday.

Protestants and Roman Catholics follow a different calendar to set the date of Easter, which this year was March 23. The Eastern Orthodox Church continues to use the Julian calendar and mandates that Easter should fall on the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The holiday always occurs after, never before, the Jewish celebration of Passover.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Christ’s Resurrection is not celebrated until after Passover because the Last Supper was a Passover Seder, according to the Rev. Adam Metropoulos, pastor of St. George.

The Jewish holiday began this year at sundown Saturday, April 19.

Because St. George is the only Eastern Orthodox church north of Lewiston, Russians, Albanians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Romanians, Syrians, Serbs, Lebanese and Greeks will worship together in the early morning hours. Men, women and children will travel to Bangor from Aroostook, Washington, Piscataquis, Waldo, Hancock and Penobscot counties for the Easter service, Metropoulos said.

It has been nearly 10 years since members of the tiny church founded by Bangor’s Greek immigrant community have decorated the kouvouklion themselves, according to Lisa Metropoulos, the presbytera, or pastor’s wife. Recently, a local florist has handled the decorations.

This year, Cathy Speronis, who grew up in her family’s florist business on Long Island, was put in charge of the decorating and others joined her.

“It’s going beautifully,” she said Friday morning as she and three other women prepared the tomb for Christ’s body and his Resurrection.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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