Category Archives: Days and Seasons

Visiting the Departed

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This Coptic icon for the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, shows St. John ‘in clothing of camel’s hair’, with a cross (here in the Coptic Tau (T) form), beholding his own head. The axe at right refers to this line from his own preaching: “And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” [Mt 3.10; Lk 3.9]

Decoration Day was first observed on May 5 in the U.S., with the tradition of decorating soldiers’ graves from the Civil War with flowers. On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for “Decoration Day” to be observed annually and nationwide; he was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of and for Union Civil War veterans. With his proclamation, Logan adopted the Memorial Day practice that had begun in the Southern states three years earlier. The observance date was later moved to May 30th and included American graves from World War I and World War II, and became better known as Memorial Day. In 1971, Congress moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, thus creating a three-day holiday weekend.

In much of Central and Eastern Europe, the Orthodox Church celebrates the Tuesday after Thomas Sunday as the “Day of Rejoicing” (Radonitsa) by visiting graves and celebrating memorial services for the departed for the first time since before Palm Sunday. (Many monasteries depended on donations in exchange for their prayers for the departed; resuming these services was important for the financial survival of many small monastic communities.) The Day of Rejoicing also begins the marriage season. Since weddings are forbidden during the Great Lenten Fast (because that time should be devoted to penance and self-examination, rather than merrymaking), as well as during Bright Week (because at that time the Church celebrates nothing else except the Resurrection), with Radonitsa comes the time for weddings.

Among Eastern Christians, the Beheading of St. John the Baptist on August 29 is the day to pray for soldiers slain in battle and to visit their graves as established in 1769 at the time of Russia’s war with the Turks and the Poles. The day is always observed with strict fasting, and in some places the pious will not eat food from a flat plate, use a knife, or eat round food on this day because of the association of these things with the Gospel account of St. John’s beheading.

Resurrecting Easter

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“Christ is risen! Indeed, he is risen!”

In the iconography of the Eastern Church, the risen Jesus grasps the hands of other figures around him. Unlike the Western image of a solitary Jesus rising from an empty tomb, the authors of Resurrecting Easter saw images of the Resurrection depicting Jesus grasping the hands of Eve and Adam, lifting them to heaven from Hades or hell. They discovered that the standard image for the Resurrection in Eastern Christianity is communal and collective, something unique and distinct from the solitary depiction of the resurrection in Western Christianity.

A popular 7th-century homily on the Resurrection tells us

“The Lord rose, then, after three days… and all the descendants of the nations were saved in Christ. For one was judged and multitudes were saved. The Lord died on behalf of all…. [and] He raised up all humanity to the height of heaven, bearing a gift to the Father, not of gold nor silver nor precious stone, but rather that human race which he made according to his own image and likeness.”

In the Eastern images of the Resurrection, Adam and Eve–often with Kings David and Solomon, St. John the Baptist, and other prophets from the Old Testament–represent all humanity exiting an empty Hades. The whole human race shares in the triumph of the Resurrection of Christ and the earth itself is saved from the desecration of Abel’s blood shed by Cain. This is reflected in the hymnography of the Holy Saturday services as well:

TODAY, HELL CRIES OUT GROANING:
MY DOMINION HAS BEEN SHATTERED.
I RECEIVED A DEAD MAN AS ONE OF THE DEAD,
BUT AGAINST HIM I COULD NOT PREVAIL.
FROM ETERNITY I HAD RULED THE DEAD,
BUT BEHOLD, HE RAISES ALL.
BECAUSE OF HIM DO I PERISH.
GLORY TO THY CROSS AND RESURRECTION, O LORD!

Resurrecting Easter reflects on this divide in how the Western and Eastern churches depict the Resurrection and its implications. The authors argue that the West has gutted the heart of Christianity’s understanding of the Resurrection by rejecting that once-common communal iconography in favor of an individualistic vision. As they examine the ubiquitous Eastern imagery of Jesus freeing Eve from Hades while ascending to heaven, they suggest that this iconography raises profound questions about Christian morality and forgiveness.

A fundamentally different way of understand the story of Jesus’ Resurrection, Resurrecting Easter is illustrated with 130 images and introduces an inclusive, traditional community-based ideal that offers renewed hope and possibility.