Easter in Moscow gaining popularity

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 6

Easter in Moscow gaining popularity

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Thousands of Russians lined up at Moscow’s churches at the week-end for traditional Easter ceremonies while even bigger groups thronged the city’s cemeteries to lay flowers on the graves of relatives and friends.

In a sign that the popularity of Christian rituals is on the increase, the city’s authorities closed streets around many churches and graveyards for the first time to prevent traffic jams and provided special bus services to them instead.

At each of nearly 50 working churches in the city long lines of parishioners brought special Easter cakes and eggs to be blessed with holy water in outdoor ceremonies. Inside the churches many elderly women also waited in long lines to have special remembrance candles blessed.

The people crowding into cemeteries were by no meaqs all religious. Muscovites say that in recent years the tradition of remembering the dead at Easter and placing flowers, cake, and vodka on their graves has

caught on even among those who count themselves as agnostics or atheists.

The churches were expected to be even more packed today when traditional Russian Orthodox Easter services, which last from three to four hours, would be held in commemoration of Christ's return from the dead. The Soviet Union tries to discourage religious belief and all school pupils have to undergo courses in atheism. Young believers say that they often face serious disadvantages in trying to obtain flats or good jobs.

But in the last few years the authorities have shown a more lenient attitude at Christmas and Easter, and although the police are posted around the churches they now seldom try to prevent youngsters from entering. Ordinary Russians say that there have been signs that the Communist Party leadership is now much more ready to tolerate traditions such as remembering the dead at Easter, apparently viewing

them as a part of Russian culture. The Russian Orthodox Church still functions under the pre-revolutionary Gregorian calendar, which means that Christmas occurs 13 days after it is held in the West.

Easter coincides this year because, for once, both sides dated it from the same phase of the moon. In the Vatican City Pope John Paul led about 30,000 worshippers in Easter vigil ceremonies in Saint Peter's Square on the eve of the close of Holy Year. The solemn vigil rite and Mass, traditionally held in Saint Peter's Basilica, were held in the square for the first time to accommodate more people. The first part of the ceremony was held in neardarkness. Then the basilica’s great bells rang and lights in the square were turned on to signify the light of the Resurrection.

During the Mass the Pope baptised 29 adults convert from Japan, South Korea, Czechoslovakia, Kenya. Ghana, Egypt, Italy, France, and the Netherlands.