‘Christ is risen! — ‘Khrystos Voskres!’

This “Passion Week,” commemorating Christ’s sufferings and crucifixion, observed this year together by all Christians of both eastern (Byzantine) and western (Latin) traditions, will end this Saturday with services that will include the proclamation “Christ is risen!” The Ukrainian Christian believers will proclaim “Khrystos Voskres!” and will greet each other with these words until the Feast of Ascension (40 days after Easter). The response to this greeting is “Voistynu Voskres!” (indeed He has risen).

Easter in Ukrainian is known as “Velykden” (great day), and is observed for three days (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday), with an added touch of Velykden on the following Sunday, the Thomas’ Sunday. This is also known as “Providna Nedilya,” during which the faithful commemorate the deceased by visiting cemeteries and praying at the graves of their relatives and friends. The Ukrainian St. Andrew’s Cemetery in South Bound Brook, N.J., one of the better-known Ukrainian cemeteries in North America, is the site of tens of thousands of visitors on that day, including visitors from outside of the U.S. That cemetery, in addition to an ornate Holodomor memorial church, has many monuments which are works of art, some by world-renowned sculptors.
 
The traditional Ukrainian observance of the Easter holiday, or Velykden, is a joyful religious and family affair, with no Easter bunny but with the Ukrainian artistically hand-decorated “pysanky” (Easter eggs) as one of the important items of the holiday food basket, which also contains ham, sausage, cheese, butter and “babka” or “paska” (Easter breads). One should not forget the horseradish root.

During my childhood days in my native village of Volya Yakubova (Jacob’s Freedom), as well as in most Ukrainian villages and towns, Easter food baskets were brought to churches for blessings on Sundays after the Resurrection divine liturgy. It was a sight to see — a variety of beautifully decorated food baskets, partially covered by embroidered napkins or towels, and the girls and women dressed in traditional Ukrainian embroidered blouses, dresses and jackets standing next to their baskets awaiting the blessing with holy water. One of the traditions in my village was for the unmarried girls to run as fast as possible with the blessed basket to their homes, with a belief that the one who reaches her home first will be the first to be married that year.

Here in North Port, and in most Ukrainian American communities, the blessings of Easter food baskets take place late afternoon on Saturday before Easter Sunday.

My wife Katrusia and I wish to extend to all our relatives, friends and neighbors a happy and healthy Easter — “Veselykh Svyat!” (happy holidays).

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The Ukrainian American community in North Port and Southwest Florida, and other Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities, together with Ukrainians in Ukraine and in other countries, will observe next week the sad anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. The plant, located in Ukraine, offi- cially known then as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, was nevertheless subordinated to and completely controlled directly by the central Sevier Russian government in Moscow, which refused to acknowledge the explosion and the extent of potential damage until the deadly radiation reached and was recorded in Western Europe.
 
Atanas Kobryn covers the Ukrainian community for the North Port Sun. He can be emailed at atanask@aol.com.

Our Neighbors — The Ukrainians

By Atanas Kobryn