Saturday night my team went to a birthday party for Kenny, a missionary friend we met last week up in Borovci (site of the kugel video, in my previous post). We met lots of other people, both American and Bulgarian. I even met another missionary from Washington and shared a moment about missing Mt. Rainier’s looming presence! After that our team went to Confetti, our favorite gelato shop, as if the alehouse’s ribs and wings hadn’t done enough to our bodies. And after we had eaten everything we could afford, we made our way to another looming presence: Nevski Cathedral, one of many sites in Sofia where Eastern Orthodox Christians gather to celebrate Easter at midnight.
I heard about this celebration soon after arriving in Bulgaria and had since then been leading a frenzied campaign to ensure our presence at Nevski. I was told there would be music and candles and Orthodox Christians, and so I was curious and had to be there.
So that night, after a day of removing lice and watching movies, and an evening of birthday parties and junk food, my team and Kenny’s friends were all gathered at the cathedral. Dozens of people stood around selling slender yellow candles. It was lightly raining and getting cold, and hundreds were gathered near the front doors of the church with their black coats and umbrellas. At a quarter to midnight, a choir began singing beautiful, unaccompanied harmonies in Old Bulgarian and clergy members–priests, maybe? or did I hear the word “patriarch?”–emerged from within the cathedral, dressed in… their vestments, would it be? They were wearing red and gold… uh, cloaks (my Protestant is showing!). Anyway, there was lots of red and gold and music, and candles were being lit and the night was dark and the cathedral was big and it was a beautiful sight, to see everyone gathered like that.
I think it was at midnight that we heard something shouted through a speaker, and everyone shouted something back. That something, we learned, was “Hristos vozkrese,” “Christ has risen,” to which we respond, “Voistina vozkrese,” “Indeed he is risen.” Everyone started hugging and kissing each other and they recited the phrases several times.
After that the walking started: once the short service is over, all the people gathered at the church walk three times around the cathedral with their candles lit. I asked one of our new friends why they walk three times, and he said it was a reference to the Trinity. He also said that you walk with the candles as a reminder of God’s light in you, and that people keep the candles lit as they go home, because they are taking that light with them wherever they go. I’d never been a part of this Orthodox tradition. I think it’s beautiful.
I also heard somewhere that a good Christian’s candle will stay lit for all three laps, meaning you have no sin in your life. Well, if you didn’t already know, I’m a sinner and my friends are too. My candle went out and broke in half almost immediately. But that’s all right. I’m saving it as a memento from my first Eastern Orthodox Easter celebration. Unlike Matthew, who’s so pious his candle melted on his thumb.
In many ways, Europe feels less “mission-trippy” than Central America. My friend Tony observed that the life we live in Europe feels more like the life of a believer than a missionary, (at least in the way we typically think of missionaries) as far as our daily activities go. That’s a really valid point, and I think it’s a real gift to get a taste of the lives most of us lived back in the states while out on the field in “missionary mode” because it teaches you how meaningful everything you do is. True: here, you probably won’t mix cement by hand or cook chicken foot soup for 50 orphan children. You almost certainly won’t walk a mile carrying a massive pot of tomatoes to the lady who puts them in a meat grinder to make your tomato sauce.
But here, life looks more like going out with new friends and taking the time to listen and ask questions. It looks like vacuuming the apartment you’re living in. It looks like taking selfies with teenagers in the park and getting Bulgarian music recommendations. It means picking lice out of your teammates’ hair while watching Lord of the Rings and The Office. And this Easter, it meant learning about and participating in traditions that weren’t my own.
I love these kinds of traditions, the kind that are old and churchy with candles and incense and music. I think one reason I love them is for their potential to surprise people. So many of these traditions and cathedrals have lost their flavor to people who have become disillusioned or uninterested in religion and God. But these old things beg the question: what if all the stories and beauty you thought was outdated or not for you or pointless turned out to be true? What if the things and people that came before you were on to something? What if the oldest teachings you know are always going to be the newest too? What if this cathedral and these candles aren’t here for no reason?
Christians tend to label the continent of Europe a spiritually dead place: all the grand cathedrals and basilicas are empty. God is either forgotten or antagonized. Traditions like the midnight Easter service are practiced but not taken to heart. I’m not convinced Europe is spiritually dead, but even if you want to call it that, it’s all right. Because just yesterday we celebrated the greatest fact of our lives: that God not only causes resurrection, but is resurrection. Easter is a time to acknowledge God’s power in our life to reverse chaos and death of all kinds, long after we’ve lost hope.
So sure, maybe some would say the vestiges of religious life in Europe are “just tradition” for many, but I think there’s something divine about a place where hundreds still gather at midnight to light candles and observe the moment Saturday turns into Easter Sunday. These traditions are beautiful and even more beautiful is that they aren’t empty, but substantial.
Pray for the spiritual lives of the people we know here in Sofia, be they Bulgarians, Americans, or refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Pray for resurrected hopes in the lives of everyone we’ve met here and everyone you know wherever you are in the world this spring.
