this week

it's holy week.

holy week is the week leading up to easter.

i know right.

let me explain.

We are Eastern Orthodox Christians...

Christians of the eastern church (i.e churches under the jurisdiction of  *Constantinople*  a.k.a. orthodox churches whether it be greek, serbian, russian, antiochian, romainian, etc.) have not celebrated easter yet...we celebrate easter on sunday as in sunday april 15th western churches are those under the jurisdiction of *Rome* and/or follow the georgian calendar.

the eastern & western churches used to be one in the same. they split in 1054 in what was called the Great Schism. 

easter doesn't always fall separately. last year it didn't. so i didn't feel weirdo. this year it does. so i sort of feel like a weirdo. i only feel weird when i have to explain it, and i always have to explain it ha!  my boys think it's awesome when this happens because they get to celebrate Easter twice on to separate days. once with my family and once with the in-laws.

being silly before one of our many services this week.

in the eastern church two things have to pass in order for it to be Easter. 

     1. the first day of spring. i.e. the vernal equinox. the eastern and western church differ on when the vernal equinox actually is because 1) they follow different calendars.  2) the moons 

     2. passover. easter cannot be on the same weekend as because Jesus had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of passover before his crucifixion took place and died only hours before the passover meal was eaten. therefore with passover being last saturday there wasn't enough time for jesus to be crucified and rise on the third day before sunday. does that make sense?

and just so i'm clear i am not saying either is right or wrong. so please don't think that.

for a more in depth explanation thats easy to understand go here.

you know you wanted a religious history lesson. 

i was born and raised catholic. western

my husband was born and raised orthodox. eastern

both faiths...CHRISTIAN. 

when we got married and discussed how we would raise our children we decided we would raise them in both churches...but when my first bebe came along we decided to raise them Orthodox. it was on my husbands heart in a big way, so i studied and converted. the way i saw it i was still a Christian and at the end of the day as long as i'm loving JESUS together with my family all is well in the world. the rest doesn't really matter.

hope you all have a fabulous weekend!
we'll be celebrating.

Christos Anesti!
Christ is Risen!

p.s. thanks for letting me talk about this. Orthodoxy isn't hugely popular in the U.S. (in my town we have 1 orthodox church. in bigger areas like los angeles, new york, and chicago there are more) so i always feel awkward talking about my faith, because not everyone knows or fully understands what it is.
it's christian.