Patience is required to last through Easter services at the Russian Orthodox Church.
The early Great Saturday Divine Liturgy service lasts three hours and then many return for the midnight service which goes on for a similar length of time.
The church was full for the midnight Easter service, a ritual that culminates in a procession around church grounds and the acclamation “Christ is risen” in the different languages of the congregation.
The Russian Orthodox community in Ireland celebrated Easter this weekend, a week after the western tradition. The two Christian traditions work off different calendars for the calculation of Easter.
The only Russian Orthodox Church in Ireland is in Harold's Cross in Dublin. The Church of St Peter and St Paul was formerly Church of Ireland, becoming Russian Orthodox in 2001.
Irish woman Ciara O’Sullivan from Cork has been a member of the congregation for 18 years. She lived closed by.
“I was attracted to the beauty of the faith,” she said. “It’s a very deep faith . . . It is close to what Christ has taught as any faith is in the world today.”
This is an Easter like no other in the Orthodox tradition. Moscow-based Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, has sided with Russian president Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill opened the Irish church in 2001.
An open letter decrying the war has been signed by 293 prominent clergy in Russia while the church in Amsterdam has left the Russian Orthodox Church in protest.
There is a donation box for Ukrainian refugees in the little shop attached to the Harold’s Cross church and on its website the church offers English lessons for refugees.
Parishioners said many were helping Ukrainians by deeds not words – accommodating them and helping to find them employment. An appeal for a Ukrainian woman about to give birth yielded a cot, buggy and plenty of baby clothes.
“It is painful for people. People mostly come for the salvation of the soul. We don’t talk about it,” Ms O’Sullivan said.
Diana Ivanova, who is Latvian and is helping a Ukrainian couple to find work, said: "Most people are staying away from politics. This is a place for people to gather, to pray, to be together and to help. The ceremony is in Russian because Russian is the language of the old Soviet Union countries. We hear all the stories. All we can do is support and help them to build a network in Ireland."
The social highlight is the blessing of the festive Easter food on Great Saturday afternoon. Parishioners bring along breads, wine, cakes, sweets and chocolate to share with others. There are “pysanky” or painted eggs, a Ukrainian tradition and one done in solidarity this year with refugees.
The offerings are laid out on long tables and are blessed with holy water by the priest, Fr Mikhail Nasonov, not with a gentle sprinkling as in the Catholic tradition but a great swish descending on the congregation.
Church warden Alexey Gaskov said the foods on offer reflected the multinational nature of the church. Most of the congregation are not Russian, he said. Along with painted eggs from Ukraine, there was Moldovan wine and Russian breads, as well as home-made cakes from every part of eastern Europe.
He said the congregation had been praying for peace in Ukraine, but had been doing so for the last eight years since the war began in the Donbas region.
Russian ambassador
Throughout Saturday afternoon people came and went and were blessed by Fr Nasonov. Among them was Russian ambassador to Ireland Yury Filatov who made an inconspicuous entrance and then left promptly.
The ambassador said he would like to come to the church more often. “When I have a chance I come here. Faith is a major part of my life.”
He then defended his government's actions in Ukraine, saying the Irish Government and public have only heard one side of the story.
One Russian parishioner, who said she would only speak on the basis of anonymity, gave defended the war in Ukraine. She claimed to have been attacked three times since the war began, simply because she is Russian.
“To be honest I support Putin and so do 87 per cent of the Russian people. Putin brought Russia up from its knees. We were very poor,” she explained.
“Ukraine is separate for only 30 years. Eighty per cent of Ukrainians are Russian. From 2014, when we had the revolution in the Maidan, half of the population don’t want to go to Europe . America is spending billions sending weapons to Ukraine. This is not a war between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and America in Ukraine.”
