Christ is Risen ! Truly he is Risen/ Indeed he is
Risen!
Dear Brothers and sisters, Christ is Risen / Hristos Voskrese! This
3 days sorrounding the Orthodox Easter celebrations or Passover was
one of the most spiritually rich and joyful in my life so far.
God's grace peace and joy was abundant, the church services we had
here in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was so realistic, I felt
like really being on our Lord and saviour Jesus burial, the shround
in which he was wrapped and the holy liturgies, I also got some
nice explanations from the priest who was there from moscow
especially for that bright celebration. There are 3 Church services
day after another. This was quite refreshing to me, since I'm not
feeling spiritually here as I have blogged in my previous post. I
cannot describe the joy I experienced, Also the Lord game me the
chance to share the good news of the gospel with a couple of people
here. On the 2nd day the Bulgarians has organized a feast to
celebrate the celebration, what was pity was that they were not
really celebrating the resurrection of our Lord but was enjoying
themselves
Anyways. The Liturgy on the first day of the resurrection
of Christ was actually two liturgies combined in one and was the
longest church service I have ever attended in my life, it lasted
for around 5 years, and right after the priest did a food blessing
service (not sure about the english name) in Bulgarian we call it
"vodosvet". Then all the people who stayed until the end of the
Church service sat together prayed and started eating, I ated a lot
there! The food was so delicious. The relations between me and the
rest especially Rob was so nice, we were exactly like kids who just
has received their gifts (the food). I have to mention that on the
previous day I also has confessed infront of the priest and he
explained me the difference between this church and ours and also
blamed our church for taking part of the ecomenism (well he had a
point about that). On the Church service on a couple of times I
felt my legs really weak so I had to sit every now and then. We
went out of the church and singed Christ is Risen from the Dead
Trampling up death by death and to those in tombs bestowing life!
The priest proclaimed the resurrection in around 6 languages! in
which all type of lenguages were answered the equivalent words for
"Truely is Risen!". I went out of the Church in 7:00 (in the
morning!)
overfilled with joy and happiness and The Lord's grace. It
was exactly like I've spend hours out of the world for quite some
time, I would say an unbelievable experience. I did the dishes
right before I left the Church in the morning, Svetla decided to
give me some food for home
Which was
quite nice, food in the Church seems like from a different
substance from the normal food here in the Netherlands, more or
less I feel it like the Bulgarian food. I had also the oportunity
to test a lot of Russian food, like for example a sort of soar cake
named right after the celebration "Pasha", there was a long
interesting cakes as well I forgot how they used to call them.
There was a lot of russian food, many of which was quite similar to
ours in Bulgaria!
Everything I
experienced their and the joy and peace cannot be simple explained
in a text, just have to went through it. I should be amazingly
thankful to God for bringing me in the true source of faith the
Orthodoxy! Glory be to you Almightly Lord (Glory be to the Father,
The Son and The holy Spirit!) now and forever and ever! Amen