More on Maslenitza

Wow - someone from the CU Russian Club reads my blog? That's actually kind of cool. And a little bit freaky at the same time. ;-)

I know the Maslenitza event was not scheduled for Great and Holy Friday intentionally. I'm just a little floored at the lack of recognition of the fact that it is a holiday related to the Orthodox Christian calendar, but is held on the one day a year that makes it completely irrelevant as a cultural event for an Orthodox Christian. Believe me, I'd love to go eat a bunch of blini and play tug-of-war, just not on Great & Holy Friday. And I have been involved in campus student groups enough to know that it's really hard to fit events around the academic calendar and weather, let alone consider religious and cultural considerations too.

That said, Maslenitsa is supposed to be sort of the Russian version of Mardi Gras or Shrove Tuesday. It usually happens on the last non-fasting Friday before Lent. So it's a party with lots of food and what might be considered fun of the non-Lenten or non-spiritual kind. It's related to the fact that during Lent there won't be any of that "fun" or food - Orthodox Christians fast from all meat, dairy and oil for 40 days and also generally don't go to parties during that time.

Great and Holy Friday is the Friday during Holy Week (the week leading up to Pascha) - where Orthodox Christians observe the crucifixion of Christ. It's the strictest fast day of the year (typically nothing by mouth all day) and the one of most somber spiritual nature. This year, it occurs this Friday, April 21st.

I just find it ironic that this celebration is planned for Orthodox Great Friday. It's sort of like planning a party to honor Jewish culture and having, say, Hanukkah as the theme but holding the party on Yom Kippur when any Jews that might actually want to come are observing their most somber and fasting day of the year. I'm sure that would never happen in Boulder!

So all I was saying is that this celebration is supposed to recognize this part of Russian culture that is related to Orthodox Christianity, but the fact that it's being held on Great Friday makes it lose all cultural relevance. That's all.

It'd be nice if the Russian students were also offered extra credit for attending an Agape Vespers service this Sunday (11 am at St. Elias in Arvada if you are interested, but the same service is offered at all the Orthodox churches in the area - a Google search would probably yield service times) - the Gospel will be read in several different languages including Russian.

And now back to my regularly scheduled Holy Week...