RELIGIOUS CONVERGENCE

For the non-religious, Easter has come to mean frilly Easter bonnets, straw baskets full of chocolate bunnies and hard-boiled eggs dyed in bright spring colors.

But the holiday celebrated today -- known as Pascha in the Eastern Orthodox church -- has deep, spiritual roots that are the foundation of the Christian faith.

"When we get to Holy Week, each day is a meditation on Christ going to his Passion," said Father Lawrence Margitich of Saint Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Christian Church in Santa Rosa. "We think about the cross, what happens when he dies, his taking death captive, his rising from the dead, and our incorporation into that new risen life, even now, before we die."

Since eastern Christianity uses a different calendar than western Christianity, Pascha often falls on a different day. Last year, Easter was celebrated on March 31, while Pascha was celebrated five weeks later, on May 5.

Every few years, however, the two Christian celebrations coincide, as they do today. This year, they both also overlap with the eight-day Passover holiday, which began at sunset on April 14 and continues through Tuesday.

To mark the unusual convergence of these three, religious holidays, we spoke with local religious leaders about their traditions and how they will be celebrated today.

Although he is the leader of the oldest Eastern Orthodox church in the North Bay (established in 1936), Father Lawrence of Saint Seraphim uses a modern metaphor to describe what the "Holy Days of Holy Days" means to his congregation.

"To us, this is what March Madness is to basketball fans," he said. "It's the journey to Pascha, like March Madness is the journey to the Final Four and the Championship."

Throughout Lent, members of his congregation withdraw from the world and purify themselves through prayer, fasting and works of mercy. The church as a whole also helps the adults prepare to be baptized.

"It's a way to restore the grace within us, and the purity of heart," he said. "During Lent, people are coming to me for confession and spiritual guidance."

After Lent concludes, the church marks the transition to Holy Week with two Lazarus Saturday services and a Palm Sunday service, followed by a procession and a meal. During Holiday Week, there are often two services a day, including early morning Matins services that begin in darkness and ends in light.

Starting on Great and Holy Thursday, which commemorates the Mystical (Last) Supper, the mood in the church grows more solemn and he services grow longer, some stretching nearly to three hours.

"Once it starts, you're in a different reality," Father Lawrence said. "It's like baseball. There is no clock... there is no time."

Finally, after two services on Great and Holy Friday, an all-night vigil into Saturday morning and a community baptism service on Saturday afternoon, about 350 church members gathered at 11:30 last night for the pinnacle of Pascha: a jubilant celebration kicking off with candle lighting and a procession.

"It's non-stop singing... from midnight until 3 a.m," he said. "In the Protestant world, there's the crucifixion and resurrection, but the build-up to it is so much less. You don't have the same journey."

After that, everyone heads to the Fellowship Hall to break the fast with a hearty meal of sausages, eggs and cheese. Then at 1 p.m. today, the congregation returns for another Paschal service, followed by a potluck and barbecue on the lawn until dusk.

"The week after Pascha, people miss it all," he said. "There's a post-Pascha letdown."

-- Diane Peterson

To the Rev. Julio Orozco, Easter is the most sacred of Christian traditions.

The remembrance of the crucification of Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the tomb three days later is, says the pastor of the evangelical Santa Rosa Alliance Church, "the greatest event ever."

"We believe there is a lot of evidence, facts we can talk about it. It's not just, 'Let's have some folk music and fun.' It's more than that. It's what we believe as a church."

Virtually all Christian faiths from Protestant to Catholics celebrate the Passion of Christ with common rituals, including Sunrise Services on Easter Sunday.

Open services will be held this year at 6:30 a.m. at Santa Rosa Memorial Park, officiated by pastor Zach Vestnys of Petaluma's Calvary Chapel, and at 5:45 a.m. at Cline Cellars winery in Sonoma, led by Father Michael Kelly of St. Francis Solano Church.

Orozco, whose diverse congregation holds separate services in English, Spanish and Cambodian, said his church usually holds services at dawn on Easter Sunday as well, although they won't be doing it this year.

Sunrise is significant in the Easter tradition. It was just after sunrise on "the day after the sabbath," that Mary Magdalene (some Gospel accounts also mention one to two other women) came to Jesus' tomb to annoint his body and found the heavy stone barrier rolled away and the body missing.

"The Bible says it was early morning and that the Hebrew traditional calendar started at 6 o'clock in the morning," Orozco said. Most churches base their sunrise service tradition on the fact that it was in the morning, according to Bible lore, when Jesus was resurrected.

His church this year will uphold a long tradition of filling a cross with flowers. Each member of the congregation has an opportunity to come forward and place a flower on a wire cross, eventually covering it completely with colorful spring blooms.

-- Meg McConahey

Passover is a Biblically-derived spring festival that may well be the origin of The Golden Rule.

"You should love another as you love yourself and you can correlate this to the ethical evolution of the Passover story," said Dr. Henry Shreibman, assistant professor of religion and philosophy of Dominican University in San Rafael.

Passover, which began last Monday and ends on Tuesday, commemorates the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt about 3,300 years ago.

Celebrations focus around a "seder" or ritual feast with traditional foods. For example, tasting bitter herbs symbolizes the rancor of slavery, while dipping greens into salt water illustrates the Jews' tears for the death of the Egyptians.

"The enemy's loss is still your loss and salt water and tears become symbols of that," Shreibman said. "The seder teaches you to be kind to your enemy. There's no war dance at the end. Just kindness."

Shreibman was the founding professor of the Jewish Studies Minor Program at Sonoma State University, and he has hosted community seders inviting Jews and non-Jews alike for more than 30 years.

"My goal in having community seders is to help guide Jews, Christians and Muslims to treat the 'other' with kindness and understanding," he said. "Then we'll have a happy spring and every other season."

--Peg Melnik