san3any
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May you tell us more about the celebration
Hi everyone,
I was shocked when the forum was down for the weekend. I know that we all should respect other relegious beliefs.
I am really interested to know more about this celebration, because I thought that easter was last month, even Good Friday, and I saw that the
celebration was last week!!
I might be nosey, but I just wana know more about it.
I should've asked Mike only, BUT incase anyone knows, Plz explain, I WANA LEARN MORE
thank you
Ahmed Alshami (san3any)
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spyrosc
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Orthodox Easter
The (Greek or Eastern) Orthodox Easter follows the Jewish Passover because historically that's when Jesus was crucified. The Jewish Passover was last
week, therefore the Easter was also last week.
So the Orthodox Easter follows the lunar calendar like Ramadan Karim.
The Western Easter is calculated based on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, that's why this year it happened in
March (the Equinox is around March 20-21, the first full moon followed it immediately this year).
I hope I didn't confuse you worse.
Spyros C.
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spyrosc
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More
Incidentally to all of you who, like myself, are from Egypt:
Happy Sham el Nessim today
Spyros C.
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san3any
Oud Maniac
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Thanx ALOT.......that was new for me........THANK YOU
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kasos
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I'm not Greek or Russian Orthodox myself, but I understand the timing issue has do with those churches' traditional and continuing use of the Julian
Calendar (which was ultimately replaced in Western Europe by the Gregorian one). The Julian calendar, which is the older of the two, does not use
certain relatively minor adjustment features found in the Gregorian system. Though I haven't researched the issue in detail, what I recall is that
these differences are of the type that result in procedures like leap year adjustments. I think the Julian calendar also uses the leap year concept
to some extent, but the Gregorian one has a couple of extra ones that come into play at long intervals. These small differences, compounded over the
centuries, have been enough to put the Gregorian and Julian calendars out of synch by a few weeks, and resulted in the Western and Eastern churches
celebrating Christian holidays at different times.
Hope this answers your question, at least on a preliminary basis. All the best to Mike for the good work he does on this site, and all the best to
all of those of all faiths, who may be celebrating their respective religious observances in the next little while.
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kasos
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Ooops...
Seems like someone with a much better handle on the history of it came up with the more appropriate answer while I was writing. Glad to learn
something new, on my side as well... - Kasos
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san3any
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thanx alot KASOS......you gave me useful information too. that was really nice of you....thanx all once again,.,.,
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TruePharaoh21
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Hey guys. Just a sidenote... Coptic Orthodoxy does not fall under Eastern Orthodoxy, but is known as a member of the Oriental Orthodox churches.
Also, though this year, Easter for Catholics came much earlier than the Orthodox's, they sometimes are only apart by one week, and sometimes fall on
the same day. As far as I can tell, the Catholic Easter is usually on the same day or before the Orthodox one. I hope that wasn't too confusing.
TP21
P.S. The Oriental Orthodox church includes the following:
Coptic, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Indian, Syrian, and Armenian.
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Jameel
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I think it's nice that so many here (of the ethnic Meditteraneans/Middle-easterners) are Eastern Orthodox or Coptic. I'll tie this topic in with the
oud by saying how I feel it's such a positive observation that helps clear up a misconception that Arabic music is somehow "Islamic" only. It's the
melding of various cultures that has made Arabic music enjoyable to so many. It also reminds me that in my family's village in Lebanon, the guardians
of the Shrine to the Great Martyr George, in my grandfather's time, were Moslems.
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palestine48
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Good point Jameel,I hope this is not a political statement but it is my beleif that western bias and ignorance maybe PART of the cause of now
acknowledging christianity in arab culture. I saw part because I know there are some different factors that differ from country to country but overal
I think this bias is what keeps the west from understing complexities of arab culture.
I was once watching CNN and CNBCduring easter time and they were showing the church of the sepelchure on tv and the reports comemnted that they were
"pilgrims" who worshipped there not native palestinians or other arab christians.
Arabic was a language developed before Islam and there are some churches in syria which predate Islam, that have been discovered with arabic rightings
on their doors.
Ask any arab philosopher and they will credit Islam with helping to spread the arab culture and thus Islam holds a special stature even among the
christianity community as a pillar fo the culture.
Please do not take this as political preaching but rather education about our great culture.
Rami
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spyrosc
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Brother Kassos,
First of all, if you are from the island of Kassos we might even be related, so get in touch please.
Second, people tend to think that the difference between Easter celebrations is the Gregorian vs Julian Calendar but it is not. The two Calendars are
off by about 13 days and are ALWAYS off. That's why some Christians celebrate Christmas in January. But it's always the same. It doesn't account for
the fact that sometimes the Eastern Easter coincides with the Western as our friends above mentioned correctly.
Anyway, I agree with all the brothers that those of us who believe, believe in one God, and we are all connected by our love of music and this
wonderful instrument, and hopefully we respect each other's beliefs or lack thereof.
Let's keep this forum peaceful and true. I read a lot of false statements, insults and speculation in the last few weeks. Please don't speculate if
you don't have facts, because you are not helping anybody.
We are here to help and support each other and to spread this spirit to the rest of the world if we can. We can be an example of how diverse groups of
people can get along as brothers and sisters.
Spyros C.
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eliot
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Jameel
I think it's nice that so many here (of the ethnic Meditteraneans/Middle-easterners) are Eastern Orthodox or Coptic. I'll tie this topic in with the
oud by saying how I feel it's such a positive observation that helps clear up a misconception that Arabic music is somehow "Islamic" only. It's the
melding of various cultures that has made Arabic music enjoyable to so many. It also reminds me that in my family's village in Lebanon, the guardians
of the Shrine to the Great Martyr George, in my grandfather's time, were Moslems. |
Likewise with "Turkish" classical, or Ottoman classical music - it was the fruit of centuries of devoted and great musicians of Turkish, Arab,
Armenian, Greek, Rom, and Jewish (I know, I'm being lazy and ignoring some Moldovans and others) origin. It's a mistake to collapse this down to a
single "identity," and is an unfortunate outgrowth of single-ethnicity approaches to nationalism, as well as Western inability to observe the
complexities of "other" cultures. That's why discussions on these boards is so vital...
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kasos
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To Spyros C.
Thanks for the interest you displayed in my messages, and in my choice of an onscreen name. I've come to become well enough acquainted with Kassos
to rather wish we were related. However, despite my onscreen name reference, my own family roots are a mixed bag (including Polish, Slovakian,
Catalan, French and Scottish connections - other than English, French is the only other language I speak fluently - God bless bilingual Canada!).
Though I've always appreciated oud music (my ethnomusicology teacher in university played both the oud and the renaissance lute) I've only recently
started actually learning to play the oud, and other eastern mediterranean instruments, including lyra and laouta/lavta, for myself. The impetus
for this has been a fortuitous meeting in New York City about three years ago with Mr. Elias Kulukundis, who is very proud of his family's Kasiot
roots. Elias wrote a book back in the 1960's, called Feasts of Memory, which chronicled a number of visits he made to Kasos as a young man, and
included a variety of tales from the island, some quite historical, others more in the nature of folk tales. Elias loves music, and, at the time I
met him, had just written the script for a play based on one of the stories from Feasts of Memory, and was looking for someone to try to make an opera
or musical theater piece based on it. Elias's play Three Brides for Kasos, based on a true story from the 1880's, deals with the tribulations of
young Doctor Dimitri Nikolakis, who accidentally finds himself betrothed to two women on the same day (which would be a problem now, but was truly a
catastrophe in the ritual laden environment of the time). My wife Crystal and I run a non-profit theatre group, and I was intrigued enough by Elias's
story to try to make something out of it. Though we initially experimented with a number of stylistic approaches, we finally opted to go with a
crossover piece which is more in the nature of musical theatre, and alternates between episodes using Greek folk tunes, and a pastiche of newly
composed music in a variety of other styles which would probably be more familiar to our North American audience. Three years later, we are now
preparing for the play's premiere, which will initially be in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada, this June, and then a 10 day run in July in Winnipeg,
Manitoba, a mid sized city (about 650,000 pop.) on the Canadian prairie. Winnipeg's 3000 strong Greek community includes the Vardalos family, of
whom Nia is famous for her movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Her sister Nancy Genakis is generously helping out as a consultant for Greek dance,
costumes and culture on the "Three Brides" project. Her help is vital because there aren't a lot of people of Greek ancestry in my home community
of Flin Flon, a small, rather isolated mining town surrounded by hundreds of miles of uninhabited forest lands. (It's very hilly and rocky - I like
to remind Elias it's like Kasos, surrounded by forest instead of the Mediterranean) When our group decided to take on the play as a project, we had
to begin to research regionally appropriate music, and order in instruments to help give the music some of the flavor of the Greek Islands. In
true small town spirit, someone in the cast volunteered to provide an oud that had been brought back from a trip to Tunisia some years back, only to
languish in storage. I'm glad to report that the oud is now back in service, being used by our bass player, Paul Bergman, who uses the oud instead
of the electric bass in sections where we try for a more traditional eastern Mediterranean sound. I'm glad to report that our band also includes a
bouzouki, baglama, Cretan-style lyra, and two lavtas (these were obtained, initially somewhat by mistake, in the belief that they were Laoutas, the
name under which they were advertised on E-bay - I've since been apprised of the confusion, and of the fact that the steel stringed Laouta, which we
don't have yet, would have been the more regionally accurate choice - though, because of the fact we're theoretically trying to recreate the 1880's, I
understand there's a strong historical argument that even the Cretan style Laouta would not have been common on Kasos at that time, and that the Lyra
would have probably have been used alone, or perhaps with a second lyra or maybe a small hand held drum). Anyway, it's been quite an adventure, and
we're having a wonderful time of it all. All the best, from Mark K. in Canada, hopefully soon to be an honorary Kasiot....
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mavrothis
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Very interesting Mark.
Good luck with the production. 
mavrothis
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SamirCanada
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God bless bilingual Canada hehe
happy easter from montreal to all my orthodoxe brothers.
Al Massi7 2ama
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