Christ Is Risen! Christos Anesti! Our series looking back twenty years enters its fifth month. Last month I shared the April 2006 issue of The Messenger, and our heroes were anticipating the parish's first Pascha in their new Shoreline building.

That Pascha has now happened, and the May 2006 issue is the parish doing what every Orthodox parish does just after the marathon of Lent, Holy Week and Pascha: catching its breath, looking at photos, and trying to articulate what just happened.

This month in his reflection, Fr. Tom has invited parishioners to share what touched them during Lent, Holy Week, and Pascha. One person wrote about a moment of sudden recognition during the Holy Friday services. As Fr. Tom moved through the church flinging fragrant rose water over the congregation, this parishioner was reminded of the Myrrhbearers who came to anoint Christ's body with myrrh and spices and then realized that the people the priest was sprinkling are the body of Christ.

In his President's Corner article, George Plumis reports that Metropolitan Gerasimos, who visited Holy Apostles for the Bridegroom Service on Holy Monday, called it "the most uplifting Holy Monday he had ever celebrated." The most uplifting Holy Monday a Metropolitan had ever celebrated, in a building the parish had been in for just over two months!

The May 2006 issue closes with a full-page photo collage from Pascha. Kids clustered around a magician, families mingling, Greek dancing, games and laughter, all behind a banner reading "Christ is Risen! Celebrating together on Pascha Sunday 2006." It's a beautiful piece of parish memory, full of faces both familiar and not.

Twenty years on, we have just walked our own Pascha season in a building that is both the same and not the same as the one in those 2006 photos. The grassy gathering areas are piles of excavated dirt. Backhoes are parked where long tables would typically be set up. There is no kitchen and the fellowship hall is diminutive. I heard from a few people that Pascha felt a little different this year, and it was different. I felt it too. The space is different. The pathways are different. The bathrooms are outside, around a corner, down a path and up a ramp.

At one point during our Lenten journey I thought back on a photo I saw several years ago. Two Ukrainian Orthodox priests were celebrating the Divine Liturgy on a subway platform during the war, because that's where their people were safe from bombs. Orthodox communities across the world and across history have celebrated Pascha in catacombs, in prison camps, in exile, in war zones. How blessed are we, to celebrate the Resurrection in a construction zone. Wherever we are, we are called to bring the light of Pascha with us.

If you'd like to see what bringing the light of Pascha into a construction zone looked like, here's our 2026 Pascha photo gallery. Same candles. Same procession. Same joy. Way more plywood in the background.

The full May 2006 PDF is below. Click on the cover image to download. I hope to see you next month for June!

Warmly,

Erica