Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

I hope everyone had a blessed Pascha! Here are some pics from Holy Week at the monastery. We had a wonderful week, dyeing eggs (Holy Thursday),decorating the epitaphios (Holy Friday),and everything else in between the treasury of services all week that lead up to the glorious Resurrection service (Holy Saturday),

The following picture is of the "polyeleos". It translates into great mercy. At our monastery we have two of them. The candles on them are lit and one of the monks swings them around. I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but at the bottom there is a hand shaped in the form of a priest's blessing. It swings around "blessing" the people. One of the fathers told Ace once that we light it when we celebrate a feast here on earth and at the same time they are celebrating in Heaven. It is impossible to describe the joy you feel when watching this. You really feel the communion between God and man.After all was said and done we left with a surefire sign that we are Orthodox...red fingers! :)