Easter, 11 April 2004

Christ is risen. A blessed Easter to everyone marking it today.

I should be honest about where I am writing this from. In April 2004 I had not yet moved to Kyiv, and my knowledge of a Ukrainian Easter was second-hand: colleagues describing the basket, the early service, the specific problem of getting a lit candle home without it going out.

What struck me in those descriptions was how physical it all sounded. Not a service one attends and leaves, but a whole weekend of baking, walking, standing outside, carrying things, and eating in a fixed order.

I did not yet know that I would spend the next twenty years in a country where that weekend happens every spring. To everyone at a table today: a peaceful holiday.