Next week, the prelude to Easter, is traditionally called Holy Week. Holy Week
is time for all
to celebrateChristians are not the only
By Mary Adamski
ones observing holy days in
the week before Easter
Star-BulletinThis year, it qualifies for that title beyond the Christian context as other major religions mark their holy days.
Jews tonight begin the seven-day celebration of Passover, commemorating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Buddhists tomorrow will mark the birthday of Buddha at the annual Hanamatsuri festival at 9 a.m. at Kaimuki High School auditorium.
And this year, the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity will observe Holy Week and Easter at the same time as western churches. Their celebrations coincide only rarely because the eastern church uses the Julian calendar to compute the date of Easter, while the west uses the Gregorian calendar created in the 16th century. Both branches tie the Easter date to the lunar Hebrew calendar by which Passover is set.
Like the colors on an Easter egg-painting palette, diversity prevails in many island celebrations. It is a season for churches to hold shared services.Tomorrow, the Palama Interfaith Council will hold its 28th annual Palm Sunday Parade. The public is invited to join the march starting at 8 a.m. at Beretania and Smith streets. It ends at Kaumakapili Church with a program featuring Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Oswald Stender and Royal Hawaiian Band director Aaron Mahi as speakers. Community service awards will be presented.
Palm Sunday relives Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, greeted by supporters waving palm branches. Palm or olive branches are distributed in many churches in memory of that parade.
Several Nuuanu congregations will join in a walk to four churches between noon and 3 p.m. Good Friday, a day that memorializes the crucifixion death of Jesus. Meditations about the last words of Jesus will be the focus at noon at Harris United Methodist Church; 12:45 p.m. at Nuuanu Baptist Church; 1:30 p.m. at First Church of the Nazarene; and 2:15 p.m. at Community Church of Honolulu.
This will be the 100th anniversary of Honolulu's oldest ecumenical festival, the Easter Sunrise Service at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl. A Sunday School teacher and a few teenage boys first climbed a footpath on the slopes of Puowaina in 1902 to sing hymns to greet Easter morning.
It has grown to attract hundreds of worshippers. The 6:15 a.m. service this year will feature the Rev. Frank Chong, executive director of Waikiki Health Center, as speaker, and music by the Royal Hawaiian Band.The gates will open at 4:30 a.m. TheBus will run special shuttles departing from Monsarrat Avenue terminal at 5:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. with stops on Kuhio and Kalakaua avenues and at Alapai terminal.
Some Christian congregations plan a version of a Jewish Seder, the traditional Passover meal, for Holy or Maundy Thursday.
Catholic Bishop Francis DiLorenzo will wash the feet of several people at the Lord's Supper service at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in a tradition based on the Gospel account of Christ's Last Supper with his Apostles.
The only time adults are formally brought into the Catholic church is during Easter Vigil services. Some 246 people will be baptized at Saturday night services in churches statewide.
Orthodox believers celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ, but with some differences from the western church, explained the Rev. Dean Kouldukis, pastor of Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church.
Orthodox believers have spent the 40-day period of Lent in rigorous fasting, abstaining from meat, fish, dairy products and oil.
"The purpose is twofold, to lead us to a sense of repentance and to recommitment, reaffirmation of our baptismal vows," Kouldukis said.
The Orthodox congregation will gather at 6 p.m. Thursday to commemorate the Crucifixion. A 3 p.m. Friday service will recall how Christ's followers took his body from the cross and buried it in a tomb. At 7 p.m., a service of Lamentations focuses on Christ destroying Satan's bonds.
Christ's Resurrection is symbolized in the lighting of the Paschal candle at the Great Easter service which begins at midnight Saturday.
The only local Orthodox church embraces members of ethnic Orthodox churches from Greece, Russia and the Middle East. They will gather again Easter evening for a vespers service that celebrates the "universal character of Christ's message" by proclaiming it in the different languages of the crowd.
Last year people took turns, reading the Gospel story in 12 different languages.