On what Ukrainians call the “Great Day,” they greet each other with "Christ is risen" instead of “hello”—while boarding trains with drone-survival instructions.
LVIV—Today is Easter Sunday in Ukraine—or Великдень (Velykden) in Ukrainian, which means, literally, the Great Day. All over the country, people have been baking the traditional paska breads—many of which are delivered by post and volunteers to the frontline defenders.
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And of course many in Ukraine are traveling by train this weekend. When booking a rail ticket in Ukraine, you now receive a special notification, which I want to share with you—because it offers a real glimpse into the danger and solidarity in a resilient wartime nation. Read this and you’ll feel a bit of what it’s like to live in a war:
In Ukraine, the greeting beginning on Easter Sunday—and for forty days after—is: Христос Воскрес! (Khrystos Voskres!—Christ is risen!) And the reply is: Воістину Воскрес! (Voistynu Voskres!—He is risen indeed!). You can say this in a shop, on a bus, at work, in a bar, anywhere. It’s part of life.
In big cities and small towns alike, you see men, women, and children, young and old, religious or secular, dressed in the traditional vyshyvanka shirts and dresses and carrying baskets of Easter breads and meats.
Although Ukrainians now celebrate Christmas on the same calendar as the West—as they did before Communism—Easter has not yet been unified. This year, for both Orthodox and Greek Catholics, the latter in union with the Roman Catholic Church, the Easter season begins today, April 12.
This morning, amid the cobbled streets of majority Greek Catholic Lviv, crowds spilled out into the squares of ancient churches—including the 17th-century St. Andrew’s Church, whose property the Russians struck with an Iranian Islamist regime-designed drone just weeks ago.
After the morning Masses and liturgies, thousands will gather at a forest park called Shevchenkivski Hai for an afternoon and evening of dancing, feasting, and singing. It’s almost a scene from Tolkien’s Shire—even, or especially, in war. We’ll be recording the events to share with you later on, but for now you can see a look at Easter in Ukraine in recent years:
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