Local orthodox church celebrates Easter in new home

Today, members of St. Joseph of Optina Russian Orthodox Church will gather at 2 p.m. in their church’s dining room in Virginia Beach. They will feast on lamb and paska, a sweet dish made with a soft, white cheese and decorated with the Russian letters, “X.B,” meaning Christ is risen. They will have kulich, a traditional bread, and vodka, the staple beverage, and hard-boiled eggs of all decoration and color, but definitely red, dyed to symbolize the blood of Christ.

The congregation will spill into the grass behind their church for their egg hunt, and will celebrate for as long and as loud as they desire.

Because, this Easter, they are home.

Their new chapel is in a small, brick commercial park, sandwiched between a State Farm and a Pre-Paid Legal and Identity Theft service on Kempsville Road, in a former office space. It is an incredible stretch from the sanctuary they once had in a secluded meadow in Chesapeake, a church nestled in the woods and painted brown to match the tall trees that surrounded it.

They left that church in 2005, after a zoning dispute. Since then the congregation has worshipped at the two-story home of its founder, the Very Rev. Archpriest Seraphim Stephens. Sometimes the divine liturgy was in the garage; often it was in the living room. Always it required patience and understanding, which his congregation is blessed with, Stephens said. While most Russian Orthodox congregations are largely converts, his group of about 50 comprises mostly immigrants from Eastern Europe, including Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, Stephens said. English is their second language. The church is one of the few places where they can share fellowship and exchange recipes from their ethnic backgrounds and in their native tongue.

The services of St. Joseph are in Russian and English, and during special ceremonies, sometimes the words are also uttered in Hebrew and Aramaic, reflective of the church's ancient beginnings.

Russian Orthodox worship is known for its beauty in ritual and tradition; women must cover their heads during services, for all precious things must be covered. Men and women are asked to wear long sleeves in a nod to modesty.

The walls of their sanctuary usually are decorated with the copies of icons, reminiscent of Byzantine art, flat depictions of church stories and saints, which are respected for who and what they represent. They are often called "windows to heaven" because in the early days of the church most worshippers could not read and followed the stories of the Bible through the artwork. The images are also seen as witnesses to the congregation's worship.

But in Stephens' living room, space came at a premium. Some icons were displayed on a shelf and the piano. Some were packed into boxes. At services, parishioners stood close with the backs of their legs pressed against the sofa. They stayed clear of the walls so as not to upset the family photos, and watched to make sure that a solemn bow wouldn't clear the end tables of their lamps.

Often, some of the mysticism of the ceremonies was lost.

Typically, a priest would do many of his holy preparations behind the privacy of an iconostas, or icon screen; Stephens had to make due by turning his back to his congregants.

Last year, before St. Joseph members began their Pascha, or Easter vigil, at around 10:30 p.m., they covered the wide window in Stephens' living room. They didn't want neighbors to get suspicious of the service that extends until the early morning.

Then they followed their customs and began the vigil. Worshippers took turns reading the book of Acts by a single candle's light.

At about midnight, it came time for Resurrection liturgy, part of which requires church members to circle the place of worship three times - symbolizing the walk to Jesus' tomb. Congregants looped through Stephens' house and then paraded in a circle in his backyard. They worried what the neighbors might think.

"It was the most inconvenient Pascha," Stephens said.

Two weeks ago, in preparing for Great and Holy Week, Stephens sat in his church, thinking of how this year's Pascha will be so much more reverent.

His worshippers will enter a glass front door to greet and kiss a framed copy of the Kursk Root icon, which depicts images of Mary and is the main holy icon of the Russian Church Outside of Russia. They will walk into a wood-paneled room that might have been a secretary's office in another life. It is now the narthex where church members pause to light and place candles in a box of sand and watch the smoke send their prayers to heaven.

This tradition was skipped at Stephens' home because the risk of setting fire to the carpet and draperies was too great.

In the nave, the larger and main room of worship, congregants will stand for services, but a pew sits in the narthex for the elderly and families with small children. Chimes will be played during the services. They had been missed during the past few years, but now line a wall.

Parishioners will walk, then kneel, and walk again toward the icon of the tomb of Christ, which will rest before a large iconostas and its gold-painted royal doors that now dominate the nave. The iconostas with its doors, which can be entered only by the priest, symbolize the threshold between heaven and earth. For years, it had sat in Stephens' garage.

Victoria Grigorita moved to the United States from Russia two years ago and found out about the church online. Their new home is like a gift from God, she said. They can paint the rooms any color they want, like their own house, and women meet and bake bread together. Being able to chat with others in her native tongue is also wonderful, she said.

"We're able to share more details, memories you have from Russia," she said, "memories from growing up in Russia."

The new space allows them to bring more friends to worship, and Grigorita said she knows that this is one step in the congregation's journey.

"We are working on something bigger, but I'm so grateful for what we have now."

Denise Watson Batts, (757) 446-2504, denise.batts@pilotonline.com