How to celebrate Easter in times of war?

For Easter, Serhii would like to visit his parents. But in eastern Ukraine, “the war makes everything too uncertain to make plans”, underlines the forty-year-old, who defines himself as “orthodox and rarely goes to church”. In Lviv, where he has lived since 2022, drones were flying overhead two days before. “Today, no one is trying to kill me, so that’s good!” “, he quips. Behind the joke, the tension mixed with exhaustion is palpable.

Co-founder of the NGO Evum, which helps 182 children suffering from cancer, Serhii spends long working days locked in his offices. “I almost never go out, so my neighbors worry about how I live. Those on the first floor bring me soup once a week. Those of the fifth, bread and water. » So if one thing is certain, it is that on the occasion of Easter, on Sunday April 12 for the Orthodox, he will manage with his team to bring them some small gifts: sausages, beer, fruit, sweets…

The situation is calmer in Novoselytsia, southwest Ukraine, where Marina lives. However, if the young woman, also Orthodox, plans to visit her loved ones for Easter, she cannot help but highlight the absence of those, many, who have fled abroad. Certainly traditional celebrations are maintained in churches, but “we no longer feel them as before”.

“The worry is constant and this influences the emotional state with which we welcome Easter,” she confides. In the current circumstances, for me this holiday is no longer associated only with tradition but with hope. Joy, more restrained, is also more conscious. »

Prayer and perseverance

In south Beirut, Lebanon, it is at home that Maryana is preparing to celebrate Easter. The 24-year-old girl is however used to participating in church activities, both on the Catholic side with her mother and on the Protestant side with her father. “Not only at Easter, by the way, even if this year the suffering of Jesus directly resonates with what we are experiencing,” she slips. But without a car, with the increase in bus ticket prices and dangerous roads, there is a good chance that the day will be spent with family.

Faith in the resurrection, joy of being together… Jean-Baptiste perceives all of this more intensely at the same time as he has “the concrete but also spiritual experience of war”. This young Frenchman, Catholic, is passing through Lebanon with Hortense, his wife, to lend a hand to Aid to the Church in Need as well as other NGOs. Having just returned from a convoy, as humanitarian as spiritual, in the south of the country (shelled by the Israeli air force and where a priest was killed on March 9), he testifies to the perseverance of the Christians, mainly Maronites, remaining in a few villages which are now almost inaccessible: “If they leave, they fear not being able to return. But for them, to leave this land that Christ himself trod would be like betraying the Gospel.”

“Our visit, in which the apostolic nuncio participated, was welcomed with the sound of bells, like an extension of Palm Sunday, celebrated the day before. They need to feel that the Church cares about them,” says Jean-Baptiste. Moreover, many people, during our discussions, insist on the importance of the prayer of Christians in other countries to support them.

A “little resurrection”

On the Israeli side of the border, Christians experience other difficulties. “For the first time at Easter, access to the Holy Sepulcher is closed for security reasons,” notes Father Johnny Abu Khalil, director of the Haifa pastoral center. In addition, a capacity of less than 50 people was imposed during the celebrations. And the priest, who intends to visit his parents in Jerusalem, points out this paradox: “We cannot invite the faithful to come, for fear of overtaking, but we cannot tell them not to come either! »

In Tel Aviv, the incessant sirens have imposed a form of pragmatism. “We will celebrate Easter mass on Saturday, in an underground shelter. On Sunday, with the children, we will paint eggs, hide them and organize an egg hunt. We will also prepare a beautiful buffet, all in a shelter,” explains Monika, pastoral coordinator of youth and children for the Vicariate of Saint-Jacques, a Hebrew-speaking Catholic community welcoming many migrants.

In Palestinian territory, services will be maintained as much as possible. For Bashar Fawadleh, priest of the Latin parish of Taybeh, a Christian village in the West Bank often targeted by Israeli settlers, “Easter is celebrated precisely because there is fear”.

His personal program on this special day? Visiting people who are alone, suffering, sick or who have lost hope: “The Resurrection is not only an event in which we believe, it is a life that we are called to give birth to around us. Every time we give hope to someone, there is a little resurrection that happens. »