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Just as many Utahns are recovering from Sunday's Easter celebrations, Eastern Orthodox Christians are beginning their journey.

That's because Western and Eastern Christians use a different calendar to calculate the most holy day of the year.

Both set Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox, as established by the Council of Nicea in 325. But Western churches use the Gregorian calendar, while Orthodox churches use the older Julian calendar.

On top of that, Eastern Orthodox churches require that Easter always follow Passover since the Bible states that Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection took place after he entered Jerusalem for the Jewish holiday. In the Western church, Easter sometimes precedes Passover by weeks.

Holy Week for Eastern Orthodox churches began April 16 with Palm Sunday. Every day thereafter, the faithful commemorate a different aspect of Jesus' ministry during his final days: the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, preparing to meet "the Bridegroom," anointing body and soul for healing and cleansing, and other events leading up to Jesus' trial, judgment and Crucifixion.

On Holy Friday, parishioners decorate a large funeral bier - which symbolizes Christ's tomb - with flowers. The priest places the epitaphios, a cloth embroidered with an image of Christ, inside the bier.

The high point of the evening service comes when the bier is carried out of the church. The congregation follows in procession around the church, singing solemn hymns and carrying lit candles.

Orthodox Easter rituals culminate tonight at 11 with the anastasi, or Resurrection service. Members stand in a darkened church, each with an unlit white candle, while prayers are chanted.

At midnight, the priest comes out of the altar carrying a lit candle and proclaiming Christ's Resurrection. The light is then given to the congregation, who pass it along to one another one candle at a time. Soon the whole church is ablaze in light and the congregation sings "Christos Anesti" or "Christ Is Risen."

During the Easter Sunday agape service, which encourages love, forgiveness and reconciliation, the gospel is read in several languages.

"It symbolizes the fact that Christ's gospel is taken to the ends of the Earth," says Father Michael Kouremetis, head priest in Utah's Greek Orthodox community.

Kouremetis would love to see Western and Eastern Christians celebrate a common Easter, rather than the usual week or more apart. In 1997, the World Council of Churches of Christ, a largely Protestant Christian body, launched a movement for Western and Eastern churches to agree on a common date.

There was much enthusiasm for the effort on both sides, but formal agreement never was reached. The dates coincided in 2001 and 2004 and will again in 2007.

"It would be our goal to return to one church," he says. "But Easter would have to follow Passover. It's written in Scripture."

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Contact Peggy Fletcher Stack at pstack@sltrib.com or 801-257-8725. Send comments about this article to religioneditor@sltrib.com.