{"id":1820,"date":"2011-05-03T21:11:39","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T17:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blogblog\/?p=1820"},"modified":"2011-05-04T04:39:43","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T00:39:43","slug":"easter-egg-hunt-at-russian-orthodox-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/easter-egg-hunt-at-russian-orthodox-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unique Beauty of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Baskets waiting to be filled with treasures from the Easter egg hunt...<\/p><\/div>\n

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SikiKwaan with a filled basket in front of the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church <\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve taken our church for granted; that’s a normal thing they say cuz I grew up with this church and we all take things for granted that are a part of our everyday experience.\u00a0 Even so, that’s no excuse.<\/p>\n

I had not ever really appreciated the full beauty of our Russian Orthodox Church\u00a0 (http:\/\/stnicholasjuneau.org)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> in Juneau until a friend, who was brought up in the Catholic Church across the street, had attended my brother’s memorial service a few weeks ago, commented on the beauty of the ceremony.\u00a0 “So I got to thinking about it…”\u00a0 (A statement that our elders would say when they contemplated…)\u00a0 The following are some of my thoughts on the subject of our unique beauty of our church:<\/p>\n

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Inside the church - view left<\/p><\/div>\n

What church in Juneau is over 100 years old, and was built at the request of the Tlingit people in this area who helped actually design and build their church?\u00a0 What other church in Juneau has this kind of history combined with the elegance of the original paintings on canvas of those over 100 years old along side recent modern ones?\u00a0 Who else in town has a round church?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who else still burns untainted incense and burns hand-dipped beeswax candles during every service?\u00a0 Who else wears the traditional embroidered garments and robes during every service and wear crowns during significant ceremonies?\u00a0 Who else decorates their alter with satin cloths and real flowers?\u00a0 Who else serves actual wine and fresh-baked unleavened bread for communion?\u00a0 Who else has the congregation stand during the entire service of 2 hours?\u00a0 (Actually, there are chairs for those who need to sit.)\u00a0 What other church in Juneau has respected the Tlingit traditions for over 100 years and continues to integrate some of those traditions with the Russian Orthodox ways of doing things?\u00a0 AND who else sings traditional chants in 3 languages of Slavonic, Tlingit and English!?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Holy!\u00a0 After I got to thinking about all these things, I realized we’ve got one heck of a church that stands out amongst all of them in this community!<\/p>\n

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Inside the church - view right, where the choir stands<\/p><\/div>\n

You would think that this being a unique church just in its visual richness and cross-cultural integrations, there would be more folks attending.\u00a0 Yet, not.\u00a0\u00a0 As the elderly Native folks who were baptized many years ago pass away, and technology has shaped us over the years to have an attention span that requires more “entertainment” as long as it is short-lived, most folks do not have the patience to stand for almost 2 hours during a ceremony.\u00a0 If so, we have been conditioned into being “rewarded” with something if we are going to “suffer” through 2 hours of standing!\u00a0 Holy!<\/p>\n

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SikiKwaan finds another treasure!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Tichnon has filled his basket he handmade himself!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Directly after the Easter Sunday services, the church shared a potluck meal with traditional foods of Russia and Alaska Native - we've got the best of both worlds for more than one hundred years! -- Father Simeon cuts the roast lamb<\/p><\/div>\n

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Our traditionally-favorite Easter bread "kulich" - this loaf was made by Nora Dauenhauer - she has one of the best recipes!<\/p><\/div>\n

Come visit our church; open your mind to another experience unique to this area.\u00a0 Stand for yourself and with all those around you.\u00a0 Show yourself that you have the discipline to stand and can pay attention and be alert to the life and love around us.\u00a0 It is true not all in life is rosy; not all is comfortable.\u00a0 However, when we stand up for ourselves, we gain an inner and outer strength; if you need a “reward”, let this be enough reason.\u00a0 Here’s an open invitation to come stand with us and share an inner and outer elegance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve taken our church for granted; that’s a normal thing they say cuz I grew up with this church and we all take things for granted that are a part of our everyday experience.\u00a0 Even so, that’s no excuse. I had not ever really appreciated the full beauty of our Russian Orthodox Church\u00a0 (http:\/\/stnicholasjuneau.org) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92,19,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-and-wellness","category-honoring-others","category-tlingit-cultural-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions\/1831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}