Easter time

It's hard to notice religious celebrations while staying in a social bubble full of hippies and university graduates. But there's still world outside of the bubble. Unlike in a monastery, I can still leave it and meet the masses. And there are heretics even within the bubble…

One of such extremists organized a visit to a morning Easter celebration at the local church, before sunrise. I thought: I'm going to bless an Easter basket, after all we just saved some eggs from being thrown out! But I didn't expect any palms, that's too odd to exist outside of Poland. Given that I've recently been waking up at the firsrt rays of sunshine, I might as well go and see what traditions the religious Germans follow.

Easter comes. The alarm rings, it's 4:40 on the clock. I go downstairs to see sleepy faces and… empty hands? Where are your baskets with food? No, they say, it's a Catholic custom, and we're going to an Evangelical church. Oh, I see. My disappointment is my own fault. After all, not all German Christians are Catholics like they would be in Poland. Here, the Evangelicals are another large group. Different regions have different proportions, and here it just so happened that we're going to an Evangelical church. And the Evangelicals don't bless items, but they bless people instead. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We move out. Darkness covers the town, a couple of lights flicker in the windows of buildings as we pass by them. There are a couple of cars and bikes in front of the church. We enter the vestibule. Inside a table with candles and printouts of songs emerges from dim light. That's already interesting, all I ever got back in Poland was holy pictures and the wafer. At least that's what I remember. We pick up a candle and a paper each and quietly open the door to the main hall.

Pitch black… except for one little light of a candle, which dances in the hands of a priest who bounces, chanting mysterious incantations, from one place to another. Oh no, we're late!

We take seats at the pews. There's maybe 20 people here, their candles still unlit. Oh wait, there are more pews over there, near the altar. The light multiplies – the priest shares his fire, lighting the candles of his helper. Darkness recedes, revealing more people, but there's still less than 100. Is that because of the unusual time of day? Later I learned that it was still more than the typical number. And they didn't even fill a quarter of the church! I can hardly understand that – when I was a kid, coming late for the 11:00 mass on a Sunday was enough to be forced to stay outside due to the insides being full – and that church was larger, in a similar backwater – people spilled over onto the grounds, thousands of people, faintings, scorching Sun…

Meanwhile, night still covers the German backwater church. A faint glow of the town enters the windows behind the altar while fire spreads across the candles of the worshippers. And also mine. I pass it on deeper into the pew. White, thin candles with a metal handle to protect the holder from getting burned by the dripping wax. Hypnotizing. They burn exceptionally evenly, without flashes, without fizzling and without soot. The church illuminates enough for me to see not one, but three crosses. Three Jesuses? That cannot be. Those on the sides must be the other condemned. It's interesting that persons who are not worshipped get statues of a similar size and in a similar privileged placement as God. On the other hand, there aren't any likenesses of Mary to be seen. Is that a matter of denominations or countries?

A long time passes without anything special happening. The priest blabbers, the organist plays, the people sing. The sheet of paper contains everything I need to participate – a great idea, the mass (– it's not mass, it's service! – uh, okay) the service becomes a lot more approachable for people like me who don't quite know what to do. Could that be a result of dropping church membership? Making return easy by making participation easy? And the speakers are head and shoulders better than those in Poland. You can actually understand what the priest is saying, hell, you can hear the water being poured into the baptismal font! Wait a minute, water? I tear my eyes away from the hypnotizing candle. Just in time, because the priest just finished reading about baptism and is getting to the thick of it – and holy water is getting to the worshippers by the means of a brushy-looking sprinkler. But it's not getting to me.

That was the introduction before the Holy Communion. One moment, that was in the instructions…

Invitation to the Communion

Everyone is standing and receives the Host to an outstretched hand. Everyone takes a chalice from the tray and drinks it. The empty chalice is put away on another tray.

Well, that's interesting! The Catholics don't give wine to the plebs. Only the priest drinks the Blood of Christ! I have to watch this closely.

Priest, grab, amen, munch. Another priest, amen, gulp. Helper, clink. First pew, Second pew. It's my pew's turn. Everyone gets up and a semicircle is arranged. One moment please, everyone?!? But the confession, but I'm only here to watch… Okay, whatever, I'm already here. Just don't fuck up or it's going to get even weirder. Someone dropped the wafer, someone else is negotiating with the priest… all's good, looks like I wasn't too out of place.

But it was quite a surprise all over! Even kids drank the wine. And no confessions, but rather everyone because it's a community or something. No talk about dirty unprepared souls. And the kids were probably making sure the wine is alcohol-free, leading to that negotiation. Possibly. Either way, in other places they have separate alcohol-free wine, I'm told.

There's not much left on the timetable. On the other hand, there's still almost half of the candles, despite it getting bright outside and inside. And all of a sudden, the priest blesses everyone with full heavenly power and tells us to leave. One grandma leaves, even the church leaves, but the mob is still there. Uhhh, what..? Oh, they were waiting for the organist, and now everyone's pouring out of the nave. And there's another surprise waiting for us at the entrance, and that's the priest who personally says goodbye to everyone, he even shook my hand! Cool dude. I don't think you can be a cool dude when there's thousands of people in the church.

The instruction sheet now has Easter wishes and the finale: an Easter breakfast in a couple hours. But none of us feels like it. Instead, we have our own breakfast where we exchange our observations about Easter traditions.

For example, decorated Easter eggs, which aren't as widespread in Germany.

And eggs painted in one color which aren't an Easter thing here. They exist, but… the whole year round. You can buy them at a supermarket, they are being sold already boiled. That means someone's buying them, but why? Even in May, picture from today.

I don't get it, either.