What a beautiful picture. Thanks for sharing.

Just one question? Are the yellow flowers forsythia? And does this mean all your snow has melted in Scranton?

Is that one of the benefits of the New Calendar? Spring comes earlier along with an earlier Easter?

Slava Isusu Kkhrestu

Is the use of statues becoming more common in the Ukrainian Catholic and Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic churches ? Are they used during Paskha in any of the Orthodox churches?

Z Bohom
Kolya

Many parishes started to use a statue of the Risen Christ instead of the Paschal Icon in the Paschal Grave (for those parishes that keep their graves after Pascha Sunday). This is a custom among those Roman Catholic Churches that used a Pieta Grave/Risen Christ statue tradition during Holy Week and the following Paschal Sundays. Are there any Roman Catholic Churches that still do this custom??

Ung

X. B!
C. I. X!

Garajotsi,

As you may be aware statuary is not customary in Eastern Christian temples, but I have seen a nativity set under a Christmas tree now and then. Svachene is a dinner not church service so it is a local happening usually in a hall and so the resurrection statuary is decorative. Didn't it give you a hint of the people's joy in the Resurrection?

My mother's Polish RC parish still has a grave on Good Friday (the statue of the buried Christ is uncovered in it after communion at the GF service) and replaced by the Risen Christ after the Vigil service. The grave is usually dismanled after St. Thomas Sunday, but the statue remains till Ascension. When I was a child, the Sacrament was "entombed" there, as well as the statue, until the procession and Resurrection Mass early on Easter Sunday morning and parishioners kept watch straight through. Most, if not all Polish parishes in my area have graves and the very ethnic ones still "keep watch."