Experiencing Easter at Medhane Alem Eritrean Orthodox Church in Washington, DC
“Meet Me There,” a mother’s t-shirt reads. On this balmy springtime evening in Washington, D.C., she and her two-year old son are just two of hundreds at a seven-hour mass at Medhane Alem Eritrean Orthodox Church hoping to get there to be with God by Easter Sunday.
Easter at Medhane Alem is a tri-partide process of doubt, faith, and eventual renewal. Over a three day period, parishioners stand together for a total of 16 hours to pray peace into existence, and somehow, someway, will the world back together. It is a powerful process of affirmation for an immigrant community in mired in displacement, and proof that things other than daffodils come back to life in the spring.
I. Good Friday
56 days of fasting have passed. Breakfast has been a bane, with butter-less bread and milk-less coffee. The sunny spring days have been dominated by too much pollen and too many lentils. Today, at the end of Holy Week, people have come to the corner of 2nd and S in the Howard-Shaw District to pay penance and see hope come alive this late April weekend in pre-election Washington.
At twelve noon, Good Friday officially begins. On the bottom floor of the two-story church, men sit on the left side of the church, and women sit on the right. The left hand side is a sea of slacks and dress shirts, and the right side a sea of white head scarves.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is a theater of the sacred. Looking through a large pewter cross made in the form of an ornate metal doily, Father Weldetrisae recites the Psalms with the rapid-fire cadence of a car salesman in the near-dead language of Ge’ez. Above him, hand-painted renditions of a North African Christ are cradled by the Eritrean flag to the right, and the U.S. flag to the left. The old, worn plaster of the two-story, converted, formerly Protestant church has been covered by framed pictures of the saints, and lush red carpets have been laid down to line the space for the presence of God.
At three o’clock, Christ officially dies, and the church goes black. Parishioners of both sexes weep, and a gruesome silence invades the place. Uninterrupted by the chirp of the birds outside or the small ray of sunlight peeping in through the cracks of what was once a stained glass window, the congregation sits in solemn observance of this metaphorical murder.
The silence is broken by the gentle voice of Father Tsemon, who walks forward in a tweed collar shirt, and with a calm smile on his face.
Speaking in colloquial Tigryna instead of the liturgical Ge’ez, Father Tsemon tells his congregation that it is the social responsibility of Christians to make God’s reign a reality here on earth. “Some things are wrong in our church, some things are wrong in our world,” he says, “but just like the two thieves hanging next to Jesus said that it was wrong to crucify him,. I have to say it if something is wrong. It could be the government, could be a brother, but at a certain time, someone has to say enough is enough. Our allegiance to God means that we have to condemn what is wrong, right there, right now.”
Eritrea emerged from a bloody, 30-year war with Ethiopia just 15 years ago, and many are banned from returning to their home county. Those who weren’t banned left because of poverty; Eritrea is one of the poorest countries in the world. Eritreans in Washington joke about how many countries they passed through looking for asylum before they landed in the U.S., and how many Eritrean taxi drivers actually hold Ph.Ds. Eritreans in the Diaspora are a people who are defined by their land but who ironically find themselves landless, floating in the service sectors of the Global North with only a crucifix as a compass.
Believing strongly in the power of prayer to affect actions and outcomes, participation in the mass – and the church at large – is a deeply political act. Father Tseomon announces, “God is responsible for the hearts of people in power. In our country, we blame the leaders, but we should actually blame ourselves for not asking God, for not asking the source directly.”
“In this country, if we don’t pray about the election, we don’t know who is going to come to power. It’s our choice to decide, through prayer,” he poses.
In unison, the church announces, “We pray that God make [our leaders] considerate, very kind, generous, and smart, so they can always think good for other people/ We also pray for those in prison, farmers, businessmen, crops, those who are sick - for the whole world to be in peace/ Let none of keep in his heart malice or revenge or envy or hatred towards his neighbor/ God Bless our Bishop, and may he watch over Eritrea alem was alem – and the whole world over. Amen.”
With the endless “Our Fathers” and dozens of hours spent praying, one can only hope that God is listening.
While praying, the whole congregation turns and bows towards the four directions in choreographic obedience to God. After six hours of standing and siting, it is almost impossible to tell where the white of the walls starts and the white of the women’s headscarves ends.
Two large, goat-skin drums are then brought out from behind the Hoover vacuum cleaner in the storage room, and a deep boom-KAK-KAK slaps the air with sound. Four people total play – three middle-aged men, and one thin 18-year old girl with lime green trim around her white headwrap. Floating out into the middle of the group, Father Tsemon sings and then begins to dance, his arms creating gentle waves as if he’s swimming in a sea of melody. The whole church swells in claps, and presents a syncopated display of sympathy with Christ’s death.
This is the story of Christ made personal, but also made musical.
At the end of the mass, the priests bring out two short bunches of dried palm fronds. Although the mass is now officially over, a pious few remain to complete the final penance. As Father Tsemon or Father Weldetrisae approach each parishioner, he or she admits their sins committed during the previous year, and the priest assigns the recital of one zegbet, or kneeling prayer, per sin. The assignments are given with the tap of the palm fronds on the top of the back - one tap per sin. The room resounds with the soft flurry of flapping palm fronds. Tap-tap-tap-tap!
Some parishioners are finished after two or three zegbets, some are assigned to dozens.
The posture and movements of zegbets are all but identical to Muslim prayer. One starts standing, and brings the arms crossed at the shoulders down to the waist, then to the knees, then bends down to the ground, where one kisses the floor out of a sign of humility and obedience to God’s creation.
The strain of kneeling up and down some 40, 50 or even 60 times makes some adults’ feet go numb, and their joints so sore that they are unable to walk the next day.
Some flexible teenagers, however, are eager to show their devotion to their parents and friends, and bow quickly, and sometimes more than necessary.
The 18 year-old musician, now high up on the second level, appears to have a particularly gymnastic relationship with God. As some stop to give their knees a rest, she keeps going in her rotational prayer of arms-shoulders-knees-floor-bow. She ceaselessly continues her ministerial callisthenic all by herself, until God comes back tomorrow.
II. Holy Saturday
The pews are full today. There is no room to move about, and there are no fans or air conditioning in the 92 degree room. This is the most formal service of the year though, and no one would miss it.
Downstairs is mostly for the elderly, who have arrived at six o’clock sharp to get front row seats. On the lower level, some women have crosses permanently tattooed on their foreheads, a ritual which is generally not practiced anymore.
Upstairs is where the young people are, and where all the action is. Striking young couples with gelled hair sit down right next to each other, with the men in suits and women in long white and pastel-colored dresses. Pastel oranges and greens dot the pews.
The existence of the second level is due to a simple architectural accident: trad-itional Orthodox churches only have one level, and no pews. Standing or kneeling is seen as the only suitable way of worshipping, and sitting is considered disrespectful. Tradition is bendable here though, as the church happens to be converted, and also happens to be in Washington, the city of bendable rules.
The vessel of the word of God is a large iMac Powerbook, which projects a tri-lingual Ge’ez, Tigryna, and English-language liturgy onto a huge screen at the front of the church. Immanently visible from all angles of the church, the machine seems fed by the heavy incense augmenting its electronic glow. At a certain point in the service, the battery of the iMac dies, and the entire congregation sits and waits while the PowerPoint is brought back up again. Only the head priest can administer the almighty right click to bring the electronic liturgy to life.
Hour 13 of 16 passes. To make it through the mass, some people text message loved ones, and some accidentally doze off.
While the adults are busy dealing with the overwhelming (and long) realization of Christ’s death, the children prefer to play in the aisles of the church, and talk loudly in English.
Posing, one asks the other, “Hanna, do I look like Mommy? Ha, ha!! Do I??” Some particularly hammy two-year olds do a mock zegbets, with their diapered bottoms in the air and coy little smiles on their faces.
At the end of the evening, a Passion Play of eight-year olds fills the front of the church.
The Mary Magdalene character weeps a high-pitched, elementary-style sob into the microphone, and then is asked, “Woman, why are you crying?” The sobs suddenly stop, and the congregation breathes a laughing sigh of relief.
The Lord is Risen Indeed; Alleluia, Alleluia.
III. Easter
It’s 1:13am in the morning on Sunday, and the PowerPoint slide reads “Happy Resurrection.” The mock-crucified teenager looks up from under his sparkly silver crown; Easter is finally here for the Medhane Alem church.
People on the bottom floor have lit candles to represent renewed faith, and huge droplets of boiling hot wax fall on the floor. Older women yell “Ye-le-le-le-le-le-le!!” in celebration.
Tri-partide kiss greetings fill the air like a flock of overly affectionate butterflies. Teenagers greet their aunts, fathers greet their sons. The large, wooden church is filled with sounds of connection: people are shaking hands, patting each other on the back, and smiling.
The congregation ever so slowly makes its way out the door, grabs the shoes they removed before entering the church, and waits in line for the public nuzzling ceremony of kissing the cross. After that, people head downstairs to the church social hall. That’s where the kitchen is, and where the center of the church community is.
Simret, the teenage drum player pictured to the right, learned to play while in the choir at her Eritrean Orthdox Church in Kenya, where she grew up as a refugee.
Even Father Tsemon came as a refugee. His migration was sponsored by a Japanese-American scientist, who when visiting Asmara found the political situation to be eerily similar to the Manzanar internment camps in Central California, where he was detained during World War II.
Healing from the war with Ethiopia has been “very difficult”, Hanna explains. For that reason, she thinks “Easter is important as a holiday of peace, where we can think and pray together.”
Most Eritreans come to the U.S. as asylum seekers, but only a percentage are actually granted asylum status. Without a sponsor or a visa, many migrate to the U.S. the way most undocumented migrants do – by paying a coyote to cross them through the Mexican border. Many families unite in Northern Mexico first in order to cross together as a group. Standing in the candle-light dim of the Medhane Alem church, it’s difficult to imagine that these white-robed, jewel-adorned older women used to hear corridos on their way to the supermarket, and use their calling cards to call their families in Asmara - or Chihuahua.
In turn, the Eritrean Orthodox church community has experienced its own evolutions. Woldy, a lay minister at the church who works a lot with the youth programs, says that their Eritrean Orthodox church community here in the Shaw District is similar to how it was back home, except that “we’re more religious here than over there. We have younger, more energetic priests… our church is better here,” he concludes.
Woldy sees the increased religiosity as directly proportional to the decreased exposure to war and conflict. “During peacetime, you want to go to church,” he says. “But during wartime, religion is not really a priority.”
Elsa Berhane, a parishioner of Eritrean descent who grew up in Sudan, echoed a similar sentiment, saying “Eritreans were so focused on [national] liberation, growing up we didn’t see church as that big of a deal. Everyone was always away – away on the battlefield, away from home. Now, we’re together. It’s nice.”
Given the varied backgrounds of the parishioners, the arrival of Easter means different things for different people. For some parishioners, Easter carries only a religious tone. For Seleb, a Youngman in his twenties, “Easter means being cleaned from sins. It’s same thing every year, a nice tradition.”
For others, it is an omnipotent precursor towards a new era in the District of Politics.
For Ruth, a cheery-eyed matriarch, Easter is a chance for her to reflect on how to do God’s will on earth. For her, that means praying for Barack Obama.
“Ooh, every day I pray, pray, pray for him”, she said, shaking her head and wringing her hands “They say that Obama is about race or whatever, but this is what it really comes down to - Obama is about everybody having a chance. I want him to have a chance. I want to see what he can do as president, what he can be!”
“We don’t really talk about politics here, though,” she laughs. “We just go to church together.”
Downstairs, parishioners officially break their Lenten fast, and eat meat and dairy products for the first time in months. Not a lot is eaten at that hour, given that it is the wee hours of the morning. The real feast is left instead for Easter Sunday.
On Easter Sunday, families will spend hours cooking lamb and multiple courses to accompany it. Back home in Eritrea, mothers would wake up at 5 a.m. on Sunday to slaughter a lamb to roast for the Easter meal, and bleed it facing east to keep away ghosts for the rest of the year.
“We emphasize red meat,” Hanna, the Sunday school teacher said, “because all during Lent we haven’t been able to eat red meat. We eat everything we haven’t been able to eat for weeks, like special desserts and lots of rich foods.” she added.
“I love the process of Easter,” she says in a reflective tone of voice. “I love the prayer, I love the fasting. It’s a whole process in the way that Christmas is not. It makes you appreciate the holiday more.”
“It’s just a really special thing.”
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