Word: eves
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Every Easter eve a vigil far older than Russia begins in the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, located in the village of Peredelkino, a residence of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. At midnight the clergy and members of the congregation walk in procession around the church and enter through its main doors to celebrate the Resurrection. The Soviet authorities discourage religion, but they tolerate this rite-after a fashion. Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes the vigil at Peredelkino in the following story. It is published here in translation for the first time...
...hall of a remote and dowdy workers' settlement. Shrill-voiced girls in brightly colored scarves and slacks (admittedly a few wear skirts) stroll about in threes, in fives, push their way into the church. But the nave is crowded. The old women took their places early on Easter eve. They snap at each other and the girls come out. They circle around the courtyard, shout insolently, call each other from afar, and inspect the small green, pink and white flames lit outside the windows of the church and beside the tombs of canons and bishops. As for the boys...
Everyone knows about the sin of Adam and Eve, and for 1,500 years Christian theology has proclaimed its consequences. As an offense against God by man's first parents, it made every man an automatic sinner, born without sanctifying grace. It took away, too, the gifts that had accompanied grace: the idyllic paradise that was Eden; the freedom from pain, from suffering, and from death. Because of it, all men be came subject more to their passions than to their reason, more prone to evil than to good. It was, in short, "original...
...Sense. Nonetheless, it is the common opinion of theologians that the Augustinian version of original sin makes no sense today. For one thing, evolution suggests that Homo sapiens is descended not from one set of parents but from many, thus making a literal Adam and Eve quite unlikely. For another, Biblical scholars agree that the story of man's fall in Genesis is not history but myth-a story that points to the basic truth of evil in the world but says nothing about the inheritance of sin. Augustine even read St. Paul wrong; the correct translation...
...today's changed environment for democracy has obviously altered the effect of political parties too. The political party of the 1840's that sponsored community events such as torchlit processions on election eve and encouraged the people to participate in essential decisions by calling mass meetings, now cuts off the people from the campaigning by relying heavily of television ad men. It never disturbs the deliberations of the Senate by calling for demonstrations of mass-support from the people. In 1832 President Andrew Jackson called on the people to reaffirm his decision to terminate the charter of the United States...