An Eastern Catholic Easter: Ukrainian Catholic Church embraces Lent and “Pascha” with symbolic traditions

By Christina Gray

The beloved Easter basket. In certain Eastern Catholic churches of the Byzantine rite, it’s more than a candy-crammed straw container delivered to children by a mythical bunny. It’s a venerable faith tradition filled with foods that represent the Lenten journey to “Pascha,” or Easter.

Families bring Easter baskets of food to the church to be blessed by the priest either on Holy Saturday or on Easter morning after the Divine Liturgy, according to Father Roman Bobesiuk, parochial administrator of Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church. Each basket, draped with a cloth embroidered with the words, “Christ is Risen,” holds lovingly prepared and presented foods that were abstained from during Lent.

“This tradition is deeply rooted in Ukrainian Catholic culture and is a beautiful expression of faith and family unity,” said Father Bobesiuk. “All meals on Easter Sunday are eaten from the basket so that no one need be busy with preparation of additional food on such a solemn holy day.”

Ukrainian Greek Catholics comprise the largest Eastern Catholic Church in the world, he said, but are a minority in Ukraine. Ukrainians arrived in San Francisco in several waves starting in the 19th and early 20th centuries, often working in shipbuilding or other trades. After World War II, the city became home to many refugees fleeing the Soviet regime. A new wave of migration began after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and more recently after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Ukrainian Catholics there have especially suffered, he said, with Russian forces damaging or destroying religious sites, closing churches and expelling clergy.

Today, according to Father Bobesiuk, the San Francisco community is “quite diverse,” and includes descendants of early migrants as well as newly arrived Ukrainians seeking spiritual support and a connection to their traditions.

The Byzantine rite

The Byzantine Catholic tradition is one of five Eastern Catholic rites (composed of 23 individual churches). Byzantine Catholics, while sharing the same faith and the seven sacraments with Roman Catholics, maintain their distinct Eastern liturgical, theological, and spiritual traditions. Unlike Eastern Orthodox Christians, they are in full communion with the Pope of Rome.

San Francisco is home to two Eastern Catholic churches of the Byzantine rite: Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church, located in San Francisco’s Portola District, and Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church, located in the former convent for St. Monica Parish on Geary Boulevard.

“The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church are both part of the Byzantine Catholic tradition,” said Father Bobesiuk. Though they share common Byzantine roots, each has “distinct histories and cultural identities,” he said.

This is true for every other church under the Byzantine rite as well, which express Byzantine heritage with its own ethnic traditions and customs.

Byzantine liturgy is known for its profound reverence and the extravagant solemnity of its ceremony, as well as its rich symbolism and use of religious iconography. This is because it arises from a different culture with a more “Hellenistic philosophy of art, drama and poetry,” said Father Kevin Kennedy, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Church since 2013. He began double duty as rector/pastor of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in 2022.

He called Byzantine Catholic churches “fully and equally Catholic” with the Latin rite of the Catholic Church.

Great Lent and Pascha

Father Bobesiuk said ethnic customs and Byzantine liturgy are vividly expressed at “Pascha,” a word both Ukrainian Catholics and Russian Byzantine Catholics use for Easter. Pascha is derived from the Hebrew word for Passover, the Jewish feast on which the Pascal Lamb, Jesus Christ, was offered for the sins of the world.

Holy Week begins on “Willow Sunday,” when Ukrainian Catholics take branches of pussy willow to church to be blessed. It is traditional to tap one another with the blessed willow branches. This act is accompanied by several different phrases, depending on which region of Ukraine you are from, said Father Bobesiuk. One of them is “Be strong as water, rich as the earth, and healthy as a willow tree.”

Veneration of the Holy Shroud

Good Friday is a solemn day in Ukrainian Catholic churches. No manual labor is performed on that day, and a strict fast is maintained until after solemn vespers, which includes veneration of the Holy Shroud or “plashchanytsia.” The hand-painted or embroidered cloth depicting Christ’s body after he was taken from the cross is processed around the church, then placed in a symbolic tomb, often adorned with flowers. Many come forward to kiss the shroud in reverence to Christ’s sacrifice for their sins.

“This tradition is very dear to Ukrainian Catholics,” said Father Bobesiuk.

A basket of blessings

On Holy Saturday, families prepare baskets with the traditional foods of Pascha. The foods may include “paska,” a large round loaf of sweet bread that symbolizes Jesus Christ as the “living bread,” and lamb or other meats, such as sausages or bacon, symbolizing Jesus as the sacrificial lamb.

All the foods are those abstained from during Great Lent, said Father Bobesiuk, and each has meaning in the Easter feast, which takes place after the Paschal Divine Liturgy, either at home or at the church.

Cheeses and butter are included and symbolize the sacrifice and tenderness of God, he said, “which one should wish for as a child wishes the mother’s milk.” By tradition, dairy products are put in small containers and are covered with lids where crosses are drawn. Butter is often shaped into a lamb or is decorated with a cross.

Eggs, symbol of new life

Ukrainian decorated Easter eggs are a national art, according to Father Bobesiuk, the more elaborate known as “pisanki.” Simple, single-color eggs are known as “krashanka,” traditionally colored red. According to legend, Mary Magdalene came to Tiberius, the second emperor of Rome, to announce the resurrection of Christ with a red egg.

Other symbolic ingredients in the basket include horseradish, a symbol of the invincibility of the human spirit after confession, and evergreens, a symbol of eternal life and immortality.

“In Ukrainian Catholic tradition, Easter is not just a one-day celebration,” said Father Bobesiuk. “It is preceded by deep liturgical and personal preparation and followed by a joyous Paschal season.”

Visit the Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church website: https://ugccsf.org/

Visit Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church website: https://byzantinecatholicsf.org/

Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco magazine.