NEW YORK: 22 April 2025
Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York officiates at Paschal services in New York

On Sunday, April 20, 2025, the clergy, numerous parishioners and guests of the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady “of the Sign” in New York City celebrated the "Feast of feasts and the Festival of festivals" – the Glorious Resurrection of Christ.

His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York officiated the festal services. Serving alongside the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia were the clergy of the cathedral: Cathedral Dean Archpriest Andrei Sommer; Archpriest Seraphim Chemodakov; Hieromonk Theognost (Kogan); Protodeacon Nicolas Mokhoff and Protodeacon Serge Arlievsky.

The Synodal choir sang solemnly under the direction of director Vadim Gan.

The services were held under the aegis of the wonderworking Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God, which traditionally spends this great feast at her Home in New York City.

This year, the Russian Orthodox Church, together with other Local Orthodox, as well as non-Orthodox Churches, celebrates the Resurrection of Christ on the night of April 19-20. Such a coincidence of the Eastern and Western Paschalia according to the principle of calculating Easter happens quite rarely. More often, it happens that Catholics and Protestants, as well as believers of other non-Orthodox Christian churches, celebrate Easter earlier than the Orthodox Pascha.

At the end of the midnight service, while singing "Do not lament Me, O Mother," the clergy carried the shroud to the altar. There the shroud will remain for 40 days until the Leavetaking of Holy Pascha in memory of the fact that the Lord remained on earth for 40 days after His Resurrection.

After Midnight Office, the clergy and believers, bearing lighted candles, singing "Thy Resurrection, O Christ Savior." and with the icon of the Resurrection of Christ, went in procession around the courtyard of the Synodal Headquarters. Metropolitan Nicholas greeted everyone with the ever-living words: "Christ is Risen!" In the altar, the clergy alternately change their white vestments to green, blue, and red and also greet those gathered in the cathedral.

After Paschal Matins, Metropolitan Nicholas read the Catechetical Sermon of St John Chrysostom, after which he celebrated Divine Liturgy. Almost all of the parishioners and guests of the cathedral received Christ’s Holy Mysteries.

At the end of the service, His Eminence blessed the Artos, which will be distributed to the faithful after the Liturgy on Bright Saturday.

The cathedral sisterhood invited everyone to a delicious Pascha meal, during which the clergy and the faithful continued to their interaction.

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