Ricky Yates

My pottery paten and chalice that I use for celebrating the Eucharist in Brno © Ricky Yates

When I was Rector of the Shelswell Group of Parishes in North Oxfordshire, quite frequently on Sundays, I would officiate at three services during the day – and occasionally at four. Certainly on Easter Day, I would always celebrate the Eucharist three times during the morning, in three different Churches, at 08.00, 09.15 and 10.45.

One of the joys of being the Anglican Chaplain in Prague, is normally only having one service to take each Sunday. And because our Ceskobratrské Cíckve Evangelické host congregation meets for worship at 09.30 each Sunday, our Sung Eucharist cannot begin until 11.00.

However, having held the first ever English-language service of Lessons and Carols in Brno last December, since the New Year, I am now travelling there to officiate at 18.00 in the evening on the second Sunday of each month.  My aim is to establish a satellite congregation in Brno, thus providing a second place of English-speaking Anglican worship in the Czech Republic.

On most Sundays, our Czech hosts in Prague, finish their service at about 10.30 which gives us a full thirty minutes to set up to begin our worship at 11.00. Being partly Presbyterian, they do not have Communion that often. But when they do have Communion, their service is nearly always fifteen minutes longer. And on Easter Day they do, of course, have Communion. Thus last Sunday, we had to wait outside until nearly 10.45, until we could gain access to the Church building.

This was my fourth Easter in Prague so I knew to expect many visitors in the congregation. And whilst a small number of the regular congregation are away from Prague at Easter, we lose far fewer than we do at Christmas or during July and August. However Easter Day 2012, not only saw a very good turnout of the regular congregation including several ‘lost sheep’ who we hadn’t seen for some time, but also a very large number of visitors. According to Honza, who went up to the balcony and counted, we were 90 adults and 22 children. The congregation was therefore bigger than any in the whole of 2011.

As on most Sundays, there were double figure nationalities present. We had a large number of American visitors and a smaller numbers of Brits. But we also had two visitors from Denmark, another from Malta and a young Ghanaian couple who told me they had travelled in from Hradec Kralové, 120 km outside Prague, in order to attend Easter Day worship.

We celebrated Christ’s triumph over sin and death in liturgy and song, making an extremely ‘joyful noise’ as our worship culminated in singing ‘Thine be the glory’ to the wonderful Handel tune ‘Maccabaeus’. As in previous years, this was the second time on Easter morning that the Church walls had resounded to the tune as our host congregation ended their worship with the self-same hymn sung in Czech.

After the service, as I and Gordon the Church Treasurer, together with David, another member of the Church Council, exited the vestry and locked up the Church, we once more experienced the peculiarities of the weather of recent months when we were greeted by a snow shower. So none of the three of us could resist starting to sing, “I’m dreaming of a white Easter” as we made our way across the road for Coffee Hour.

Then for me, it was back to my Oxfordshire days as I set off for my second service of Easter Day. But instead of hopping in the car for a ten minute drive to the next village, it was a three-stop journey on the tram, followed by a two hours and forty minute journey on the 14.42 Prague-Brno train, followed by a short walk to the little Czechoslovak Hussite Church which we are currently using for worship in Brno.

There was a great contrast to our worship in Prague in the morning. But as twelve of us gathered to celebrate the Eucharist on Easter Sunday evening, the worship was just as meaningful. Only one person present was a visitor, a British lady who comes to Brno at least three times a year to visit a close relative. The rest were English-speakers currently resident in Brno who I trust and pray will help form a new worshipping community in the second city of the Czech Republic.

Whilst it is feasible to return to Prague on the last train of the evening, as on my previous visit, I decided to stay overnight and travel back the next day. It makes the trip less tiring and gives more opportunity to talk with people after the service. And in this amazing small world, through the publicity put out by the Brno Expat Centre about our monthly services, I’ve reconnected with a young lady called Lynsey who I first met fourteen years ago with her parents on a French camp-site. Lynsey and her partner Johnny have recently moved to Brno to work for Monster, an online recruitment agency who have established their main European base in Brno. So I had the privilege of being the first guest to sleep on their newly purchased sofa bed on Easter Sunday night.

The Prague-Brno-Vienna train awaits departure © Ricky Yates

Painted eggs hung on ribbons decorate a Czech garden © Ricky Yates

I’ve just re-read the blog post I wrote in April 2009 entitled ‘My first Holy Week & Easter in the Czech Republic’. Inevitably last year was a fairly steep learning curve both in understanding the way Easter is marked by the predominantly secular society here in the Czech Republic as well as finding out how best to celebrate the Christian festival with an English-speaking, predominantly ex-pat congregation. Overall, I think the experience gained and lessons learned from 2009, have helped me through this recent rather busy time from Palm Sunday through to Easter Day.

One of the really attractive Czech traditions at Easter is to use ribbons to tie decorated eggs to trees in gardens or attach them to sticks and place them in window boxes or pots containing spring flowers. I’ve chosen to illustrate this post with some examples photographed in the immediate surroundings of our Chaplaincy flat.

Czech Easter garden gate decoration © Ricky Yates

Many Czechs also attach Easter wreaths to their front doors in a similar manner to the more common practice in the UK and elsewhere, of attaching a wreath of greenery & red berries at Christmas. As you can see, the photograph I’ve included here is of a wreath attached, not to the front door, but to the front garden gate of a house on the Baba estate.

As I mentioned in last year’s blog post, unlike in the UK, Good Friday is not a public holiday in the Czech Republic. Instead, for most people is an ordinary working day. But Easter Monday very definitely is a public holiday. And it results in some interesting contrasts with what happens over the Easter weekend in England.

Since the law regarding Sunday trading in England and Wales was relaxed in 1994, large supermarkets and stores have been able open for up to six hours on any Sunday except Easter Day. However, here in the Czech Republic, both of our local supermarkets, (‘Billa’ and ‘Albert’), were open on Easter Sunday for the same number of hours as on any other Sunday in the year. But today, Easter Monday, both are completely shut as they were on Easter

Czech Easter decoration of a small tree © Ricky Yates

Monday last year. Contrast this with England where on Easter Monday, most large supermarkets will be open at least between 9am and 6pm if not for longer hours.

As a Church, we marked Holy Week and Easter with a similar pattern of services to last year. We held a Maundy Thursday evening Eucharist to commemorate our Lord’s Last Supper. On Good Friday evening, I led a devotional service which included reading the Passion narrative from the Gospel of John with times of silence for reflection and prayer. Whilst both services were appreciated by those who attended them, the overall numbers doing so were relatively small. And yet for me, the joy of Easter Day is always so much more meaningful if I have first sought to enter into and tried to understand the pain of betrayal and suffering that Jesus experienced that first Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Our Easter Day Eucharist, though not quite as well attended as last year, still drew a large congregation. Whilst some of our regulars, particularly some who either teach in or have children in one of the International Schools here in Prague, were away in their home countries for the Easter break, we lose far fewer than we do at Christmas or during July and August.

In reverse, some of our regulars have family and friends who come to visit them for Easter. On Palm Sunday, the children of one of our newer worshipping families proudly told me that Grandma was flying in from England to stay with them at Easter. Yesterday morning, I was duly introduced to Grandma who joined the whole family for Easter Day worship.

Probably about half of the congregation were visitors, enjoying a long weekend visit to Prague and pleased to be able to worship in English on Easter Sunday. There were fewer Brits and more Americans than in 2009, together with a couple from Melbourne, Australia and a female lawyer from Canada amongst those who told me about themselves at the door after the service. Most interestingly, there was a Turkish family, the daughter now resident in London and who spoke fluent English, who wanted to experience being part of a Church service on Easter Day.

Czech flowerpot decorated for Easter © Ricky Yates

Afterwards, the young lady told me that her father in particular, had found the experience ‘quite moving’.

As I increasingly like us to do, we sang hymns which were a mixture of traditional and modern. For me, you cannot really have Easter Sunday without singing ‘Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia’, which we did as our opening hymn. We also sang the traditional hymn ‘The strife is o’er, the battle done’ to the Palestrina tune ‘Victory’. But, as far as I am aware, we also sang for the first time at St. Clements, the Graham Kendrick song ‘Led like a lamb to the slaughter’. I was pleased that there were sufficient members of the congregation who already knew it and, even those who didn’t, soon caught on to the rousing chorus declaring ‘You’re alive, you’re alive, you have risen! Alleluia!

We ended the service with the twentieth century hymn, ‘Thine be the glory’, to the tune ‘Maccabaeus’ by Handel. The English words of the hymn are a translation from the French by Richard Hoyle. The original is ’À toi la glorie’, written by the French-speaking Swiss, Edmond Budry. But as I told the congregation before we sang it, it was not the first time that Easter Day that the Church walls had re-echoed to the hymn. For whilst standing outside the Church in advance of our service, waiting for our host congregation, the Evangelical Church of  Czech Brethren to finish theirs, what did I hear but the joyful singing of the self-same hymn – in Czech!

Alleluia. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Image Public Domain via Wikimedi Commons

Despite my good intentions, I’ve once more been very slow in writing the promised post about my first Holy Week and Easter in the Czech Republic. Although we are still in the Easter season I’m all too aware that my comments will be somewhat dated if I don’t write a blog post soon.

As in the UK, one has to distinguish between the way Easter is marked in the predominantly secular commercial world, as against theway it is celebrated in the Christian Churches. One initial observation is that the commercial world does not start displaying its Easter goodies as early as it does in Britain. In Britain, I have many times cringed seeing hot-cross buns and Easter Eggs on sale before even the Feast of the Epiphany on 6^th January has passed. Here in Prague, Lent had at least begun before any Easter goods were on display.

However, the so-called Easter goods seen in Prague supermarkets seemed to me to bear very little relation to Gospel accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Various floral decorations, artificial and real, together with rabbits of every shape and description, mostly made of chocolate, filled the shelves. Other than vaguely representing new life, I could see very little relevance to the greatest festival of the Christian year. The Easter Bunny was what mattered, not the risen Christ.

Unlike in the UK, many people decorate their houses, flats and gardens for Easter. The Czechs love to paint and decorate eggs, then tie them with ribbons to trees in their gardens or attach them to sticks stuck into window boxes of their flats and shops. Similar traditions can also be found in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. However, one peculiar Czech tradition is also to place such decorations on family graves which Sybille told me she had never seen whilst she lived in Germany.

With regard to Church tradition and practice, one thing I soon discovered was that distributing palm crosses on Palm Sunday is something peculiarly Anglican! Not initially realising this, I made enquiries about purchasing palm crosses at a Roman Catholic shop that sells books and Church supplies and from where we obtain our communion wafers. My request was met with a look of complete bewilderment, even when a helpful customer translated my English into Czech. I rapidly emailed the English company I had previously dealt with when in Oxfordshire, who were happy to oblige.

Another difference between the UK and the Czech Republic is that Good Friday is not a public holiday here. Therefore, it is not really worthwhile to try and hold a service beginning at 2pm to mark the last hour of the cross, as most people have to be at work. Instead, I conducted a devotional service of Bible readings, prayers and times of silence for reflection, starting at 7.30pm in the evening.

Whilst the Good Friday service and our Eucharist on Maundy Thursday evening were reasonably well attended, as was my experience in Britain, many more people turned out on Easter Day. Yet for me, celebrating the joy of the resurrection on Easter Day is so much more meaningful if I have first sought to enter into and tried to understand the sense of betrayal and the depth of suffering that Jesus experienced on the first Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Easter Day saw my largest congregation since arriving in Prague in September 2008. We had approximately 110 adults and a dozen children and I had to consecrate additional bread and wine to communicate all those who wished to make their Easter communion. About half were regular members of the congregation bearing in mind that quite a number of our regulars go ‘home’ for the Easter break. The other half were mainly visitors, enjoying a long weekend in Prague, together with some ex-pat ‘festival worshippers’ whom we last saw at the Carol Service in December! We ended our worship with a rousing rendition of ‘Thine be the glory’ to the wonderful tune by Handel called ‘Maccabaeus’.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!