The Roman-Catholic Christians from all over the world will observe Easter on March 31. In Chisinau, the Easter service will start on Saturday evening, where the Catholics will have the Easter bread and eggs blessed.

Vasile Cohanovschi, vicar of the Divine Providence Parish of Chisinau, has told IPN that the Easter liturgy is the longest during the year and includes rites that are also performed by the Christian -Orthodox Church. The only difference is that the Roman-Catholics do not have Holy Fire brought from Jerusalem. The bishop lights the paschal candle, blesses it and shares holy light to the faithful. These rites form part of the service called Easter Vigil.

”On Easter Night, they read very old and very beautiful songs that describe the wonderful work of God. There will be baptized the catechumens – elderly persons who haven’t been christened yet. The Christians come with food to be blessed and then we say “Jesus has risen!” to each other. Unfortunately, the distance between the Orthodox Easter and the Catholic Easter this year is too great. The Orthodox Christian just entered Lent,” said the priest.

A period named “White Week” starts for Catholics this Sunday. During it, they preach the appearance of Jesus Christ and how he prepared Apostles for their mission.

In Moldova there are over 20,000 Roman-Catholic Christians.