Eastern Orthodox Easter celebration getting under way

This article is filled with interesting information, but this story was very poorly written. Let’s start at the beginning. We find out that holiday observances are taking place—at church, nonetheless. What’s the difference between this situation and every other Sunday of the week? There is none. Author Lynda Zimmer mentions a Julian calendar, which means nothing to me, and most likely nothing to the rest of her audience either.

Moving on, Zimmer mentions plates of vegetarian foods and an assortment of meats. If there are meat plates, then it really does not matter that there are non-meat plates, since the meal is not really vegetarian. She also makes a point to describe the scene above, along with colored eggs, and says that it looks likes an Eastern Orthodox Easter. However, this scene is absolutely no different that Easter celebrated by western Christians. The one helpful point in this paragraph is that it tells readers that different calendars are used to determine Easter for Eastern Orthodox and Christians.

Zimmer uses a pastor of an Orthodox church as a source, which is finally something she’s done right. But she awkwardly follows that quote with the address of another church. Shortly after, she’s giving the address of the church she mentioned for the quoted pastor. It’s good to include location if people are looking to celebrate Easter this weekend, but it would have been more suitable if the addresses were placed at the bottom of the article.

She follows up the awkwardness with another tradition—fasting—and how it differs from other religions. She uses a quote from a parishioner, which would be helpful if the source actually answered her question. Instead, she tells us what we can already assume—fasting is not fun.
At this point the story completely falls apart. We have a quote from Nancy smith (mentioned above) then we learn that Smith was the first to organize her church. Immediately after this sentence, Zimmer switches over to tell readers that Easter eggs will be passed out at the service. The eggs should be mentioned much higher in the article, along with other traditions, or the above traditions should be lowered to match this paragraph. Zimmer should not have mentioned Smith unless she planned on going in-depth as to what Smith did to get the church started (which would be another story, and thus more appropriate in another article). And since we only have one useful source, it would be better to include more sources, such as church members who answer the questions asked.

Eventually Zimmer gets back on track and describes a typical Eastern Orthodox service. It’s a little choppy, but it does tell the readers what happens. We finally get to the much anticipated ending, and even that didn’t go so well. She ends with a Greek work and its meaning, and the fact that they celebrate by having a party and eating food. I could do without the Greek word, since it looks like it was thrown in at the last minute. Also, what’s so important about eating? Nothing. Everyone eats after a religious celebration, which makes this aspect of Eastern Orthodox no different than any other religion. Again, I think it would have been better to say something about service times and addresses at the end, in case any readers are interested in attending a service. It’s much easier than looking throughout the piece and trying to match which address with which church.

This article can be found at: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/religion/2009/04/18/eastern_orthodox_easter_celebration_getting_under_way