Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Just Like the Vampires Rise
Over dinner one night, a witch friend and I were discussing the Russian Easter liturgy which the two of us had recently attended
(No, we hadn't gone to collect hosts to desecrate—Orthodox don't use hosts—but rather to observe and be instructed by a liturgical masterpiece, one of humanity's truly great rituals. If you want to experience what the Mysteries of Eleusis felt like, you really need to check out Orthodox Easter.)
Memorably, the service is punctuated again and again by the Resurrection troparion, the holiday's leitmotif:
Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down Death by death,
and upon those in the tombs
bestowing life.
By the end of the four-hour service, you've heard this chant scores, if not hundreds, of times. You really can't help but know it.
Rising to get something from the kitchen, my friend spontaneously improvises a parody troparion:
Christ is risen from the dead,
just like the vampires rise:
take a stake, and pound it
right through his heart.
When she comes back several minutes later, I'm still laughing.
“That one is far too good not to be remembered,” I tell her.
Cackling, we sing it several times over.
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