Anglican Church Greets Easter Rites Post Covid
Father Taito Varea of the Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral in Suva said the washing of feet was an important part of Easter celebrations.
Friday 15 April 2022 | 11:04
Cathedral washes the feet of church member Lusi Luvuri. Photo: Shreeya Verma
For the first time after COVID-19, the Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral in Suva held its sacred washing of the feet ceremony to mark the Holy week of Easter.
Easter, traditionally carried out on Holy Thursday (yesterday) during Easter week, was on hold for the past two years because of the COVID-19 restrictions.
The washing of the feet is the enactment of the selfless love of Jesus, who washed the feet of the 12 apostles during the last
Related stories
supper, the night before his crucifixion.
Father Taito Varea of the Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral in Suva said the washing of feet was an important part of Easter celebrations.
“The washing of the feet is carried out to show the disciples that their service is a service of love regardless of who they are which relates to us as people that we have a service to provide to others in terms of sharing the words and work of Jesus,” he said.
As part of his Easter message, Father Varea is encouraging parents to send their children to church because fewer young people attend church services, post COVID.
Church activities
As a result, church programmes planned for youths and children for the year have hit a slow start.
He said the church was now finding ways to engage more young people in church activities and programmes.
“It is a challenge for the church but especially for our young people, as some of them went through a traumatic time during the pandemic,” he said.
“The programmes that we normally have are not rolling properly because we need them to all come together to plan and discuss. We cannot plan things for just a few when there is still some left out.
“We have the children’s ministry, Sunday school, youth programmes, women’s fellowship, and the men’s fellowship. All these things just started slowly coming up. So, we are just trying to encourage parents to send their children to church, encourage the youth to come back.
“We have slowly started the youth programme for the past two weeks, but the responses were not that good.”
Other Easter activities planned by the Anglican church include the prayer watch, which is carried out from Holy Thursday until Good Friday (today).
Father Varea said the significance of the night vigil was to mediate and remember the night Jesus was arrested.
Feedback: laiseana.nasiga@fijisun.com.fj
