INTERVIEW Easter narrated by a Romanian who in the 50s asked the teacher “Does God exist?”. What did he answer?

“Christmas can be extended, and it is extended enormously. Easter cannot be delayed”, says ethnologist Șerban Anghelescu in a dialogue for the HotNews.ro audience. The specialist explains why, in the peasant tradition of the Romanians, “the acceptance of the crucifixion actually creates the world”.

Şerban Anghelescu is from the rare breed of ethnologists. In an irritated-journalistic definition, the ethnologist is the one who explains the beliefs of the traditional man and makes the man of today think about what he has lost with his reckless life.

Șerban Anghelescu tells us about Easter as a celebration of our reminder for the days to come. As a journalist, talking to Șerban Anghelescu allows me to be irritated because, listening to him, I realize how much we lose while gaining everything.

The holiday entrusts you to a higher power

– Some of us enjoy days off, others enjoy the holiday, Mr. Șerban Anghelescu.

– The celebration is general and unanimous, it includes absolutely everyone, whether they want it or not. As for days off, of course they are also called holidays. But they have no deep meaning, they are much less important, from my point of view, than religious days off. What meaning do religious days have for man?

The real question is what does the Feast mean? It is an abstention from everyday existence, an obviously temporary renunciation of everyday acts and a direction towards a world that is mostly invisible. It’s a world you believe in, but you don’t see well.

And here there is a correction I must make to myself. Any celebratory act

it means ritual, it is a purification. And the ritual means a lot of gestures that you are obliged to do for your inclusion in the community, in a well-ordered space and in a space that tends to a perfection of the order.

All these things are good, because they strengthen you internally, they give you the feeling that you exist, that you have a meaning, that you exist with a purpose, which you share with your close ones, with your peers.

– Are those who go to Dubai or the Azores not filled with meaning? Well, sitting at the table with Jesus is boring.

-I’m going to have fun! I hear this word to my heart’s content in any television interview: fun. We came to have fun, we have fun, everything is cool, the “vaibul” is excellent. Fun is much poorer in meaning than a Holiday. It’s the same gestures. The booze, the sex, the happy screams. And a strong social bond. But fun seems to me to be a kind of reduction of the person, not an elevation of it or an enhancement of it. That’s my opinion. And, thank God, when I could, I had fun too.

– What is the Holiday?

– The holiday entrusts you to a higher power. It is not just about a human communion. It is the entry into a sphere considered superior, in which you participate.

“Easter has a strict, special order”

– Is Easter a respite from the unpredictability of every day?

– It’s a preparation, but a preparation for something you know, which is predictable, which is promised. Because Easter is also a promise. Easter, in particular, is different from Christmas. What brings them closer is the Light of Christmas and Easter, the fundamental Christian holidays. Christmas lighting, hanging Christmas lights can last much longer than Christmas. Christmas can be extended, and indeed it is extended enormously. Easter cannot be extended, it is the strict days of fasting, it is Holy Week, it is bright week. Easter has a strict, special order.

– Easter is also a bloody holiday.

– Easter was from the very beginning a bloody celebration, since its establishment by God, the Old Testament tells us. The Jews oppressed by the Egyptians anointed their doorposts with blood so that the Angel would spare them. While in the houses of the Egyptians that are not painted with blood, the first born is also killed. But we must now speak of the New Covenant. Jesus comes with the abolition of the sacrifice that was happening until then.

“The world says, leave me, sir, with these: it is not true that the light is turned on, that Jesus is Risen”

– Does it exclude the presence of blood from the act of sacrifice?

– Yes. There is one of the most beautiful stories in this sense, found in peasant creation. In a peasant poem, crucifixion is creation. Jesus is crucified, the lyrics say, and he is clothed in nettles and his suffering is fluid. Blood, sweat and tears emerge from it. The blood will be the wine of the elders, the sweat will be the incense of the priests and the tears that fall are the future grains of wheat.

Jesus is asked by his mother, the Holy Virgin, why he allowed himself to be crucified by pagan dogs, when he had the power to defeat them? Jesus said: if I had not crucified myself, tongues would not have been divided, borders would not have been decided, the field would not have eaten, and the barking of dogs would not have been heard, nor the singing of the virgins.

So there is a creation by crucifixion. Crucifixion makes the void disappear, separates things, gives things a voice. I find it amazing. I find it wonderful how Jesus, the one in the poem, justifies his crucifixion. Acceptance of the crucifixion actually creates the world.

At Easter we have an initiation into a time of being, but also into a world of story. Passover requires the parable, not the argument. The world says, leave me, sir, with these: it is not true that the light is turned on, that Jesus is Risen. It’s cowardice to let yourself be crucified. That’s what the uninvited grandchildren say, or the smoky uncles at Easter parties.

“It is clear that believing means an initiation into the Feast”

– Are you critical of the Church?

– I believe, obviously I’m not the only one, that the Church created, by extension, this type of argumentation. Yes, this organized cult had to exist, without the church the faith would have died out or barely flickered. But, I repeat, the church led to this argument. I repeat, they are gestures of faith, gestures considered sacred and which must be done. It’s a ceremony or a well-regulated rhythm, things have to take place in a well-established and unfailing order.

I am not for a criticism of the exaggerated ritualism of the priests, but it is clear that believing means an initiation into the Feast, through the story, through the parable. And Jesus told his disciples. The disciples also do not understand the parable without Jesus’ explanations. Jesus says to them do you understand, do you understand? But the meaning of these parables goes beyond their understanding.

The way to salvation and to the other kingdom cannot be obtained, demonstrated by any kind of argument in the world. Those who live Easter live within these stories of what cannot be seen and argued. But the story is also captivating. It contains you and you don’t need logical demonstrations.

“Enter the parable, we are saved by faith in it!”

– At Easter we understand that entering the Parable means suspending the logic of reason. Get carried away by the story. The story is the only one that takes care of you.

– Yes. It is an initiation. Religions are not an intelligible fact. You must live, not irrationally, but you must live through an acceptance of paradox. But to get carried away, you have to initiate and you have to get carried away.

People are divided, right? Into two large and distinct categories – the believer and the unbeliever. I do not know how faith can be obtained. Some people believe without any effort. Other people have to make a great effort to believe. And even so I can be wrong. There are stories of wonder with enlightened people, with converted people, with people who from unbelievers become believers, but also vice versa. People who lose their faith. I don’t know much about faith except that it exists. It is about something ineffable, something invisible, but which acts powerfully.

– Easter means life and death. It is terrible for man to understand death.

– Death is a determining factor in the emergence of a religion. The participants in the mystery, the initiates in the parable have a much better understanding of the other world than the uninitiated man, the common man. Enter the parable, we are protected by faith in it!

– The lamb? What does it mean when we drink it?

– We don’t think that we feed on Jesus, that’s for sure. It is a symbolic and ritual gesture. The lamb is the innocent creature created to be led. The lamb must have a shepherd and the lamb must be in a flock. The Shepherd is Jesus.

But I don’t think eating lamb in general has a direct meaning. Here is a symbolic one. It is interesting that the Christian religion is the one that in the first instance causes man to leave Paradise, to be expelled from food rations, because he eats the forbidden fruit. Incidentally, even to this day it is not known exactly what it was. We say apple, but it wasn’t an apple. Behold, by eating paradise is lost and by eating it is regained, eating the flesh and blood of the lamb.

The student who asked the teacher in the 1950s if “God exists?”

– Why “Christmas is full, Easter is fud”, how does this phrase come about?

– I think this has to do with the consistency of the food at Christmas and a smaller consistency at Easter. And Easter is fud because it has much less things, but very colorful, compared to Christmas. Christmas has the pig, Easter the lamb. Pork is much more substantial than lamb.

– How did you get into this sacred game? What is your personal story?

– I entered this sacred game as a child. In the story. My school was attached to the church and I couldn’t imagine any other order. I remember asking only one question at that age. “Does God exist?”, I asked my teacher. I asked something that was not advisable in those days. It was the 1950s, and my wonderful teacher said that it would take a long time to think about it, to find out whether or not there was a God. I had and still have the Bible and a prayer of my grandfather at home. I decipher the prayer every day.

“He who tells a story keeps evil away from his home”

– You have remained in this Parable.

– Yes, because the story is the thing I care most about in life. It fascinates me. And I can’t imagine a world without stories. The world of the story is a world that more and more people do not understand. And more and more don’t accept the story. You don’t accept the story, in my opinion, means you don’t accept the meaning either, because an ultra-rigorous mind that rejects the story and dismantles the story remains empty-handed until the end. I think they gain nothing by it, or they gain the absence, the absence of the story.

A shield against anxiety. We belong, as humans, to an invisible demon, that of anxiety. The story saves us, defends us. It is a certain belief that the stories told in one night get caught in the hora and dance, make an invisible hora around the place where it is told and protect the man from evil. Whoever tells the story keeps evil away from his house. (PHOTO: Dreamstime.com)