All news is local? I guess not, when it comes to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

I looked forward to coverage of Pascha (Easter in the West) this year for several reasons — in part because bishops in America have cooperated with “shelter in place” orders, but have also been creative in some of their responses. It’s hard to capture Orthodox liturgy with one digital camera, but monasteries and parishes have been doing their best, often with beautiful results. (Click here to visit my old parish outside Johnson City, Tenn, in the Smokey Mountains.)

Thus, I was disappointed when I read the Associated Press feature about Pascha. It was an impressive effort to cover the global angle of this story — but completely ignored the fact that Orthodoxy is right here in North America, as well. The story ended with this reporting credit:

Daria Litvinova reported from Moscow. Theodora Tongas in Athens, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, North Macedonia, Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed.

All valid. But who covered Dallas, Wichita, Kan., Pittsburgh, Southern California, Appalachia, Florida and Washington, D.C., among other obvious locations? Did I miss a story somewhere?

You see, Orthodoxy in America has turned into an interesting quilt of ethnic traditions and thriving parishes packed with converts from lots of other flocks or folks who had no faith at all.

Yes, the Greeks are the Greeks and the Slavs are the Slavs. But there are also Orthodox red necks, Midwestern farmers and lots of other American archetypes. Here’s a rather normal pack of folks singing in lockdown:

My family spent a dozen years in a growing parish on the south side of Baltimore that was, in turns of jurisdiction, linked to the ancient church of Antioch (based in Damascus). But the only person in the parish who spoke Arabic was a young Russian expat who majored in that language at Georgetown University. The parish is at least 90% converts.

Would anyone reading this feature in American newspapers know that the world’s second largest Christian communion, after Roman Catholicism, exists and in some places thrives in the U.S.A.? Does the AP have any reporters (and readers) in North America, these days? I would assume so. Here’s the overture:

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — For Orthodox Christians, this is normally a time of reflection and mourning followed by joyful release, of centuries-old ceremonies steeped in symbolism and tradition.

But this year, Easter — by far the most significant religious holiday for the world’s roughly 300 million Orthodox — has essentially been canceled.

There will be no Good Friday processions behind the flower-bedecked symbolic bier of Christ, to the haunting hymn of the Virgin Mary’s lament for the death of her son. No hugs and kisses, or joyous proclamations of “Christ is risen!” as church bells ring at midnight on Holy Saturday. No family gatherings over lamb roasted whole on a spit for an Easter lunch stretching into the soft spring evening.

Maybe there would be a reference later in the story during a summary paragraph, at least?

Easter services will be held behind closed doors with only the priest and essential staff. They will be broadcast live on television and streamed on the internet. …

In Serbia and North Macedonia, authorities imposed nationwide curfews from Good Friday through Easter Monday. Ethiopia, with the largest Orthodox population outside Europe, also restricted access to liturgies and deployed security outside churches. Liturgies are broadcast live, although several churches outside the capital, Addis Ababa, were violating restrictions, alarming authorities.

But in some Orthodox countries, such as Georgia and Bulgaria, limited church services will go ahead.

Russia? Of course the story had to mention Russia.

Russia’s Orthodox Church initially seemed similarly reluctant to impose restrictions. When authorities in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, banned church visits on March 26, the Moscow Patriarchate condemned the move as an infringement on religious freedom. Only three days later did Patriarch Kirill publicly urge believers to “strictly obey the regulations imposed by the health authorities” and “refrain from church visits.”

On Friday, Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida said churches would stay open in some regions, even though the Church urged people to stay home. 

“The epidemiological situation varies in different regions, and so do rules for attending churches,” he said.

Maybe there was a follow-up to this international features story?

I looked this morning and here is what I found: “Churches mostly empty for Orthodox Easter due to virus rules.” Alas, instead of Greece, this one opened in Moscow and never made it to America:

MOSCOW (AP) — The holiest day of the year for Orthodox Christians was reserved and glum in many countries where churches were closed to worshipers for Easter services because of restrictions aimed at suppressing the spread of the coronavirus.

From Moscow to Addis Ababa, believers were either banned from attending Sunday services or urged to stay home and watch them on national television broadcasts.

And so forth and so on. The BBC never made it to the New World, either.

Oh well, here in Oak Ridge, Tenn., we followed the Divine Liturgy via streaming video and then had a Pascha parade in our cars to park in front of the homes of our two priests and their families — to sing “Christ Is Risen!” and “The Angel Cried.”

Everyone waved from appropriate distances. There was lots of yelling and a few tears. The children were great, stayed near their parents and didn’t get within 10 feet of each other. Then lots of us drove over and lined up in the Dairy Queen drive-thru (this is the South) before sitting out in the parking lot, with two or three spaces between our cars. It was all really quite touching.

Our retired priest — Father J. Stephen Freeman, a writer known around the world — had this to say on Facebook:

In the Church yesterday morning, as we were celebrating the Paschal Liturgy, there was a sort of emptiness for me. Like having a birthday party and no one comes (or some such image). I kept telling myself that it was OK, that the time would come when this would pass. But the emptiness was palpable. 

Then the day began to unfold. The messages and images of Pascha began exploding on my computer screen. At about 2, we were instructed by a phone call to step outside. A parade of cars with honking horns and shouting friends came by, transfigured with Paschal joy. 

I saw other such things — like a honking parade in Russia.

In a time of extreme fasting (such as quarantining) it takes very little to shatter the dark and unleash the brightness of the dawn. 

Today is "Bright Monday" in Orthodox parlance. It is indeed a bright day. The world will never be the same.

Let us attend.

Orthodoxy is a global thing. I get that. But why ignore this tense, yet wonderful, Pascha here in America?