Vegan Giroian is an Armenian Orthodox theologian who experiences Easter as a call to our senses.

He is passionate about the meaning of grand ideas like incarnation, death, and eternity

as revealed in life and in his garden.

A professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia,

he also tends a large perennial and vegetable garden at his home in Central Virginia.

This hour, we take in the religious discoveries he makes there.

Look, when I get into the garden in the spring and I'm getting ready for it here,

it comes pretty early in Central Virginia.

Well, what am I doing?

I'm doing lent in particular.

I'm digging out weeds that have died.

I'm cleaning out the garden.

It's a messy business and it's not terribly pleasant.

But on the task of very doing it, my senses are being brought alive.

I'm attuning my body.

I'm cleansing my soul.

I'm making myself ready to receive the gift.

Restoring the senses.

I'm going to tip it.

This is on being from APM, American Public Media.

Differences over calculating the date of Easter were among the disputes

that led to the 11th century schism between the ancient church centers of Constantinople and Rome.

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