HOLY AND GREAT WEEK ACCORDING TO THE HOLY TRADITION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

HOLY AND GREAT WEEK ACCORDING TO THE
HOLY TRADITION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

THE SATURDAY OF LAZARUS. This day, along with Palm Sunday, occupies a special position between Lent and Holy and Great Week. Following the forty days of penitence which has just ended, and immediately before the days of darkness and mourning which are to follow in the Week of the Passion, ther come two days of joy and triumph on which the Church keeps festival. The Saturday before Palm Sunday celebrates the raising of Lazarus at Bethany (John 11:1-46). This miracle is performed by Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ AS A REASSURANCE TO HIS DISCIPLES BEFORE THE COMING PASSION: they are to understand that, THOUGH HE SUFFERS AND DIES, YET HE IS LORD AND VICTORY OVER DEATH. The resurrection of Lazarus is a prophecy in the form of an action. It foreshadows Christ’s own Resurrection eight days later, and at the same time it anticipates the resurrection OF ALL THE RIGHTEOUS ON THE LAST DAY: Lazarus is ‘THE SAVING FIRST-FRUITS OF THE REGENERATION OF THE WORLD.’

As the liturgical texts emphasize, the miracle at Bethany, reveals the TWO NATURES OF CHRIST the God-man. Christ asks where Lazarus is laid and WEEPS FOR HIM, and so He shows the FULLNESS OF HIS MANHOOD, involving as it does human ignorance and genuine grief for a beloved friend. Then, disclosing THE FULLNESS OF HIS DIVINE POWER, Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, even though his corpse has already bgun to decompose and stink. This double fullness of the Lord’s DIVINITY and His HUMANITY is to be kept in view throughout Holy and Great Week, and above all on Holy and Great Friday. On the Cross we see A GENUINE HUMAN AGONY, BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL, BUT WE SEE MORE THAN THIS: WE SEE NOT ONLY SUFFERING MAN BUT SUFFERING GOD.

PALM SUNDAY. ‘Blessed is He that comes…’: this is THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING — welcomed by the children at His entry into Jerusalem, and to be welcomed likewise BY EACH ONE OF US INTO OUR OWN HEART. ‘Blessed is He that comes…’ — that comes not so much out of the past AS OUT OF THE FUTURE: For on Palm Sunday WE WELCOME NO ONLY THE LORD WHO ENTERED JERUSALEM LONG AGO, RIDING ON A DONKEY, BUT THE LORD WHO COMES AGAIN IN POWER AND GREAT GLORY, AS KING OF THE FUTURE AGE. Palms and branches are blessed after the Gospel at Orthros (Matins), and held with lighted candles during the rest of the service. Although at one time the Eastern Church — like the Western Christendom up to the present — used to hold a procession on Palm Sunday, this has now fallen into disuse and there is no mention of it in the existing Triodion.

Very frequently repeated at the feast is the sticheron beginning ‘Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together…’ It is possible to see reflected here the practice of Saint Efthymios, Saint Savas, and other Palestinian monks in the 5th and 6th centuries. Shortly after the Feast of Epiphany they left their monasteries to make a Lenten retreat in the wilderness, either singly or with a companion, spending the following weeks in silence and continual prayer, eating nothing but wild roots. Then, on Saturday afternoon in the sixth week of Lent, they all returned to their monasteries for the vigil service on Palm Sunday, in order to celebrate Holy and Great Week together with their brethren. In isolated Orthodox parishes throughout the Western world, something similar occurs each year. Scattered members of the parish community, living far from the church and scarcely ever able to attend the services at other times, start to appear in church at the vigil service before Palm Sunday, and as Holy and Great ‘Week continues their numbers steadily increase. Like the monks of ancient Palestine, we in the twenty first century can also say with truth on Palm Sunday, ‘Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together…’

HOLY AND GREAT WEEK: HOLY MONDAY, HOLY TUESDAY AND HOLY WEDNESDAY. On the days following His Entry to Jerusalem, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ spoke to His Disciples in particular about the signs that will precede the Last Day (Matthew 24 and 25); and so this forms the theme of the first part of Holy and Great Week. The ESCHATOLOGICAL challenge of the first three days of Holy and Great Week is summed up in the troparion and exapostilarion hymns at Orthros (Matins), both of which are repeated three times to a slow and solemn melody. The troparion (hymn), ‘Behold, the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…’, is based on the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13); the exapostilarion hymn, ‘I see Thy bridal chamber…’, on the Parable of the man cast out from the feast because he had no wedding garment (Matthew 22:11-13). Here, presented in especially urgent terms, is the call that we have heard on many occasions during Holy and Great Lent: the End is near at hand; be watchful; repent while there is still time.
Each of the three days has its own particular theme:

(1) On Holy and Great Monday we commemorate the PATRIARCH JOSEPH, whose innocent sufferings (Genesis, chapters 37 and 39-40) PREFIGURE THE PASSION OF CHRIST. Also we commemorate THE BARREN FIG TREE cursed by our Lord (Matthew 21:18020). — A SYMBOL OF THE JUDGMENT THAT WILL BEFALL THOSE WHO SHOW NO FRUITS OF REPENTANCE; A SYMBOL, MORE SPECIFICALLY, OF THE UNBELIEVING JEWISH SYNAGOGUE.

(2) On Holy and Great Tuesday the liturgical texts refer chiefly to the Parable of the Ten Virgins, which forms the general theme of these three days. They refer also to the Parable of THE TALENTS that comes immediately after it (Matthew 25:14-30). Both these are interpreted as Parables of JUDGMENT.

(3) On Holy and Great Wednesday we commemorate the WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER, who anointed Christ’s feet as He sat in the house of Simon. In the hymnography of the day, the account in Matthew 26:6-13) is combined with that in Luke 7:36-50) (cf. also John 12:1-8). A second theme is THE AGREEMENT MADE BY JUDAS with the Jewish authorities: the repentance of the sinful harlot is contrasted with the tragic fall of the chosen disciple. The Triodion makes it clear THAT JUDAS PERISHED, NOT SIMPLY BECAUSE HE BETRAYED HIS MASTER, BUT BECAUSE, HAVING FALLEN INTO THE SIN OF BETRAYAL, HE THEN REFUSED TO BELIEVE IN THE POSSIBILITY OF FORGIVENESS: ‘In misery he lost his life, PREFERRING A NOOSE RATHER THAN REPENTANCE,’ If we deplore the actions of Judas, we do so not with vindictive self-righteousness but conscious always of our own guilt: ‘Deliver our souls, O Lord, from the condemnation that was his.’ When the Triodion denounces those who rejected Christ and delivered Him to death, we recognize that these words apply not only to others, but to ourselves: for have we not betrayed the Savior many times in our hearts and crucified Him afresh?

On the evening of Holy and Great Wednesday in church the Mysterion (Sacrament) of the Anointing of the Sick (Efchaileon or Unction) is usually celebrated in church and ALL ARE ANOINTED WHETHER PHYSICALLY ILL OR NOT; for there is not sharp line of demarcation between bodily and spiritual illness, and this Sacrament confers NOT ONLY BODILY HEALING BUT FORGIVENESS OF SINS, THUS SERVING AS A PREPARATION FOR THE RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION ON THE NEXT DAY, HOLY AND GREAT THURSDAY. (Sources: The Lenten Triodion)

(To be continued)

___________
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George