“This is the day which the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice therein.”
(Prokimen of the Resurrection)

The feast of the Resurrection of Christ is rich not only in majestic church services, melodies, song and deeply symbolic rites, but also in very beautiful ecclesiastical-liturgical and folk customs. Some of these customs are specifically Christian while others trace their origin to the pre-Christian festival which greeted the arrival of spring and the vernal sun. Christianity sanctified many of these ancient customs by investing them with a Christian meaning and symbolism thereby transforming them into Christian practices.

Professor Stephen Kylymnyk, describing Easter night and speaking of the customs of Easter remarked: “If modern man were able for a moment to look into the pure soul of a child and experience that joy, that boundless joy a child experiences as though it were in the land of make-believe, when it anticipates the morrow of Easter then he would under- stand and feel that invisible one thousand-year-old tie, that union of his soul with the souls of the ancient ancestors, that union of modern Christian culture with the thousand-year-old highly-developed culture of our ancestors… he would then cherish these customs, these traditions of the Ukrainian people as something sacred and sublime; he would guard them, preserve them, cling to them as to a precious treasure to be transmitted from generation to generation. (The Ukrainian Folk Year from the Historical Pespective, Vol. III, p. 82)

Here we would like to point out, first of all, the more important liturgical characteristics of the feast of the Pasch (Easter), as well as some of the national (folk) customs associated with Easter.

Liturgical Characteristics

The resurrection of Jesus Christ took place very early in the morning on the Sunday the third day after His death. Hence, there came into existence the ancient custom of ending the paschal fast on Saturday night, beginning the resurrection (Easter) celebrations at midnight, immediately after midnight, or at dawn. Since no uniform practice existed in all the Churches, the Sixth Ecumenical Council (691) established the following rule: “The faithful, celebrating the days of the saving passion, with fasting and prayer and contrition, must cease their fast about the middle hours of the night after Great Saturday, the divine Evangelists Matthew and Luke having first indicated to us the lateness of the night, the one by adding the words ‘after the evening of Saturday’ (Matthew 28,1) and the other by saying, ‘very early in the morning.”. (Luke 24,1) (Canon 89)

The resurrectional celebrations begin with a procession around the church, accompanied by the ringing of the church bells. This procession is the symbol of the myrrh-bearing women who, early Sunday morning, went to the grave of the Lord.

The Typicon of Father Isidore Dolnytsky notes that the shroud must not be carried in the procession because this practice was banned by Cardinal Sembratovych as incompati- ble with the joy of the Resurrection. Instead, an icon depicting the Resurrection must be carried in the procession. Other typicons mention that the Holy Gospel, the icon of the Mother of God and other icons may be used. In regard to carrying the Blessed Sacrament in procession, Father I. Dolnytsky says that our typicons do not mention it and that neither the Greeks nor the Latins have this custom, only local Latin churches, specifically, the Polish churches employ this practice. Just as on Great Friday the symbol of Christ is the shroud, so on Easter the symbol of Christ is the icon of the Resurrection, hence, no need exists for the Blessed Sacrament to be exposed.

After the procession, the Matins of the Resurrection begins before the closed doors of the church, as though before the sealed tomb of our Lord. Here for the first time we hear the joyful hymn: “Christ is risen from the dead…” As the hymn is being sung, the priest opens the doors of the church with the cross, as a sign that Christ’s death opened the gates of heaven.
Our earliest typicons prescribe at the end of the Matins of the Resurrection, during the singing of the sticheras of the Pasch, that at the words “and let us embrace one another” the faithful kiss one another. The rite of mutual kissing is called “Chrystosuvannya” i.e., “Christing” and, at this time, the faithful greet each other with the words, “Christ is risen!” The Typicon of Father I. Dolnytsky says that there is no such custom in our Church of kissing one another, but that the faithful merely came up to the priest and kiss the cross, the Holy Gospel Book, the Artos with the icon of the Resurrection of our Lord tied to the top of it and other icons, and greet one another with the words: “Christ is risen!” while those greeted respond, “Indeed He is risen!”

The Easter salutation “Christ is risen” was spoken for the first time by the angel to the women at the Lord’s tomb. This joyful greeting has already, for hundreds and hundreds of years, echoed among our people throughout the entire Paschal season. By this salutation we express the joy of Easter (the Resurrection) and profess our faith both in Christ’s resur- rection and our own.

On the day of the Resurrection the Divine Liturgy is carried out with great solemnity. The Easter Gospel speaks of the divinity of Jesus Christ, because His resurrection is the supreme proof of His divinity. If many priests are con- celebrating, then the Gospel is read in several languages, customarily in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, for these are the languages used for the inscription on the cross of Christ. The Gospel is also read in the language or languages of the faithful. The reading of the Gospel in different languages signified that the doctrine of Christ is proclaimed in all languages and to all peoples. After each sentence of the Gospel, the church bells are rung, to symbolize that the good news of Christ is being proclaimed to all creatures.

During the entire Bright Week the royal or holy doors of the iconostas remain open as a sign that Christ opened to us the doors of the Kingdom of God, as we sing in the paschal canon “You have opened to us the gates of Paradise…” (Ode 6)

On the day of the Resurrection during the Divine Liturgy after the Prayer behind the Ambo, the blessing of the Artos takes place. Artos is a Greek word which means “bread”. It is the symbol of the bread of everlasting life our Lord Jesus Christ. The Artos is a bread on the top of which an icon is tied representing Christ coming forth in glory with a flag of victory in his hand, from the grave. The Artos is placed on the tetrapod for the people to kiss as a reminder of Christ’s presence among them, or it is placed on the altar and remains there throughout the entire Bright Week until Bright Saturday when it is cut up into pieces and distributed to the faithful on the Sunday of St. Thomas.

During the season of the Pentecost, which extends from the Pasch (Easter) to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, as a sign of the joy of the Resurrection we do not make any bows, nor do we kneel. The Council of Nicea (325) gave us the following rule regarding this matter: “Since there are some who kneel on the day of the Lord and during the season of the Pentecost, for the sake of uniformity in all eparchies, the Council decrees that during that time prayers be offered up to God while standing.” (Canon 20) A similar decree was issued by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in the 90th rule.

During the day of the Resurrection, and in some places even throughout the whole Bright Week, church bells are rung all day long as a sign of Christ’s victory over death and Hades.

National Folk Customs

A very common and cherished custom among our people the blessing of food and pastry on the day of the Resurrection. After the long fast, holy Church permits the faithful to eat any kind of food so that during the Easter season they may experience together with spiritual joy, the joy derived from the gifts of the earth. For this reason she blesses these gifts and dispenses from fasting during the entire Bright Week. After the Divine Liturgy, the paschal food is solemnly blessed outside the Church.

Shells from blessed eggs, crumbs and bones were not thrown out, but were buried either in the garden, or in the field, so that the earth, too, might receive some blessed mat- ter. In certain localities in Galicia shells from the blessed eggs. were thrown on the roof tops of the house.

Closely associated with the blessing of the Easter bread or as we say in Ukrainian “pascha” are our famous colored Easter-eggs. Their origin is very ancient. Among the ancient peoples a custom prevailed which required that one did not appear before a great personage for the first time without presenting a gift. A pious tradition relates that Mary Magdalene, when preaching the Gospel, first appeared in the court of Emperor Tiberius, she presented him with an egg painted red, saying: “Christ is risen,” and with that greeting she began her sermon. Other Christians, following her exam- ple also began to present one another with a colored egg on the day of the Resurrection (Easter).

The main reason that the egg plays such a role in Easter customs is that it is regarded as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. Just as from the dead shell of the egg a new life emerges so too Christ came forth from the grave to a new life. The red painted egg is the symbol of our salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. Closely connected with the colored Easter-eggs are the various games in which both children and adults participate on the day of the Resurrection.

A special expression of the joy of the Resurrection in the villages of Ukraine were the secular spring songs and the various games which took place in the area near the church. “It is strange,” says Professor S. Kylymnyk, “that the spring songs composed by our ancient ancestors already in the fourth-sixth centuries (perhaps even earlier) during the time of the State of the Antae, have come down to us through the obscurity of thousands of years, and centuries of great calamities, wars, invasions, and subjugation and have retained their predominant thought, main idea and content with only the change of words from ancient to modern. The spring songs are a priceless treasure of the early culture of our ancient ancestors. They are highly artistic and even unparalleled works of poetry, historical documents that speak to us of the life, ideals, psychology, faith and belief, understanding of nature, and the longing of our ancestors to understand natural phenomena.” (Opus cit., pp. 106-107)

In certain localities of Ukraine it was customary on the day of Resurrection for families to visit the graves of their beloved dead, in order to share with them the joy of the Resurrection and to salute them with the greeting of the Resurrection. At the Kievan Pecherska Lavra following the resurrection services, the monks and the faithful descended into the underground caves in order to announce to the deceased monks the news of Christ’s resurrection.

In ancient times, a custom prevailed of building fires on Easter night to greet spring and the vernal sun. These fires, in Christian religion, came to symbolize those fires which the soldiers, guarding the grave of Christ, kindled during the night, and they symbolize our greeting of the Sun of Truth – the Risen Christ.

From the very rich treasure of our religious and cultural traditions we have described only a few, but even these clearly express the deep faith, strong traditions, high culture and noble spirit of our Ukrainian people, as well as their deep love for their own rite. “The wealth and great value of the ritual customs of our folklore,” says Professor S. Kylymnyk, “is immense. The most cultured nations of the world could envy us. These treasures of the high culture of our past – mirror our national spirit and are veritable witnesses to the eternal longing of our people for freedom, perfection, beauty and the sun.” (op. cit., p. 97)

“Christ is risen from the dead, by death He conquered death; and to those in the graves He granted life.”

(Troparion of the Resurrection)

Of all the great feasts in the Ecclesiastical Year the most ancient, celebrated and joyous is the resplendent feast of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This festival, according to the Irmos of the eighth Ode of the Paschal canon of the Matins of the Resurrection is:

“The King and Lord, the Feast of feasts, and Triumph of triumphs.”

The holy Fathers of the Church, in a special way, stress the significance and the majesty of this feast. “The Pasch (Resurrection) for us,” says St. Gregory the Theologian in his Easter sermon, “is the feast of feasts, which surpasses all the other, not only civil, but also Christian feasts, celebrated in honor of our Lord, as the sun surpasses the stars.” St. John Chrysostom in his sermon on the Resurrection extols this feast in these words:

“Where, O Death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory? Christ is risen and you have fallen. Christ is risen and the demons have been cast down. Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen and life reigns. Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead, for Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Thus, during the glorious and joyous day of the Resurrection (Easter) the Church calls upon heaven and earth to unite in holy and divine rejoicing: “Let, therefore, the heavens worthily rejoice, and the earth be glad, the whole creation visible and invisible celebrate, for Christ is risen, Eternal Joy. (Troparion of the first Ode in the Matins service of the Resurrection)To acquire a better understanding of the majesty and spirit of the feast of the Resurrection, we shall consider its history, liturgical services, and significance for us.

History of the Feast of the Resurrection

The feast of the Resurrection of our Lord in our liturgical texts (books) is addressed with the following titles: “The Holy and Great Sunday of the Pasch”, “The Day of the Holy Pasch” or simply “The Holy Pasch”. Our people have still another name for the Resurrection (Easter), and that is, “Greatday” or “The Great Day”, since it is truly great for the event it commemorates and for its significance and for the great joy it brings.

The word “pasch” is derived from the Hebrew word “pasach” which denotes “passover”. Here it refers to the angel of God who, because Pharaoh would not free the Israelites, during the night destroyed the first-born of the Egyptians, but “passed over” (in Hebrew “pasach”) the houses of the Israelites, whose door frames were sprinkled with the blood of a one year old lamb. To the Jews the word “pasch” also meant a lamb, which they slaughtered on the feast of the Pasch (Passover). Later this name came to denote the day or feast of the Pasch itself, which commemorated the deliverance of the Jews from Egyptian bondage.

For the Apostles and first Christians the Pasch became the symbol of another passover, namely, the twofold or double passover of Jesus Christ: first from life to death and then from death to life. The first passover formed the basis for the Pasch of the Crucifixion, and the second for the joyful Pasch of the Resurrection. The Apostles and first Christians celebrated the Christian Pasch together with the Jews, but it was not one of joy; rather it was one that was sad and linked with fasting, because it was, for them, the anniversary of Christ’s death.

For the Christians, the paschal lamb of the Jews prefigured Jesus Christ who, like an innocent lamb, offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. This is why in the resurrectional services he is called “the paschal lamb” or simply the “Pasch”, “For Christ our passover,” says St. Paul, “has been sacrificed.” (I Cor. 5,7)

In the second century while the sorrowful Pasch of the Crucifixion was still being observed, the practice of celebrating the joyous Pasch in honor of Christ’s Resurrection arose. This Pasch was kept on the Sunday after the Jewish Pasch (Passover). Regarding this twofold celebration of the Pasch of the Crucifixion and the Pasch of the Resurrection, a long and relentless controversy developed concerning the day on which the Pasch should be celebrated. This dispute arose because of the changing view concerning the character of the Pasch itself. At first, Christians had looked upon the Pasch as a day of sorrow and fasting in memory of Christ’s death but, gradually, they developed a desire to combine this sadness with the joyful celebration of Christ’s glorious Resurrections This joyous festival did not, of course, harmonize with an attitude of sorrow nor with penitential fasting. The Christian Church, as a whole, began celebrating the Pasch of Christ’s Resurrection on Sunday; but certain Christian communities, especially in Asia Minor, stubbornly adhered to the celebration of the Pasch with the Jews on the 14th day of Nisan, which is the day of the first vernal full moon. These Christian groups were called “Quartodecimani”, (from the Latin word for the fourteenth) i.e., the “Fourteenth-dayers”, from the day of the 14th of Nisan.

The Council of Nicea (325) finally put an end to these long and bitter disputes by decreeing that all Christians must celebrate the feast of the Pasch on the same day, that is, on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox of March 21, and not according to the Jewish custom.

During the course of the fourth and fifth centuries, the celebration of the Pasch was extended from one day to a whole week, called “Bright Week”, in contrast to the week before Easter, which was called “Great” or “Passion” week.

The collection of ecclesiastical laws entitled the “Apostolic Constitutions”, which were set down in writing in Syria around 380 A.D. but which allegedly, from Apostolic times, offers the following information concerning “Bright Week”:

“Let slaves rest from their work all the Great Week, and that which follows it for the one in memory of the passion, and the other of the resurrection; and there is need they should be instructed who it is that suffered and rose again, and who it is that permitted him to suffer, and raised him again.” (VIII, 33)

Emperor Theodosius the Great (†395) banned court proceedings during the entire Bright Week, while Emperor Theodosius the Younger (†450) barred all performances in the theatre and circus. In Jerusalem, the most solemn days were the first three days of the Pasch, which the Eastern Church observes to the present day.

Regarding the method of celebrating Bright Week, the Sixth Ecumenical Council (691) decreed: “From the holy day of the Resurrection of Christ our God to the new Sunday (i.e., Thomas Sunday) the faithful are required to spend the time in a state of leisure, frequent the church and participate in sing- ing psalms, and spiritual hymns, rejoicing in Christ, and listen- ing attentively to the readings of the Holy Scriptures, for in this way shall we rise with Christ and with Him be glorified. Therefore, during these days no horse races or other public spectacles are allowed to be held.” (Rule 66)

Matins of the Resurrection

Of all the services in honor of the feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, the Matins of the Resurrection commands our special attention. This morning service can be called the Grand Hymn of glory in honor of Christ the Victor. Composed by that great theologian of the Eastern Church and great master of eloquence, St. John Damascene (c. 676-749), it is based on the paschal (Easter) sermons of the Fathers of the Church Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom. The content of this resurrectional service is profoundly dogmatic, its form highly poetic, its tone joyful and victorious.

The troparion of the Resurrection: “Christ is risen from the dead…”, which is sung so many times during the Easter season, encompasses the content, essence and significance of the feast. The canon is the center of the Resurrection Matins. In the Irmoses, troparions and sticheras of the canon, Christ reveals Himself to us as the promised Messiah, as God in majesty and power, as the Saviour and Redeemer and as the Victor over death, Hades and sin.

In regard to its form, the paschal Matins is poetry at its best and is, frankly speaking, unique in the ecclesiastical literature of the Eastern Church. Here we find a great wealth of beautiful poetic forms, images, comparisons and symbols.

The triumphal tone, characteristic of a holy, unearthly and everlasting joy permeates the profound content and poetic forms of the Matins of the Resurrection. Here we experience that fulness of joy because of the Resurrection of Christ, which St. Gregory the Theologian expresses in his paschal sermon: “Yesterday I was crucified with Christ, today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I died with Him, today I live with Him. Yesterday I was buried with Him, today I rise with Him.” In Christ’s victory all creation shares heaven, earth and Hades. Everything calls upon us to rejoice. This heavenly joy overwhelms the whole person and all his sentiments.

The joy of the Resurrection reaches its peak in the sticheras of the Resurrection. They form one powerful hymn of joy in honor of the risen Christ the New Testament Pasch. This joy is imparted to all and embraces all, even our enemies. “This is the day of the Resurrection,” we sing in the last stichera, “let us be enlightened in triumphal celebration and embracing one another, let us say: ‘Brother’ even to those hating us, let us forgive all things because of the Resurrection, and thus let us sing: ‘Christ is risen from the dead, by death He conquered death and to those in the graves He granted life.”’

The Significance of the Resurrection

The resurrection of Christ is incontravertible proof of his divinity. When the Pharisees and the Scribes demanded a sign from Christ which would prove that He is the Son of God, He answered them saying that they will not receive a sign other than that of the Prophet Jonas: “For even as Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12,40). And so it happened. On the third day of His death, the glorious Resurrection took place.

The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our faith.

What meaning would Christ’s teaching have had if the resurrection, which he had so frequently predicted, had not taken place. The Apostles, when they preached the Gospel, frequently appealed to Christ’s resurrection as to the most convincing argument proving the veracity of Christ’s doctrine.
“If Christ has not risen, then,” says St. Paul, “is our preaching vain and vain too is your faith… But, as it is, Christ has risen from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (I Cor. 15,14-20) For this reason, the truth of the resurrection and the Christian religion are inseparable. The resurrection of Christ, finally, is the sure pledge of our own resurrection to a happy everlasting life. Just as Christ rose, so too shall we rise one day to a new and glorious eternal life. Christ Himself assured us of this when He said:

“The hour is coming in which all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but they who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment… For this is the will of the Father who sent me, that whoever beholds the Son and believes in Him, shall have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up on the last day.”

(John 5,28-29; 6,40)

“O Son of God, accept me today as a partaker of Your mystical Supper…” (Prayer before Holy Communion)

We prepare ourselves for the glorious feast of Christ’s Resurrection with the holy Great Fast and conclude our spiritual preparation with the paschal or Easter Confession and Holy Communion. Confession and Holy Communion are singularly important sacraments in the life of the Church and of the faithful, for they are the pulse of their spiritual life and holiness. Pertaining to these two sacraments, both the Eastern and Western Churches have their own particular laws and customs. The practice of receiving these two sacraments has varied in the different periods of the Church. Here we shall give a brief history of the practice of the Christians of the first centuries and of our Church from the times when Christianity was introduced in the Rus-Ukraine to the present day.

The Practice of the First Centuries

Christians of the first centuries lived a deep spiritual life. This life was above all manifested in the deep appreciation and respect they manifested for the Divine Liturgy and for frequent, even daily, reception of Holy Communion. For them to assist at the Divine Liturgy meant to unite each time in Holy Communion with the Eucharistic Christ. Therefore all the faithful received Holy Communion at every Divine Liturgy. In reference to this St. Basil the Great (†379) wrote in a letter to the Caesarius Patricius:

“Now, to receive Holy Communion daily, thus to partake of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is an excellent and advantageous practice… We, ourselves, in Caesarea, of course, receive Holy Communion four times a week, on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; also on other days, if there is a commemoration of some saint. In Alexandria and in Egypt, each Christian, even those belonging to the laity, has Holy Communion in his own home, and when he wishes, he receives with his own hands….” (Letter 93).

Not only did adults strengthen themselves at the Divine Liturgy with Holy Communion, but they also administered this sacrament to small children from the day of their baptism. This practice has been preserved to the present day in almost all the Eastern Churches, even though the Western Church abandoned it in the thirteenth century. In the Ukrainian Catholic Church this practice still continued to the time of the Synod of Zamost (1720), which directed that small children be given Holy Communion, when they had reached the age of reason.

The practice of daily and frequent Communion lasted until the fifth century in the Church. At this time, this beautiful custom began slowly to decline. Under the influence of the teachings of the holy Fathers of the Church the faithful began more and more to acquire a better understanding and respect toward the Holy Eucharist. But this, in turn, awakened, within them, a sense of fear and unworthiness. Under the pretext of unworthiness some limited the practice of receiving Holy Communion to Easter time or to a few days in the year.St. John Chrysostom (+407) rebuked those who attended the Divine Liturgy, but did not receive Holy Communion:

“In vain is the daily Sacrifice being offered up,” he says, “in vain do we stand at the altar, since no one comes to receive Holy Communion… How can one be present at the Divine Liturgy and not receive the Holy Sacrament?”

(Homily 3, On the Let ter to the Ephesians). To those who tried to justify themselves by their unworthiness he says, not without irony, that if they are so unworthy then they should not even receive the Holy Sacrament once a year.

In the beginning, those who did not wish to receive Holy Communion did not attend the Divine Liturgy at all. Consequently, the various synods in the East and in the West began imposing ecclesiastical penalties upon those, who were not present for several weeks at the Unbloody Sacrifice on Sunday. From this rose a new custom: one could be present at the Divine Liturgy and not be obliged to receive Holy Communion. Mindful of this, the Church set out to lay down norms governing the participation of the faithful in Holy Communion. The ninth canon of the Holy Apostles directs: “All those faithful who enter and listen to the Scriptures, but do not stay for prayer and Holy Communion must be excommunicated on the ground that they are causing the Church a breach of order.” The same canon was repeated by the local Synod of Antioch (341) which added that “such persons are to be excommunicated from the Church and remain so until they go to confession, produce fruits of penance and ask pardon; only then will they be able to obtain forgiveness.” (Rule 2)

The local Synod in Agde (506), France, decreed that those who do not receive Holy Communion on the Nativity of our Lord, Easter (the Pasch) and Pentecost shall cease to be members of the Church. The final legislation regarding Confession and Holy Communion in the Western Church was formulated by the Lateran Council (1215), which bound all the faithful in conscience, at least once a year, to confess their sins and to receive Holy Communion.

After the practice of frequent Holy Communion had been abandoned, the Great Fast became, for all the faithful not only a time of preparation for the feast of the Pasch, but also an opportunity for the annual paschal (Easter) Confession and Holy Communion which they received on Holy Thursday, – the day of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, or on the same day of the Resurrection (Easter).

From the time that, not all the faithful but only some, or even no one at all, received Holy Communion at the Divine Liturgy, the Eastern Church introduced the custom of distributing the “antidoron” at the end of the Divine Liturgy to all those faithful who did not participate in Holy Communion. “Antidoron” is a Greek word which means “instead of the gift”, that is, in place of the Holy Gifts. It was the remains (left overs) of the prophora or bread from which the Lamb or Host was cut out at the table of Prothesis.

The First Centuries of Christianity in Ukraine

When our ancestors accepted the holy faith from Byzantium they also accepted the prescriptions of the Greek Church concerning Confession and Holy Communion. The Metropolitan of Kiev, George (1072), gives us these prescriptions in his “Rules”, “Whoever is worthy,” he says in the ninth rule, “let him receive the Holy Sacraments on all the Sundays of the Great Fast, Great Thursday, Great Saturday, Easter, Ascension of our Lord, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, during Peter’s Fast, on the feast of St. Peter, the feast of the holy Martyrs Borys and Hlib, the feasts of the Transfiguration, Dormition of the most Holy Mother of God, St. Nicholas, the Nativity of our Lord, the Theophany and the Presentation (Meeting or Encounter) of our Lord.” (E. Golubinsky: History of the Russian Church, Vol. I, Part Two, p. 534)

It appears from this that almost 150 years before the time the Lateran Council prescribed for the Western Church that the faithful must receive Holy Communion under penalty of mortal sin at least once a year, in our land prescriptions encouraging the faithful to receive Holy Communion more frequently had already existed. In fact, as we have seen above, it was received by our people over twenty times a year.

The Practice in the More Recent Times

Regarding Confession and Holy Communion the prescriptions of the Kyievan Metropolitan, Peter Mohyla (†1647), merit special attention. In his Euchologion, published in 1646, he directs all pastors to remind their people as early as Cheesefare week and the first week of lent of their obligation to confess their sins twice during the Great Fast at the beginning and at the end of the Great Fast – as well as to receive Holy Communion. During the other three fasts he directs the faithful to go to Confession and receive Holy Communion at least once. He taught that the Church instituted four fasts in the year, during which every Christian should confess his sins and receive Holy Communion.

Should one be so neglectful as not to confess his sins and receive Holy Communion even once a year during the Great Fast, Metropolitan Peter Mohyla directs the pastors to reprimand him publicly three times, namely, on Palm Sunday, Great Thursday and Great Saturday. Should he fail to fulfill his Christian obligation, then he is to be excommunicated from the Church publicly on Bright or Easter Tuesday until he repents. Should he die in the state of impenitence, then he is to be refused Christian burial. He recommends to those who rarely go to confession and lapse into sin repeatedly, that they confess and receive Holy Communion every month and on certain great feastdays.

The Eastern Church prescribes before every confession a so-called “hoviniye”; this is a special preparation that lasts seven days, or three days or at least one day. During this period of preparation the faithful must, as far as possible, be present in church every day at the divine services, observe a strict fast, pray more at home, perform works of mercy, reflect upon their sins and during this time seek reconciliation with all.

The Synod of Zamost (1720) enjoins the priests to exhort the faithful to confess their sins at least three times a year and receive the Sacraments on these days: Easter (Resurrection Day) – on this day under penalty of excommunication -, on the Dormition of the most Holy Mother of God, and on the Nativity of our Lord. Lest the “hoviniye” (that special preparation before confession) prevent one from going to confession, the Synod explains that, although fasting is praiseworthy, nevertheless, it is not an integral part of confession.

The Synod of Lviv (1891) also recommended frequent Confession and Holy Communion and the observance of our traditional custom of receiving the Sacraments at least three times a year. The Synod ordered those who are negligent in this matter to be reprimanded and reminded of the penalty of excommunication from the Church.

For daily and frequent Holy Communion the Church does not demand confession each time one goes to Holy Communion. One may receive Holy Communion frequently as long as one is not guilty of mortal sin. Venial sins do not constitute an obstacle to Holy Communion. Actually one may receive Holy Communion daily while it suffices that he confess his sins once a month.

The most Holy Eucharist is the holiest and most sacred Sacrament because in this Sacrament, under the appearance of bread and wine, the true and living Jesus Christ, our Saviour, Lord and God is present. The Second Vatican Council declares that

“in the Liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end are most powerfully achieved…”

(Constitution on the Liturgy, §10). For this reason the Council directs that we join our participation in the Divine Liturgy with Holy Communion:

“The perfect form of participation in the Divine Liturgy, whereby the faithful, after the priest’s Communion, receive the Lord’s Body from the same sacrifice, is strongly commended.” (§55)

Therefore, let these two great and holy Sacraments serve us as a perpetual fountain of love of God and of neighbor, of our faith and holiness and as our guarantee of everlasting happiness according to the words of Christ:

“Whoever eats my body and drinks my blood, shall have eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.”

(John 6,54)

“Noble Joseph took down Your most pure body from the tree, wrapped it in a clean shroud, covered it with spices and laid it in a new tomb.” (Troparion of Holy or Great Friday)

The service of Great or Holy Friday is characterized by its very beautiful ceremonies, stirring hymns and melodies and sticheras of profound significance. Their main theme is the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the fifteenth antiphon of the Matins service of Great Friday we sing:

“Today He hangs on the cross, Who hung the earth upon waters. The King of the angels has a crown of thorns placed upon Him. He was clothed in mock purple. The One Who in the Jordan freed Adam, received a slap. The Bridegroom of the church was riveted (to the cross) with nails. The Son of the Virgin was pierced with a lance. Christ, we worship Your passion. Christ, we worship Your passion. Christ, we worship Your passion. Make known to us Your glorious Resurrection as well.”

The central focus of the sublime and moving rites of the Great Friday services is the Holy Shroud (Plaschanytsia). This holy icon of Christ in the tomb became an integral part of the rites of the Vesper services of Great Friday and the Matins service of Great Saturday. During these services we pay special public honor and veneration to the Holy Shroud. The reason for this is that the history of the salvation of mankind is inscribed on the icon of the Holy Shroud in blood-red letters. The Holy Shroud speaks to us of the severe justices of God and His everlasting love and unfathomable mercy toward us sinners.

Because of the liturgical significance of the Holy Shroud, it is fitting that we say a little more about its history and the rite of placing or exposing it for public veneration.

History of the Holy Shroud

The Holy Shroud, as it is used today in the Great Friday and Saturday services, is of comparatively recent date, for it is scarcely several hundreds of years old. Its origin dates back, however, to the time of Christ’s death. The Holy Shroud is nothing but the winding sheet in which Christ’s dead body was wrapped when it was laid in the tomb. The Holy Shroud, as it is used in the services of Great Friday and Saturday, was unknown to the Eastern Church for about fifteen hundred years.

The Christians of the Church of Jerusalem in the first centuries on Great Friday, venerated the wood of the cross which was discovered at the beginning of the fourth century by St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. This rite of the veneration of the cross was recorded by the pilgrim Silvia of Acquitaine (4c). In her Diary of a Pilgrimage, we read that on Great Friday the bishop, attended by deacons, processed to Golgotha where he sat on a throne set up for him on the very spot where Christ was crucified. While the deacons stood around him, a table covered with a linen cloth was placed before him, and on this table was laid the sacred wood of the cross and its inscription. The bishop held the ends of the sacred wood with his hands while the faithful came forth, one by one, approached the table, made a profound bow to the ground, touched the cross and the inscription with their foreheads and eyes, then kissed the cross and departed.

The custom of venerating the Holy Cross on Great Friday later spread to the Greek Church. During the Matins service after the fifth Gospel of the Passion, while the above stichera,
“Today He hangs on the Cross…” was being sung, the priest or the bishop took the processional cross from behind the altar and carried it out of the sanctuary and placed it in the middle of the church. As the following words of the stichera were being sung: “We worship Your passion, O Christ…”, the priest and all the faithful made three bows to the ground and then
kissed the Holy Cross. Under the influence of the Eastern Church the veneration of the Holy Cross on Great Friday in the middle of the seventh century reached to the Western Church where it is still practised at the present day. During the Divine Liturgy the Eastern Church covers the holy gifts on the proskomedia with a large rectangular veil. This veil, which is also called the “aer”, began to be used in the Liturgy by the Church of Jerusalem during the time of St. Sabbas the Sanctified (+532), author of the Jerusalem Typicon. St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (713-730), teaches that the “aer” is the symbol of that stone with which Joseph of Arimathea sealed the tomb of Christ. According to Simeon of Thessalonica (†1429) however, the “aer” is interpreted as the symbol of the naked and dead body of Jesus, which was laid in the tomb. For this reason, he says, the picture of Christ as He is being laid in the tomb, is sometimes depicted on the “aer”. At the Great Entrance the deacon carries this “aer” before the holy gifts. The priest then takes it and covers the chalice and the bread on the altar with it, while reciting silently the troparion: “The noble Joseph…”

This Greek custom of having the veil on the icon of Christ in the tomb came to us in the fourteenth century along with the Jerusalem Typicon. This was the beginning of our Holy Shroud (Plaschanytsia).

According to the prescriptions of the Jerusalem Typicon the troparion, “The noble Joseph….”, is sung also in the Vespers service of Great Friday and in the Matins service of Great Saturday. Our devout ancestors, it seems, when singing this requiem hymn in honor of the Saviour, not only wished to relive this event in spirit, but also wished to see with their own eyes the icon representing His being laid in the tomb. For this reason the veil, our first Shroud, because of its symbolic meaning, came after this troparion, at first in the Matins services of Great Saturday, then afterwards in the Vespers service of Great Friday.

In the sixteenth century there appears among our people the custom of carrying the “aer”-shroud with the icon of the dead Christ during the entrance with the Holy Gospel at the Great Doxology in the Matins service of Great Saturday. The entrance ends with the singing of the troparion “The noble Joseph…”, and the veneration by bowing down and kissing the aer-shroud. After Matins it is again placed on the altar, together with the Gospel Book. During this century, the veil with the icon of Christ in the tomb was first called by our people the “plaschanytsia” or shroud.

The rite of venerating the Holy Shroud was, after some time, transferred from the Matins service of Great Saturday to the Vespers service of Great Friday. This happened, probably because the troparion “The noble Joseph….” was sung in the services of Passion Week for the first time in the Vespers service of Great Friday.

In addition to the figure of Christ in the tomb we now have the figures of Mary the Mother of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea and the pious women who took part in the burial of Jesus Christ depicted on the Holy Shroud. Along the border of the shroud are inscribed the words of the troparion “The noble Joseph, etc.”

The Rite of Placing or Laying Out of the Holy Shroud

Our handwritten Typicons up to the sixteenth century make no mention of the rite of placing or laying out the Holy Shroud, for it had just begun to come into practice at that time. Since the Holy Shroud became part of the Vespers service of Great Friday and Matins service of Great Saturday, not by virtue of a special prescription, but by way of a custom of the Church, there is no one uniform rite of placing the shroud to this day. In this regard various local Churches developed their own customs. The veneration of the Holy Shroud in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries became a general universal practice and custom of the entire Eastern Church.

The rite of carrying out and the placing of the shroud according to the Typicon of Father Isidore Dolnytsky was performed at the cathedral churches in Galicia in the following manner:

“During the Vespers service of Great Friday, while the following stichera of the Aposticha was being sung, ‘You who clothe yourself with light as with a garment…’ a procession was made around the church with the shroud, which was carried by four priests or elders of the church, each holding one of the four corners. After the procession, the shroud was placed upon a specially prepared table in the middle of the church. At the end of the Vespers service while the troparion “The noble Joseph…” is being sung three times, all approached the Holy Shroud on their knees and devoutly kissed it. The Lord’s grave was adorned with flowers and burning candles, and behind the grave stood a plain cross without the corpus (the crucified body of Christ) with a cloth hanging over its crossbeams.”

Father I. Dolnytsky recalls also that in Galicia there was a custom during the procession with the Holy Shroud to carry the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which afterwards was placed either on the top of the grave of the Lord or on the altar for adoration. He remarked that this custom had been taken over from the Latin Church. The custom of exposing the Blessed Sacrament in conjunction with the Shroud is completely contrary to the spirit of Great Friday and the spirit of the Eastern Church. The Holy Shroud, as a matter of fact, is actually the symbol of Christ in the tomb; therefore, there is no reason here for the public veneration of the Blessed Sacrament. On Great Friday in some localities in the Western Church, the Blessed Sacrament is removed from the tabernacle and the tabernacle doors are opened to indicate that Christ is not present there, but in the tomb.

The Typicon of Dr. Alexander Mykyta says that in Carpatho-Ukraine, during the procession with the shroud, the priest carries the shroud on his back holding one end of the Shroud on his head, while the other end is held by two people. The procession is made only once.

In Eastern Ukraine and Russia during the Vespers while the troparion “The noble Joseph” is being sung, the Holy Shroud is carried out only to the middle of the church; whereas the procession with the Holy Shroud takes place at the Great Doxology in the Matins service of Great Saturday. During the procession the priest carries the shroud upon his head and under the shroud he also holds the Gospel Book which he later places on the Holy Shroud at the Lord’s grave.

The Holy Shroud remains exposed for veneration until the Matins of the Resurrection. Before Matins, following a short service performed at the grave, it is carried into the sanctuary and placed on the altar. There is no special prescription as to where the Holy Shroud should be placed during the Easter season. Some churches keep it on the altar until St. Thomas Sunday, then hang it up on the wall behind the altar above the cathedra (or throne), while in other churches the shroud remains on the altar until the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women. In our churches the shroud remains on the altar until the Feast of Ascension, i.e. forty days, as a sign of Christ’s so journ of forty days on earth. Among our people the Holy Shroud is truly venerated and loved. Many of our faithful observe a strict fast on Great Fri- day and approach the Holy Shroud fasting, just as they would approach to receive Holy Communion. They approach the Holy Shroud in no other way than on the knees, starting frequently as far back as the doors of the church. By the grave of our Lord, sometimes through the whole night from Great Fri- day to Saturday, an honor guard usually stands provided by our youth and adult organizations. The veneration and the kissing of the Holy Shroud is, for our faithful, a truly profound spiritual experience and an opportunity to renew their faith and love for Christ, who out of love for us, died on the Cross.

The Funeral Stichera Sung During the Rite of Placing the Shroud

“You, who clothe Yourself with light as with a garment, were taken down from the cross by Joseph and Nicodemus. And seeing You dead, naked and unburied, he raised a heart-rending lament and said: ‘Alas, dearest Jesus! A short while ago the sun saw You hanging on the cross and covered itself with darkness. The earth trembled in fear, and the veil of the temple was torn asunder. But now I see You who, willingly, underwent death for my sake. How can I bury You, my God? In what kind of shroud can I wrap You? With what kind of hands can I touch Your incorruptible Body? What song shall I sing at Your departure, merciful Lord? I extol Your Passion, and with hymns I praise Your burial together with Your Resurrection, crying out: ‘O Lord, glory be to You!””