Introductory theological commentary on Holy and Holy Week
Once again, with the grace of God, we are heading towards Holy and Holy Week, the holiest festive season of the year. Once again we will follow the footsteps of the Bridegroom of our Church Christ and we will become fellow travelers of His Divine Passion. According to the sacred hymn writer, we are called as "Let us walk with him and be crucified and die for him in the pleasures of life, so that we may live together with him". With this condition we will become real partakers of His Resurrection. Only in this way will we truly feel the joy of the Divine Ascension.
The starting point of this very important celebratory period is ancient and goes back to the apostolic times. The fasting and spiritual preparation of the believers of the ancient Church is likely to have been established by the Apostles themselves, according to the words of the Lord to them: "And days come when the bridegroom is separated from them and then they fast" (Matthew 9,15). Saint Dionysios of Alexandria (+264) gives us valuable information about the celebration of Holy Week on the 3ο century. Particularly informative is the pilgrim Aetheria (5th century), who in her famous Pilgrimage to the Holy Land informs us how the Jerusalem Church celebrated Holy Week and Easter in the early Christian years.
According to Saint Chrysostom "They call the week long, not because it now has the length of hours, and because you have many more hours, not because it has longer days, and because this number is the same as all the others. Who owes this great calling? Great things and secrecy happen to the goods that were in it. In this, the long-standing war, death was extinguished, the curse was lifted, the devil's tyranny was overthrown, his vessels were destroyed, God's dealings with men were done" (Homil. 30, In Genesis, PG53,273).
The Holy and Great Week of the Passion of our Lord and God Jesus Christ is undoubtedly a very important station of rich spiritual replenishment of our souls. The mention of the holy events together with the formal services of the holy days, create an atmosphere of contemplation and reflection. The Holy and Seven Passions of our Christ leave few human souls unmoved. Only the few people sold by sin and evil remain indifferent on these holy days. The large crowd of people, who one could probably describe as indifferent, on these holy days flood the temples with the "Summary" in hand to softly sing along with the singers the hymns of the holy services.
We must point out to those who do not know the ecclesiastical order, that our Church has established the M. Week that the Orthros of the day is celebrated the night before, e.g. the Orthros of M. Monday is celebrated on Sunday evening, the Orthros of M. Tuesday on the evening of M. Monday, and so on. This is done so that the working faithful can participate in the holy services.
The structure of Holy Week is exactly the representation of the last week of our Christ's presence on earth. Every day "remember who we are", as the holy synaxari states, of one of those saving events. On Great Monday we honor a great personality of the PD. Joseph of Pagalus, who is himself, with his unjust sufferings, his type
Christ and we also remember the event of the "dry fig" by the Lord, as a living exhortation to the faithful to produce spiritual fruits. On Holy Tuesday we remember the most instructive parables of the Ten Virgins and the Talents, which are of the utmost importance for our salvation, reminding us of the terrible and unwelcome Second Coming of the Lord. On M. Wednesday we honor the repentance of the sinful woman, who anointed the Lord's feet with myrrh out of gratitude, just before His Passion, and still on this day we remember the betrayal of poor Judas. On M. Thursday we celebrate the salvific events that occurred during the Last Supper, the holy Laver, the tradition of the Holy Eucharist, the Lord's High Priestly Prayer and the Lord's conception. On M. Friday we worship the holy and saving and horrible Passions of our Lord Jesus Christ. On M. Saturday we honor the Divine Burial of our Lord and His Descent into Hell.
"I also remember the events of the days of Holy Week," writes a contemporary learned cleric, "they have been set in their historical order, so that through them Christians can watch, as if they were present, first the Lord's journey towards the passion , then this passion and his burial and finally his resurrection" (The Holy and Great Week, published by the Apostolic Ministry of the Church of Greece, Athens 1990, p.10).
The Holy Fathers decorated Holy Week with hymnological content of the highest poetic and musical value. The greatest hymn writers of our Church, inspired by God, with faith and reverence, composed for Holy Week hymns of the highest theological and aesthetic value. The hymnology of M. Week is the pinnacle of world poetry. Great musicians clothed them with exquisite melody. What human heart does not remain unmoved upon hearing the all-consuming trope "Behold the Bridegroom comes", or of the unattainable glory "Lord, the woman who has fallen in many sins", the shocking seat "Today He Hangs on a Tree", or of the famous doxasticus "They went out in my clothes" or of the most melodious eulogies of the Epitaph "Life in the Tomb";
Our Orthodox Church, the only true Church of Christ, ontologically experiences the mystery of Christ's Great Sacrifice. The millions of animal sacrifices and worst of all the human sacrifices of the pagan religions, but of the Jewish religion, had turned out to be futile and ineffective and so they were repeated in dramatic fashion all the time. Man's approach to God had not been achieved. The gap between God and man, not only was not bridged, but rather deepened. The liberating Sacrifice of Christ was effective, it bridged this gap and reunited man with God, because the perpetrator and the victim of the sacrifice was not only a man but the God-man. His death abolished our death, because Christ is life and death cannot have ontological effects on His divine existence, just as it cannot have ontological effects on our existence as members of Christ's body. But this is "fine print" for atheists and baby rationalists, who try to fool themselves that they "know it all" and that their poor and finite minds are the "filter" of truth. Our ecclesiastical self-consciousness gives an answer to this mental wretchedness during these holy days through the mouth of the holy Fathers of our Church and the unfathomable greatness of hymnology.
Our Holy Church invites us in these days to experience the holy and holy Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ with crushing and overwhelming feelings. We are invited to
we become conscious partakers of the sufferings of our Redeemer, because in this way we will feel the magnitude of divine love and charity. Only then will we understand how "O perishable silver or gold, we were redeemed from the vain conversion of our forefathers, but I honor the blood as the innocent and shieldless lamb of Christ" (1,19 Peter 20-XNUMX). Our salvation is the result of the Passion and the unjust Sacrifice of our Lord, as such "He bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we, being born of sins, may live righteousness" (2,24 Peter XNUMX:XNUMX). Christ "after all he died ... that the living might not themselves live, but for their sake he died and rose again" (Rom. 5,15). This presupposes that our experience of the salvific Passions of our Redeemer Christ is not formal or only emotional, but must be a universal ontological amalgamation of salvific actions, which flow from "Jesus, the leader and finisher of faith" (Hebrews 12,2). Only through the experience of the Immaculate Divine Passions and the natural Death of our Redeemer Christ, can we gaze with pure eyes on the glorious event of the Resurrection. Only through the experience of the Cross will we be able to celebrate with due joy and splendor the supreme event of human history, the Ascension of Christ, which is also the beginning of our own ascension! Happy and blessed Holy Week!
