Great and Holy Saturday

Great and Holy Saturday
Commemorated on April 19

Great and Holy Saturday is the day on which Christ reposed in the tomb. The Church calls this day the Blessed Sabbath.

“The great Moses mystically foreshadowed this day when he said:
God blessed the seventh day.
This is the blessed Sabbath
This is the day of rest,
on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works....”

(Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday)

By using this title the Church links Holy Saturday with the creative act of God. In the initial account of creation as found in the Book of Genesis, God made man in His own image and likeness. To be truly himself, man was to live in constant communion with the source and dynamic power of that image: God. Man fell from God. Now Christ, the Son of God through whom all things were created, has come to restore man to communion with God. He thereby completes creation. All things are again as they should be. His mission is consummated. On the Blessed Sabbath He rests from all His works.

THE TRANSITION

Holy Saturday is a neglected day in parish life. Few people attend the Services. Popular piety usually reduces Holy Week to one day—Holy Friday. This day is quickly replaced by another—Easter Sunday. Christ is dead and then suddenly alive. Great sorrow is suddenly replaced by great joy. In such a scheme Holy Saturday is lost.

In the understanding of the Church, sorrow is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. This distinction indicates that it is precisely within death that Christ continues to effect triumph.

TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH

We sing that Christ is “...trampling down death by death” in the troparion of Easter. This phrase gives great meaning to Holy Saturday. Christ’s repose in the tomb is an “active” repose. He comes in search of His fallen friend, Adam, who represents all men. Not finding him on earth, he descends to the realm of death, known as Hades in the Old Testament. There He finds him and brings him life once again. This is the victory: the dead are given life. The tomb is no longer a forsaken, lifeless place. By His death Christ tramples down death by death.

THE ICON OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES

The traditional icon used by the Church on the feast of Easter is an icon of Holy Saturday: the descent of Christ into Hades. It is a painting of theology, for no one has ever seen this event. It depicts Christ, radiant in hues of white and blue, standing on the shattered gates of Hades. With arms outstretched He is joining hands with Adam and all the other Old Testament righteous whom He has found there. He leads them from the kingdom of death. By His death He tramples death.

“Today Hades cries out groaning:
I should not have accepted the Man born of Mary.
He came and destroyed my power.
He shattered the gates of brass.
As God, He raised the souls I had held captive.
Glory to Thy cross and resurrection, O Lord!”
(Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday)

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THE VESPERAL LITURGY

The Vespers of Holy Saturday inaugurates the Paschal celebration, for the liturgical cycle of the day always begins in the evening. In the past, this service constituted the first part of the great Paschal vigil during which the catechumens were baptized in the “baptisterion” and led in procession back into the church for participation in their first Divine Liturgy, the Paschal Eucharist. Later, with the number of catechumens increasing, the first baptismal part of the Paschal celebration was disconnected from the liturgy of the Paschal night and formed our pre-paschal service: Vespers and the Liturgy of St Basil the Great which follows it. It still keeps the marks of the early celebration of Pascha as baptismal feast and that of Baptism as Paschal sacrament (death and resurrection with Jesus Christ—Romans 6).

On “Lord I Call” the Saturday Resurrectional stichiras of Tone 1 are sung, followed by the the special stichiras of Holy Saturday, which stress the death of Christ as descent into Hades, the region of death, for its destruction. But the pivotal point of the service occurs after the Entrance, when fifteen lessons from the Old Testament are read, all centered on the promise of the Resurrection, all glorifying the ultimate Victory of God, prophesied in the victorious Song of Moses after the crossing of the Red Sea (“Let us sing to the Lord, for gloriously has He been glorified”), the salvation of Jonah, and that of the three youths in the furnace.

Then the epistle is read, the same epistle that is still read at Baptism (Romans 6:3-11), in which Christ’s death and resurrection become the source of the death in us of the “old man,” the resurrection of the new, whose life is in the Risen Lord. During the special verses sung after the epistle, “Arise, O God, and judge the earth,” the dark lenten vestments are put aside and the clergy vest in the bright white ones, so that when the celebrant appears with the Gospel the light of Resurrection is truly made visible in us, the “Rejoice” with which the Risen Christ greeted the women at the grave is experienced as being directed at us.

The Liturgy of St Basil continues in this white and joyful light, revealing the Tomb of Christ as the Life-giving Tomb, introducing us into the ultimate reality of Christ’s Resurrection, communicating His life to us, the children of fallen Adam.

One can and must say that of all services of the Church that are inspiring, meaningful, revealing, this one: the Vespers and Liturgy of St Basil the Great and Holy Saturday is truly the liturgical climax of the Church. If one opens one’s heart and mind to it and accepts its meaning and its light, the very truth of Orthodoxy is given by it, the taste and the joy of that new life which shines forth from the grave.

Rev. Alexander Schmemann
OCA - Great and Holy Saturday

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Scripture Readings
Saturday, April 19, 2014

Ezekiel 37:1-14
1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 3:13-14
Matthew 27:62-66
Genesis 1:1-13
Isaiah 60:1-16
Exodus 12:1-11
Jonah 1:1-4:11
Joshua 5:10-15
Exodus 13:20-15:19
Zephaniah 3:8-15
3[1] Kings 17:8-24
Isaiah 61:10-62:5
Genesis 22:1-18
Isaiah 61:1-9
4[2] Kings 4:8-37
Isaiah 63:11-64:5
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Daniel 3:1-23; Song of the Three: 1-66 with verses
Romans 6:3-11

Matthew 28:1-20 (Gospel)

1 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2
And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.
3
His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
4
And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
5
But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
6
He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7
And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.
8
So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.
9
And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.
10
Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”
11
Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened.
12
When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers,
13
saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’
14
And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.
15
So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
16
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.
17
When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
18
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
19
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20
teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.


Today’s commemorated feasts and saints
GREAT AND HOLY SATURDAY. Ven. John of the Ancient Caves in Palestine (8th c.). Martyrs Christopher, Theonas, and Anthony, at Rome (303). Hieromartyr Paphnutius of Jerusalem. St. George the Confessor, Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia (9th c.). St. Tryphon, Patriarch of Constantinople (933). Ven. Nicephorus, Abbot of Catabad. Monk Martyr Agathangelos of Esphigmenou (Mt. Athos—1819). Ven. Simeon of Philotheou (Mt. Athos—16th c.).

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