www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Midnight Pascha - which traditions?

Just curious, is there any type of reason why some churches have late/mid night Pascha services, and others have it on Sunday morning?

I ask because my brother, who is attending an Orthodox church, asked if my Ruthenian church had the midnight service. We don't, but I'm not sure why.

Is it a cultural tendency or something else?

Our Byzantine (Ruthenian) community is having a midnight Divine Liturgy preceded by Paschal Matins and followed by a community meal.

The custom of celebrating Pascha Orthros at midnight has become almost universal for most Byzantine Orthodox traditions, including Greeks, Antiochians, OCA, ROCOR, Ukrainian Orthodox (well, at least some of their churches), etc.

Curiously, I recently inquired into the practice about the 'proper' time myself. According to the Typikon of St. Sabbas (chapter 50), which is still followed in most Slav Orthodox Churches, the para-ecclesiarch starts preparing for the service at the second hour of the morning, i.e., somewhere around two hours after sunrise. But, I guess that most no longer follow this prescription.

I think it is practical - when can you get people to show up? We have a very small parish, populated by a combination of elderly and young families. The elderly often do not drive at night, and the young families have to get their kids to bed.

Makes sense.

Thank you for pointing that out - my father often referred to that and ACROD probably stands alone in not rushing to the midnight Paschal Liturgy although it is happening like a rising tide that won't abate.

I know a woman from St. Michael's here who is from Slovakia and she is going to her mother's village near Ladimirova for Holy Week and Easter and to help her mom plant the potatoes! - This is where the ROCOR first located after the Revolution and the home village of the late Metropolitan Laurus. There are more Orthodox in that region than elsewhere in Slovakia. She told me just this afternoon that in her village the Orthodox Church Liturgy will be around 10 am preceded by the Matins and blessing of Baskets like it was when she was a child there. They have been Orthodox there since the 1920's. Just like what had been the long standing custom in the states - including the Metropolia/OCA until the 'midnight madness', as some call it, came to be popularized under the guise that it is 'holier' and 'more venerable' amd 'more Orthodox'. To me that is a lot of pious posturing. I don't disrespect and I recognize that it is the practice of many in the Orthodox world but that doesn't make it the universal modality.

The local UOC-USA parish 'switched' for a few years until the priest realized that many of his flock were heading to the nearby ACROD parishes in the morning instead of his midnight.

We should honor local traditions regarding the celebrating of Pascha. However, scripturally speaking the Lord was risen in the dark morning hours i.e. we read in the gospels that the myrrh bearing women arrived at the tomb of Christ before the break of dawn and found that Christ had already risen. Therefore, IMHO, the practice of midnight matins followed by the Paschal Divine Liturgy seems to me the best time to celebrate such an event. However, some celebrate Matins at midnight and then come back in the morning for Liturgy.

Most UGCC parishes still take the Graveside (Nahdrobne) and Utrennya early in the morning, and neither are we rusing to "midnight madness". As DMD mentions going to midnight is a fairly recent change in the UGCC and UOC in North America and it is far from universal. Even some of the UOC cathedrals have kept early morning Pascha services. There are only a couple of parishes I can think of in my Eparchy that have gone to midnight, and at least one of those is because the priest serves multiple parishes.

I think the Sabbaitic practice (as the Studite before it) has much wisdom, and if we are to take the Scriptural example of the myrrh-Bearing women and share their joy of discovering the Risen Christ and the empty tomb, early morning is certainly an appropriate time. At this point waiting another six hours or so to have the kovbasa is not a problem.

I was under the impression that it was a Greek tradition, and maybe Antiochian? It seems pretty clear that it's not particularly Slavic/Russian (each generalization with certain exceptions, to be sure).

Interesting. I have a separate question related to Holy Week in a similar context, but I'll start a separate thread for it.

I once read (on this Forum?) that splitting Resurrection Matins and Liturgy was a practice of the Studite Typikon, which held on in certain parts of Europe, notably in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I have experienced both styles of Pascha, and I can see positives and negatives for both. There is a certain "feel" to doing everything at Midnight that cannot be replicated by holding each service at different times. Then again, splitting up the services does make them more manageable and less exhausting for priest and singer alike. That being said, I really think the preferred schedule depends upon the given parish community, the location of the church building, and so forth.

One of the sad things is that, regardless of which tradition is followed, people will always "pick and choose" which services they attend, or how much they will attend. We all know the stories of churches that are packed at the stroke of midnight, only to be emptied by the start of Liturgy. Or of churches which have Paschal Vespers and an Egg Hunt for kids on Easter Sunday morning--giving the (unintended!) impression that kids don't need to come to the midnight services or receive the Eucharist on Pascha. On the flip side, many churches which celebrate Matins on Saturday evening and Liturgy on Sunday morning will have only a few people present for Matins, and a full church for Liturgy. So, in any case, you can't seem to win them all. We'll just try our best!

Fr. David