www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Looking for help, re: Pascha

IN my continued outreach to Roman Catholics I have been asked, "Tell us a bit about the Easter Service."

Can someone out there provide a short, concise, description of the Holy Week services and (stupid question here on my part) what the word Pascha means and why we use it.


Thanks,
David

Dear David,

Yes, "Pascha" means simply "Passover" and we use it exclusively to refer to what Westerners call "Easter" - Easter refers to a pagan goddess of the spring.

We use it to denote that in Christ we have "passed over" from death to life, from sin to salvation, from alienation to communion with God.

And Christ Himself is our "Pascha" since it is in Him that we are most fully alive.

Alex

David,

you may wish to consult The Year of Grace of the Lord by A Monk of the Eastern Church (AKA Lev Gillet). It gives a snapshot of the whole liturgical year of the Byzantine Church. Of course, you would do well to consult the services themselves. These more than any other publication would provide the meaning of the Holy Week and Pascha services.

The questions I have been asked are on another forum. I was hoping that someone could either post or point me to something that is short and to the point that I could post there.

Nothing too indepth as they are Roman Catholics who do not really want to get into it to deeply.


David

The best teacher, as said St. Cyril of Jerusalem, is the liturgy itself. Here is a very brief outline:

Lazarus Saturday - services recounting the resurrection of Lazarus by Christ. Palm Sunday - the triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Holy Monday - Wednesday: Bridegroom Matins in the morning. These services are called this from the recurring troparia "Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night. Blessed is the servant He finds awake...". In the evening vesperal Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts.

Holy Wedensday evening - the service of anointing is usually performed after the Liturgy of the Presanctified.

Holy Thursday - Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil with the scriptural account of the Last Supper.

Holy and Great Friday - Matins of the Passion. This is Matins with 12 Gospel passages relating the account of the Passion of Christ. The last Gospel is the laying of His body in the tomb.

Royal Hours - the "Little Hours" during the day are sung with much greater solemnity with scriptural references to the Passion.

Vespers with Deposition of the Shroud - this is a Vespers service during which the Shroud (Plaschanytsia) is taken in a solemn procession and placed in a "tomb" in the church for the faithful to venerate.

Holy and Great Saturday - Jerusalem Matins or the Matins with the Lamentations before the tomb of Christ. In the evening, the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil where the first reading of the account of the Resurrection is heard after all of the Prophecies. Also in the Greek tradition, the priest spreads laurel leaves in the church during this service in royal recognition of the King and Lord.

Midnight or early in the morning - the service at the tomb (Nahdrobnoye).

This is followed by the giving of the Holy Light and Paschal Matins begins with the procession around the church and the priest singing the Easter troparia and the verses of Psalm 67, and finally knocking at the doors of the church, darkened, which open and the church becomes filled with light and then the rest of the Paschal Matins service. Blessing of Paschal food either after Matins or Divine Liturgy.

Sunday - Paschal Hours and Paschal Divine Liturgy. In the evening the Agape Vespers service. Bright Monday and Tuesday - Paschal Divine Liturgy (sometimes also called Water Monday and Tuesday because water is sometimes blessed and the kids like to soak everyone)

Some of these services (especially Passion Matins and Jerusalem Matins, sometimes also Bridegroom Matins) are anticipated the evening before in some parishes.

This is a VERY abbreviated schema and explanation. By reading the liturgical texts themselves you will receive a much more profound picture of the depth and beauty of the Passion and Resurrection expressed in the Byzantine tradition.

In terms of books on this subject there are many, some dealing with Pascha, some dealing with Holy Week and some dealing with both. An excellent patristic catechesis of Lent and Holy Week is St. Ephraim the Syrian's Catechesis for Great Lent. Alexander Schmemann has also some good works on this subject. Hugh Wybrew has a more analytical book on Holy Week and Pascha looking at the liturgical texts of each service during that time. While specifically looking at the Greek liturgical usage, Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas also has a good book on Holy Week and Pascha.

David --

In that case, you may simply wish to provide a brief outline yourself, based on your own experience of the Holy Week services in your own parish. We all do it a bit differently, but the basic outlines are the same (Bridegroom Matins during the early part of the week, Anointing Service on Wednesday, Holy Thursday morning liturgy of the last supper, Holy Thursday evening 12 Gospels service, Good Friday afternoon taking down from the cross, Good Friday evening lamentations service, Holy Saturday morning divine liturgy and Holy Saturday evening Paschal service).

Another good textual resource (not online, though) which is rather descriptive and accessible is Frederica Mathewes-Green's book "Facing East", which describes these services from the perspective of experiencing them.

Brendan

Pascha is from the Hebrew word "pesach" which means "lamb." On the night of the "passover" of God's angel of death, the Hebrews (OT Church) were told to stay inside and eat the entire lamb that they were told to slaughter. The blood of the lamb was to be smeared over the doorway of Hebrew homes so that the angel would "pass over" them, the 14th day of Nissan.

To Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, it was clear that Christ was the lamb of God, whose blood was shed to save us, as in the "passover" of old. Thus they celebrated his crucifiction and resurrection around the 14th day of Nissan, whenever it fell. That was especially true in the east where the early NT Church was heavily dominated by ethnic Jews.

In the West, they celebrated the Crucifixtion on Friday and the finding of the empty tomb on the first day of the week, Sunday, our current schedule. (Remember, we don't know exactly when he was resurrected, but theologically it would have been after resting on the Sabbath/Saturday and before the early-morning discovery of the empty tomb. So that's after 6:00 PM Saturday until first light on Sunday - all litugically Sunday).

The discrepancy between eastern and western celebrations led to the Quartodecima Controversy that Polycarp of Smyrna and Pope Leo settled in favor of the Friiday/Sunday schedule as normative.

In Christ,
Andrew

"Paskha" is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew word "Pesakh".

"Paskha" actually means "THE Passover", the final "a" is the definite article in Aramaic and it is always attached to the end of the word. (Just plain "passover" would be in Aramaic, "paskh")

The literal Hebrew equivalent would be "ha-Pesakh", i.e. "The Passover".

Pesakh in Hebrew means, according to the dictionary: "pass through", "pass over", and by extension, "to spare", "to halt", "to waver", etc.

And this was used to indicated the "passing over" of the houses of the Hebrews by the Angel of Death a la the 10th Plague visited upon Egypt in Exodus, and by extension the annual celebration/commemoration thereof by Jews and Samaritans.

As for explanations, I like Abp. Raya's translation of the Irmos of Ode 1 from Res. Matins:

"...this Passover is the Passover of the Lord, in that Christ our God made us pass [over] from death to life and from earth to heaven, we who sing to Him triumphal praise!"

Hope this helps.

Herb

Dear Herb,

Well, it always helps me to hear that I'm right and that Reader Andrew isn't!

Alex

Father Alexander Schmemann wrote a short but well-packed pamphlet on the Holy Week services, which I gladly recommend (and of which I have given away a great many copies). I hope that it's still in print. Incognitus

Dear Herb and Alex,

I'll check my sources and stand corrected until further notice. Thank you.

Perhaps it is tht I've mixed up the Hebrew word for "pass over" with the Greek word for "lamb?" I'll look into that.

With love in Christ,
Andrew

In reading Diak's fine synopsis, I noticed the absence of the continuous reading of the Gospels at the Hours on Monday through Wednesday. Is this completely ignored in parochial practice? The next nearest Byzantine church is over 200 miles away, so I really don't know what is done outside of our humble mission, but personally I can't imagine a Holy Week without this opportunity to hear the Gospels in their totality.

-- Ed