Dublin - 20080501
by Archimandrite Serge Keleher
Prosphora!
The many services of Holy Week, and the exceptionally large attendance on Palm Sunday and Pascha itself, inevitably mean a need for quite a lot of prosphora. Mr. Pól Ua Bradaigh of our parish keeps us supplied with prosphora, and spent a good deal of time baking to meet the needs of Holy Week and Pascha. Mr. Padraig Purcell and Mr. Declan Sheehy made heroic sacrifices of their time so that every service would have servers.
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday always attracts a large number of faithful, and this year was no exception. Mr. Serhiy Mykolyuk as usual brought a large quantity of pussy willow branches, and other parishioners brought some too, so there was plenty for the blessing. Early that morning, Mr. Andrij Bebko arrived from London; he was to be our main chanter for the Holy Week services. At 3:00 PM Father Christopher came from the Jesuit house on Gardiner Street to hear Confessions: Father Christopher is a Jesuit who serves to assist in the Polish parishes in this part of Ireland but is himself from Lemkivshchyna and a Greek-Catholic. Father often comes to us, to our joy, but this time he outdid himself; he must have heard well over a hundred Confessions on Palm Sunday, and the end was not in sight!
Divine Liturgy and the blessing of the pussy willows began at 4:00 PM. Saint Kevin's Oratory at the Pro-Cathedral was filled to bursting, and the congregational singing was magnificent. Almost everyone came to Holy Communion. As the Liturgy concluded, Father Christopher was still hearing Confessions and it was necessary to give the last few faithful Communion after the Dismissal – fortunately three Lambs had been reserved from the Divine Liturgy for the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts on the following three days, so this was not an overwhelming problem
Divine Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts
On Great Monday, Great Tuesday, and Great Wednesday there is the Divine Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, with Old Testament readings from the Book of Exodus and the Book of Job, and a Gospel lesson each night (during the rest of Lent, a Gospel reading at this Liturgy is a rare exception). Some faithful came each evening – over the years in different parishes I have found the Great Tuesday is always the low point in Church attendance during Holy Week, though I've never been able to determine why this is so. Father Christopher again came each evening to hear Confessions, and may God bless him abundantly for this work.
The Mystery of Holy Anointing
Like some other parishes, here in Dublin there is the Mystery of Holy Anointing on Great Wednesday, before the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. This custom seems to have originated in Jerusalem; it spread throughout the Greek Churches of the Eastern Mediterranean, and then pilgrims to the Holy Land brought the custom to Ukraine, where it first took root at the Monastery of the Kyiv-Caves. The faithful very much appreciate this Mystery; since Great Wednesday is a working day we find that we must keep the Oil itself for a day or so to anoint those who could not come for the actual service.
The Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts of Great Wednesday is the last time this Liturgy will be offered until Great Lent of 2009. This Liturgy is the "typical" service of Great Lent, well-known in our parishes, with beautiful, subdued and much-loved chanting as well as the incomparable Prayer of Saint Ephrem, which is offered twice at every such Liturgy, and three times at the Liturgy of Great Wednesday (the third time is just before the Dismissal, to "bid farewell" to this wonderful prayer until next Lent).
Holy Thursday
Holy Thursday (and Good Friday) the Pro-Cathedral was having a special Mission preached by Brother Alois of Taizé, so Saint Kevin's Oratory was not available to us on those days. Father Brian Lawless kindly made us welcome with fraternal hospitality at his beautiful Church of Saint Agatha for our services of those days – and also announced our services to his parishioners. To our great joy, Father Brian also served with us on both days, which made a serious difference.
Father John Lundberg – a retired priest from the USA who often comes to us for Holy Week – arrived on Holy Thursday morning and joined us in the afternoon for the Vespers and Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, and in the evening for the Passion Orthros with the reading of the twelve Gospel lessons. Father Christopher also came, and both heard Confessions and read four of the Gospel lessons. Holy Thursday is something of a liturgical marathon, but somehow we all survived!
Father Hieromonk Elias (O. Carm.) came to us from York for the conclusion of Holy Week, and added much to our celebrations.
Good Friday
We began the Royal Hours at about 1:30 (urban traffic delayed us a bit); Father John served and Mr. Bebko, Father Elias, and Father Archimandrite chanted and read. At 3:00 PM we arranged the Tomb in the center of the nave, before the gates of the Communion Rail, set out the Holy Shroud on the Holy Table of the Altar, and served the Vespers and Entombment. The faithful brought lovely flowers to adorn the Tomb. The Holy Shroud was safely entombed and the service concluded at 4:30 PM, so we went out for a bit of air before the final service of the day.
The evening Orthros "of Jerusalem" (also called the "Funeral of Christ") was beautiful as always; the faithful came in good numbers. Father Christopher both heard Confessions and assisted us, with Father Brian, in the procession outdoors with the Shroud. As always seems to happen on Good Friday, someone we did not know was going past (on a bicycle this time), noticed the procession, joined the faithful, and came back into the church under the Shroud with the others, staying to the end to venerate the Shroud.
We then had to pack our liturgical paraphernalia so as to return to Saint Kevin's Oratory on Holy Saturday. We thanked Father Brian for his exemplary hospitality; Saint Agatha's is celebrating its centennial year and the church has been beautifully restored and cleaned so that it looks like new. This church was bombed during World War II (even though Ireland was neutral) and one damaged stained-glass window is kept in memory of that event.
Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday has been described as "that in-between day", but it has a profound significance – the Blessed Sabbath, the Day of Rest, when the Only-Begotten Son of God rested from all his works. This is reflected in the Vesperal-Liturgy of Saint Basil, which we had at 2:00 PM in Saint Kevin's Oratory. Father Elias and Father John served; Mr. Bebko and Mr. Michael Fedenyshyn did the 15 Old Testament readings; Father Christopher stopped in for a time (he had to leave to say Mass for a Polish parish) and heard some more Confessions.
The service has its dramatic moments: the two Old Testament Canticles are sung joyfully, and after the Epistle there is, on this one day of the year, no Alleluia, but instead the Psalm 81 Arise, O God, and judge the earth, for to Thee belong all the nations! with its verses. Meanwhile the Royal Doors are closed and the clergy change from red to white vestments before proclaiming the Resurrection Gospel (Matthew 28: 1-20) in front of the Tomb. The Liturgy of Saint Basil picks up from the Gospel, but instead of the Cherubic Hymn, we chant on this one day of the year the older hymn from the Liturgy of Saint James Let all mortal flesh keep silence. After the Prayer Behind the Ambo, there is the blessing of bread, wine, and figs (sorry, we forgot the figs this year!), which is usually the only food we have on Holy Saturday.
Fortunately (for us) there was no Mass in Saint Kevin's Oratory that evening, so we were able to leave all our equipment in place for the parishioners to transfer up to the main church of the Pro-Cathedral for our midnight Paschal Vigil. Most of us went to our homes or accommodations and collapsed – it was sure to be a long night, even though it would not seem long.
Shortly after 10:00 PM we began returning to the Pro-Cathedral for the Paschal Vigil. The parish men brought the icon-screen upstairs to the main church and set it in place; the Tomb was set up in front of the Royal Doors for those who had not yet venerated it – and Father Christopher began hearing the last round of Confessions. The clergy and parishioners came in to the main church and set their Paschal Baskets in the right transept for the blessing that would follow the Divine Liturgy. Father John Lundberg did the Preparation of the bread and wine for the Eucharist (which meant a total of five Lambs from large Prosphora baked according to the Old Rite). Father Brian Lawless came and vested to serve with us.
At 11:30 PM there was Mesonycticon and the removal of the Holy Shroud from the Tomb; the Shroud was brought into the Altar [and rested at the High Place; we have a smaller Holy Shroud for use on the Holy Table itself, since the larger one has raised figures].
By midnight, the Pro-Cathedral was quite filled with faithful – over a thousand people had come, including a group of students from Ukraine, aged 17-21, who were here in Dublin for a training program given by the Keelings Fruit Company. On Father Archimandrite's request, the Keelings Fruit Company arranged bus transportation for these young people to come to the midnight service and then return to their accommodation, which was generous of the Company, since it would really not have done to have such a group wandering in the city center in the middle of the night.
As every year, Father Archimandrite welcomed the clergy and faithful, stressing that Ireland needs the strong faith and Christian witness which our "new Irish" from Ukraine have brought to us, and emphasized that the new Irish are welcome in the name of Saint Patrick (who himself was not Irish) and all the Saints of Ireland, in the name of the strong Irish traditional of hospitality, particularly to those in need, in the name of all those who suffered during the persecution of the Church in Ireland, and in the name of all the Irish of the Diaspora, who have found a welcome in so many countries of the world. The Royal Doors were then closed and the lights extinguished. The Paschal Trikirion was lit, the Holy Table was censed three times to the singing of "Thy Resurrection, O Christ our Saviour" and the Procession began. It is impossible to process around the Pro-Cathedral, but we process down Cathedral Street, back to Marlborough Street, and then back to the entrance doors of the Pro-Cathedral; the sacristan encouraged a few stragglers inside the church to go outside!
Father Christopher proclaimed the Orthros Gospel in Ukrainian and Father Archimandrite repeated it in Irish. Then the doors were blessed, and the always-welcome chanting of the first "Christ is Risen from the dead . . ." followed (in Church-Slavonic, Greek, Romanian, and Ukrainian). Knocking on the doors with the Hand Cross, the first greeting "Christ is Risen!" rang out, and the thousand faithful enthusiastically responded "Risen Indeed" (in Ukrainian and Irish). The doors were opened, the sacristan turned on all the lights, and we all processed into the great church for Paschal Orthros, with the triumphant singing of the Golden Resurrection Canon written by Saint John of Damascus, with the constant incensation, the Paschal Stichera, and then the reading of the Paschal Homily of Saint John Chrysostom (read by Father Christopher in Ukrainian and Father Archimandrite in Irish). At the singing of "All ye who have been baptized in Christ . . ." the clergy and servers entered the Altar and the Epistle followed.
The Gospel was proclaimed in Greek, Latin, Irish, Ukrainian, and even English. Since we had just heard the Homily of Saint John Chrysostom, there was no other sermon. The Great Entrance went as usual down the side aisle to the rear of the church, and then up the main aisle to the Royal Doors. The Divine Liturgy continued as usual. With four Chalices for Holy Communion, Father Archimandrite was able to sit down and breath and rest his arthritic muscles for about twenty minutes while the guest-Priests very kindly administered Holy Communion to the uncountable number of Communicants.
After the Dismissal Father Archimandrite and the other Priests exchanged the Paschal Kiss with each of the faithful, and then went to the transept to bless the Paschal Foods. The faithful, as always, were enthusiastic and kept urging the priests to shower them with more Holy Water!
The clergy unvested; Father Brian Lawless and Father Christopher were both facing obligations in the morning, so they returned to their homes at once. The bus transportation took the young people from Ukraine back to their accommodations as arranged by the Keelings Fruit Company. The men of the parish dismantled the Icon-Screen and so on and brought everything back downstairs into Saint Kevin's Oratory. Eventually, all of us left and returned to our respective homes – some of the faithful come great distances every year, including a large group from Dundalk and smaller groups from other cities in Ireland. The Dundalk faithful simply go home (it isn't that far from Dublin and driving at 4:30 AM or so means that there is little traffic); others must stay in Dublin – and many of the Dublin faithful open their homes to the out-of-towners so that they do not face hotel charges and can even share baby-sitters.
At 4:00 PM Father Elias served Paschal Vespers in Saint Kevin's with Mr. Bebko, Father John, and Father Archimandrite chanting. The Gospel was proclaimed in Greek, Latin, and Irish. Most of our equipment was then put back in its usual storage areas and Mr. Bebko and the three Priests then adjourned to a good Chinese restaurant for a farewell supper – Mr. Bebko returned to London that evening, and Father John went to Scotland Monday morning. Father Elias remained in Dublin until Wednesday.
N.B. Pascha in 2009 will be on 19 April;
Latin Easter will be on 12 April
Come and share the Feast of Feasts with us!