The following in an excerpt from “Eros of Orthodoxy,” translated by Fr. Nicholas Palis and written by Mr. Pantelis Paschou.
We have now passed over the sea of fasting of Great Lent. And now we stand before the door of Holy Week, which is called Great not because it is greater, or has more days, but “because great deeds occurred to us by the Master in it. For in this Great Week, as sacred Chrysostom says, the age-old tyranny of the devil was abolished. Death was put out. The strong one was tied down. His tools were seized. Sin was revoked. The curse was abolished. Paradise was opened. Heaven became accessible. Men mixed with angels. The wall of the fence was lifted. The coping stone was enclosed. The God of peace pacified the things above and the things on earth. For this reason it is called Great.”
The Mysteries of this week are really fearsome! All the poetry of Christianity and all the glory of Orthodoxy spring from this week. From the time when we were little students we would take the synopsis from our mother’s warm hand and the candle, pure, smelling sweet like incense when it burned. And we would go to the Bridegroom services, or to the Great Hours of the Passion, of Great Thursday and Great Friday, where we cried from our heart before the Crucified One. With trembling fingers we would place the wild flowers, which with enthusiastic desire we would run to pick in the gardens and fields. From those early years, when we awaited Passion Week to come so that we could receive the Resurrection that followed, unto our deep old age it is this week which keeps us company with its pain and grief, but also with the joy and gladness of Resurrection which follows.
And this is the greatest philosophy of life that our holy Church gives to us in the most beautiful, simple, and compunctionate manner in Holy Week. It is true that this philosophy, which is none other than the high theology of the Cross, cannot be assimilated and understood outside of the ecclesiastical area or the liturgical life of the Church. Outside of the Church, the Cross or Holy Week becomes literature, it becomes a theater or a film, a reflective lecture or a journalistic article, or an opportunity for one to display his abilities in any manner given such a serious matter. Only within the sacred Services and the liturgical life of our Church can man reach the peak of spiritual philosophy and the glory of the Resurrection, going up the ascending road of Golgotha and passing spiritually into the agony of Crucifixion.
During this entire week, the Orthodox Christian has a long road to travel, with inner not external dimensions — a road that Christ Himself walked. Let this not seem strange to anyone. If we don’t become “co-crucified and co-journey,” then we will not be able to feel Holy Week or to arrive at the Resurrection with Him. On this road, which is always under the shadow of the Cross facing the bright peak of Resurrection in depth, the holy Fathers created marks as landmarks to help each one of us in a special way, so that we can succeed in reaching our goal.
On Great Monday, after the Kontakion and the Oikos of the day, we will hear this note with the brief Synaxarion: “On Holy and Great Monday we commemorate the blessed and noble Joseph and the fig tree which was cursed by the Lord.” Noble Joseph is glorified and honored because “not serving the pleasures of the Egyptian woman,” he was enslaved in the body, but this ever-memorable and prudent one remained unsubdued in soul, and thus was granted to become the governor of all of Egypt, “for God grants an incorrupt crown to His servants.” Afterwards, the curse of the fruitless fig tree tells us to avoid its passion and to do spiritual deeds and bear fruits, so that Christ does not find us only with leaves when He comes, showing us instead the fire as an inescapable fate of our unfruitful trees.
On Great Tuesday we will hear: “we commemorate the parable of the ten virgins” — five prudent and five foolish virgins with their didactic lamps. With excellent hymns our Church also advises us “to hasten to light the mental lamps of our souls, like those prudent virgins,” so that with the bright light of our lamps and with spiritual hymns, we may meet the immortal Bridegroom of our souls, our Master Jesus Christ, who will come at the end of the world to put the prudent souls into the heavenly bridal chamber of the unchanging delight and kingdom.
On Great Wednesday, “the most divine Fathers ordained that commemoration be made of the adulteress who anointed the Lord with myrrh, as this occurred shortly before the saving Passion.” Who does not shed tears when he thinks that while we all sin many times more gravely than the adulteress, we do not follow her example to erase with tears of repentance the manuscript that is full of the multitude of our sins.
On Great Thursday “we celebrate the sacred Foot Washing, the mystical Supper, the supernatural prayer, and the betrayal.” The dominating personality, the eternal symbol of darkness of conscience and the example to avoid, is the betraying person of Judas. On Great Friday “we celebrate the Holy and Saving and terrifying Passion of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.” On Great Saturday “we celebrate the Burial of the Divine body and the Descent to Hades of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
We said that behind the Crucifixion’s martyrdom and Suffering, the Orthodox Christian always sees the sweet light of the Resurrection. It is this which prevents him from seeing the Suffering within a dark and catalytic darkness. The Orthodox — and the Greek in particular, who passed through so many sufferings within the age-old journey of his history — is garbed with the warm garb of joy and sadness. He suffers and travails, but not with uncontainable fleshly pain. The spiritual philosophy of the Cross, especially during these days, must be our daily bread, the bread of our life. Behold how some of the holy Fathers see the Cross and the mystery of the Crucifixion.
The thorny crown revealed that the Lord blotted out the curse that the earth received, sprouting thorns and thistles, and that Christ destroyed the cares and pains of the present life. “He was stripped of His garments and was garbed in the purple robe to strip the garments of mortification which Adam wore after his disobedience. The Lord received a reed in His right hand as a scepter to kill the ancient snake and serpent. He received a reed to erase the manuscript of our sins. He received the reed to royally sign with His red blood the letter of forgiveness of our sins, since kings as well sign with cinnabar. He was crucified on the tree for the tree of knowledge. He took the taste of gall and vinegar for the sweet taste of the forbidden fruit. He took nails to nail sin down. He stretched out His hands on the Cross to heal the stretching out of the hands of Adam and Eve which they did toward the forbidden tree, and also to unite the things far apart — angels and men, heavenly and earthly things. He took on death to kill death. He was buried so that we would not turn back to the earth anymore as before. The lights were darkened to reveal that they mourn the Crucified One. The rocks were ripped apart because the rock of life was suffering. He ascended the height of the Cross because of the fall that Adam suffered. And lastly, He arose for our own resurrection!”
Oh! Fortunate and thrice blessed is he who can leave his worldly cares during these days and start the blessed journey next to Christ, who journeys towards His Suffering from now, from this very hour! “Let us therefore also come, let us co-journey and co-crucify ourselves, and deaden ourselves for Him, in our earthly pleasures,” so that we may “not remain outside of the bridal chamber of Christ.”
