Videographer: Maria-Lynn Turi
Reader: Ilya Galadza
Deacon: Fr. Deacon Tibor
St. Elias Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church
On Saturday, a vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, is celebrated. This is the longest Divine Liturgy of the entire year andprobably the most neglected. After the Little Entrance there are 15 Old Testament readings which recall the history of salvation. Just before the Gospel reading (Matthew 28:1-20) the hangings, altar cloths, and vestments are changed from black to white and the deacon performs a censing of the church.
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 Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great which follows it. It still keeps all 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 Sunday Resurrectional stichira of tone 1 are sung, followed by 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 to us, the "Rejoice" with which the Risen Christ greeted the women at the grave is experienced as being directed to 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 on 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 shown forth from the grave.
Rev. Alexander Schmemann (http://www.schmemann.org/byhim/holysaturday.html)
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I am an ELCA Lutheran from South Carolina. Today (April 23) is Saturday in Holy Week or Easter Eve. Romans 6:3-11 is usually read on this day. By the time this was written by Paul, Jesus had ascended to Heaven. We know the outcome of the story, but back then, it was a different atmosphere. Everyone was afraid, especially the disciples. They feared that they would be next.
mkl62 9 months ago
That's a beautiful setting to "Arise, O God, and judge the earth". Where can I find it?
readermichael 2 years ago
Interesting and beautiful. Thanks.
wondermom07 2 years ago