Metropolitan Herman to celebrate Paschal Services at St. Nicholas Cathedral, Washington, DC
— His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, will preside at Holy Week and Paschal services at St. Nicholas Cathedral, 3500 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC April 29-May 1, 2005.
Some 300 million Orthodox Christians around the world, including an estimated two million in North America, will celebrate Pascha on Sunday, May 1 this year.
On Great, Holy and Good Friday, April 29, Metropolitan Herman will celebrate Vespers, which commemorates the burial of Our Lord, at 2:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. he will preside at the Matins of Great and Holy Saturday, during which the Lamentations will be sung and a procession with the Holy Shroud will make its way around the cathedral.
On Great and Holy Saturday, April 30, Metropolitan Herman will preside at the celebration of the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great at 10:00 a.m. During the Liturgy, which commemorates the descent of Our Lord into Hades, fifteen selections from the Old Testament will be read.
Metropolitan Herman also will preside at Nocturns at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night and the traditional Paschal procession, Resurrection Matins, and Divine Liturgy at midnight.
On Sunday afternoon, he will celebrate Vespers at noon. A paschal pot luck luncheon and egg hunt for children age three through ten will follow.
Clergy and faithful from parishes throughout the region will join Metropolitan Herman for the celebration.