Lives of all saints commemorated on April 2

Holy Week: A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week

3. MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY: THE END

These three days, which the Church calls Great and Holy have within the liturgical development of the Holy Week a very definite purpose. They place all its celebrations in the perspective of End Times; they remind us of the eschatological meaning of Pascha. So often Holy Week is considered one of the “beautiful traditions” or “customs,” a self-evident “part” of our calendar. We take it for granted and enjoy it as a cherished annual event which we have “observed” since childhood, we admire the beauty of its services, the pageantry of its rites and, last but not least, we like the fuss about the Paschal table. And then, when all this is done we resume our normal life. But do we understand that when the world rejected its Savior, when “Jesus began to be sorrowful and very heavy... and his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death,” when He died on the Cross, “normal life” came to its end and is no longer possible. For there were “normal” men who shouted “Crucify Him” who spat at Him and nailed Him to the Cross. And they hated and killed Him precisely because He was troubling their normal life. It was indeed a perfectly “normal” world which preferred darkness and death to light and life.... By the death of Jesus the “normal” world, and “normal” life were irrevocably condemned. Or rather they revealed their true and abnormal inability to receive the Light, the terrible power of evil in them. “Now is the Judgment of this world” (John 12:31). The Pascha of Jesus signified its end to “this world” and it has been at its end since then. This end can last for hundreds of centuries, but this does not alter the nature of time in which we live as the “last time.” “The fashion of this world passeth away...” (I Cor. 7:31).

Pascha means passover, passage. The feast of Passover was for the Jews the annual commemoration of their whole history as salvation, and of salvation as passage from the slavery of Egypt into freedom, from exile into the promised land. It was also the anticipation of the ultimate passage—into the Kingdom of God. And Christ was the fulfillment of Pascha. He performed the ultimate passage: from death into life, from this “old world” into the new world into the new time of the Kingdom. And he opened the possibility of this passage to us. Living in “this world” we can already be “not of this world,” i.e. be free from slavery to death and sin, partakers of the “world to come.” But for this we must also perform our own passage, we must condemn the old Adam in us, we must put on Christ in the baptismal death and have our true life hidden in God with Christ, in the “world to come....”

And thus Easter is not an annual commemoration, solemn and beautiful, of a past event. It is this Event itself shown, given to us, as always efficient, always revealing our world, our time, our life as being at their end, and announcing the Beginning of the new life.... And the function of the three first days of Holy Week is precisely to challenge us with this ultimate meaning of Pascha and to prepare us to the understanding and acceptance of it.

1. This eschatological (which means ultimate, decisive, final) challenge is revealed, first, in the common troparion of these days:

Troparion—Tone 8

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight,
And blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching,
And again unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless.
Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep,
Lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom.
But rouse yourself crying: Holy, Holy, Holy, are You, O our God!
Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!

Midnight is the moment when the old day comes to its end and a new day begins. It is thus the symbol of the time in which we live as Christians. For, on the one hand, the Church is still in this world, sharing in its weaknesses and tragedies. Yet, on the other hand, her true being is not of this world, for she is the Bride of Christ and her mission is to announce and to reveal the coming of the Kingdom and of the new day. Her life is a perpetual watching and expectation, a vigil pointed at the dawn of this new day. But we know how strong is still our attachment to the “old day,” to the world with its passions and sins. We know how deeply we still belong to “this world.” We have seen the light, we know Christ, we have heard about the peace and joy of the new life in Him, and yet the world holds us in its slavery. This weakness, this constant betrayal of Christ, this incapacity to give the totality of our love to the only true object of love are wonderfully expressed in the exapostilarion of these three days:

“Thy Bridal Chamber I see adorned, O my Savior
And I have no wedding garment that I may enter,
O Giver of life, enlighten the vesture of my soul
And save me.”

2. The same theme develops further in the Gospel readings of these days. First of all, the entire text of the four Gospels (up to John 13: 31) is read at the Hours (1, 3, 6 and 9). This recapitulation shows that the Cross is the climax of the whole life and ministry of Jesus, the Key to their proper understanding. Everything in the Gospel leads to this ultimate hour of Jesus and everything is to be understood in its light. Then, each service has its special Gospel lesson :

On Monday:

At Matins: Matthew 21: 18-43—the story of the fig tree, the symbol of the world created to bear spiritual fruits and failing in its response to God.

At the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts: Matthew 24: 3-35: the great eschatological discourse of Jesus. The signs and announcement of the End. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away....”

“When the Lord was going to His voluntary Passion,
He said to His Apostles on the way:
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,
And the Son of Man shall be delivered up
As it is written of Him.
Come, therefore, and let us accompany Him,
With minds purified from the pleasures of this life,
And let us be crucified and die with Him,
That we may live with Him,
And that we may hear Him say to us:
I go now, not to the earthly Jerusalem to suffer,
But unto My Father and your Father
And My God and your God,
And I will gather you up into the heavenly Jerusalem,
Into the Kingdom of Heaven....”
(Monday Matins)

by: The Very Reverend Alexander Schmemann

From his youth Saint Titus the Wonderworker displayed zeal for the monastic life. He labored in asceticism in the IX century at the Studion Monastery near Constantinople. By his fasting, and meek disposition, Saint Titus gained the love of the brethren, and at their request he was ordained as a Hieromonk.

His soul was filled with fervent love for God and for his neighbor. As the Lord had said to His disciples, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work" (John 4:34). So it was with Saint Titus. His food was to do the will of the heavenly Father in every way, and to utilize his life for the moral and spiritual building of his brethren (I Corinthians 3:9). Because of the purity of his soul and his virtuous life, God rewarded him with the gift of working miracles. Thus, he became the Spiritual Father of many laymen and monks who received benefit from his advice.

Saint Titus defended the Orthodox veneration of the Holy Icons during the Iconoclastic persecution, remaining steadfast in the Faith until the end of his life, then he departed to the Lord.

The Holy Martyrs Amphianus (Apphianus) and Edesius (Aidesius) were brothers. They lived in the city of Patara (province of Lycia) in the family of the pagan governor. They went to the city of Beirut to study the pagan sciences. There they became ardent followers of Christ.

The holy brothers left their pagan parents and went to Alexandrian Caesarea, where they found an instructor, Saint Pamphilius (February 16), and under his guidance they became accomplished in the spiritual life, spending their time in prayer and the study of sacred books.

By decree of the emperor Maximian (305-313), a zealous pagan and cruel persecutor of Christians, all the inhabitants of Caesarea were required to offer public sacrifice. Many Christians, including Saints Amphianus and Edesius, had to hide in order to avoid sacrificing to idols.

When the city prefect of Caesarea was about to offer sacrifice to idols, Saint Amphianus boldly went into the temple, took the prefect’s hand, and urged him to abandon his error and believe in Christ.

By order of the governor, soldiers seized Saint Amphianus, fiercely beat him and then threw him in prison. Two days later they led him to trial, where they beat him with iron rods and burned his body with bundles of flax soaked in oil.

The brave youth, steadfastly confessing his faith in Christ, was then thrown into the sea with a stone about his neck. Suddenly a storm arose, and the waves carried the martyr’s body to shore, where it was buried by Christians.

After a while they freed Saint Edesius and sent him to Alexandria. There he boldly denounced the governor Hierokles for his extreme cruelty towards Christians. Saint Edesius was tortured and then drowned.

The Holy Martyr Polycarp was killed after he denounced the impious Emperor Maximian (305-313) for shedding the blood of innocent Christians in the city of Alexandria. As a devout Christian who was filled with zeal for God, he could not simply stand by when every day he saw many of the faithful being tortured because they refused to deny Christ.

One day Saint Polycarp saw the ruler sitting in his chair and watching as the blood of Christians flowed like water. The Saint stood before him and questioned him saying, "Why have you so forgotten human nature, you insatiable dog, that you cut down your relatives and fellow countrymen with swords like wood, because they proclaim the one true God and refute the error of idolatry; just as I do, who am a servant of Christ?"

Because he angered the ruler by saying such things, Saint Polycarp was arrested and tortured. Finally, he was beheaded, dying with the name of Christ on his lips. By being cut down like a vine-branch, he offered much fruit to Christ, and received the crown of martyrdom.

A few biographical details about Saint George of Atsquri have been preserved in the writings of the famous 10th-century Georgian hagiographers George Merchule and Basil of Zarzma.

Saint George of Atsquri lived at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th centuries. A member of the aristocratic and pious Shuartqeli family, Saint George was raised and educated in the environs of Georgia’s renowned Opiza Monastery in Klarjeti.

Four years after the death of the great feudal lord George Chorchaneli, Saint George succeeded him as ruler of the Samtskhe region. At that time a bitter conflict arose over who was the rightful heir to Chorchaneli’s inheritance.

While serving as the chief political leader of Samtskhe, Saint George also directed the region’s spiritual life, wisely administering the ancient Atsquri diocese for many years. According to tradition, the diocese of Atsquri was founded by the holy Apostle Andrew the First-called, who left there the “Not-Made-By-Hands” icon of the Most Holy Theotokos (known as the Atsquri Icon of the Mother of God) as an offering to the Georgian Church.

Though his literary works have not been preserved, Saint George is also commemorated as a great writer of the Church.

In his book The Life of Saint Grigol of Khandzta, Saint George Merchule notes that Saint George of Atsquri made some of the most significant contributions to the biographical writings on Saint Grigol of Khandzta. Saint George of Atsquri was a close companion of Saint Serapion of Zarzma. He was present at his burial and contributed much to the hagiographical writings on his life and works.

Saint Theodora came from Tyre in Phoenicia. When she was seventeen years of age, she was brought before Urban, the ruler of Palestine, who asked her if she really believed in Christ. With remarkable courage, the holy virgin confessed that she truly believed. Then they flayed her sides and her breasts. Afterward, they threw her into the sea, where she surrendered her soul to God, thereby receiving a martyr's crown.

Saint Νikόdēmos of the Holy Mountain thought it very likely that this Saint is the same as Saint Theodosia (May 29), because their Lives are almost identical.