THE VESPERS OF GREAT SATURDAY (Celebrated on Great Friday Afternoon)- THE APOKATHELOSIS- The Unnailing from the Cross
On the afternoon of the Great and Holy Friday, the service of Great Vespers
of the Great Saturday* is celebrated with great solemnity. This service
concludes the remembrance of the Lord's passion, and leads us towards watchful
expectation as we contemplate the Lord's decent into Hades, the theme of
Great
Saturday.
Known as the Apokathelosis, a named derived from the re-enactment
of the deposition of Christ from the Cross and of the Procession of the
Epitaphios (the icon depicting the burial of Christ. This rite originated
in the Church of Antioch and during the course of the nineteenth century
came to the Church of Constantinople where it received the form we know today.
* As mentioned in the Holy Week introduction there is about a 12 hour time shift in the services of Holy Week.
DOXASTIKON:
Today a strange and fearsome mystery is witnessed. The infinite One is held; the One who loosed the curse of Adam is bound; the One Who tries the inward heart of men is Himself tried; He Who sealed the deeps is sealed in prison; the One before Whom the powers of heaven stand quaking stands before Pilate; the Creator is struck by the hand of the creature; the One Who judges the living and the dead is judged for the Cross; the One Who despoiled Hades is shut up in a tomb. Lord of forebearance, enduring all out of love, saving all from the curse, glory to You.
After the conclusion of the Gospel reading, the Priest removes the figure of Christ from the Cross and wraps it in a new linen cloth, brought into the altar and laid upon the Holy Table. During the singing of the Aposticha while the faithful kneel, the Priest processes around the Church with the Epitaphios and upon the conclusion of the procession places it in the kouvouklion, a symbolic tomb decorated with flowers. These flowers will be distributed to the faithful at the conclusion of the Orthros of Great Saturday. This part of the service originated in the fifteenth century.
THE APOSTICHA
When the Arimathean lowered You from the Cross, O Christ, the life of all, now dead, he ministered to You with myrrh and linen. Profoundly moved in heart and speech, he hastened to enshroud You, while himself enshrouded in awe yet rejoicing he cried out to You: "Glory to Your condescension, loving God!"
When for the sake of all, You the Redeemer of all, were laid in a new tomb, Hades the scornful cowered at sight of You. The bolts were broken, the gates shattered, graves opened up, the dead were raised. Then Adam, rejoicing with thanks, cried out to You, "Glory to Your condescension, loving God!"
When by Your free will You were closed up bodily in the tomb, yet remained in Your divine nature beyond confining or defining, You closed down the chambers of death and rendered Hades utterly empty, Christ the King. Then did You render the Sabbath worthy of divine blessing and glory, and of Your own splendor.
When the heavenly Powers saw You falsely accused as an imposter, and the tombstone sealed by the very hands that lanced Your pure breast, they shuddered at Your indescribable forebearance. yet rejoicing over our salvation, they cried out to You," Glory to Your condescension, loving God!"
GOSPEL READING: According to: St. Matthew 27:1-38; St Luke 23:39-43; St Matthew 27:39-54; St John 19:31-37; St Matthew 27:55-61
ORTHROS OF GREAT SATURDAY (Sung on Great Friday Evening)
APOLYTIKIA
Lowering Your pure body from the Cross, Joseph wrapped it n clean linen with fragrant spices and laid it in a new tomb.
When You descended into death, Life Immortal, You struck Hades dead with a lightning flash of Divinity; and when You raised up the dead from the underworld, all the heavenly Powers shouted: "O Lifegiver, Christ our God, Glory to You!"
Standing by the tomb the angel said to the myrrh-bearing women: "Myrrh is for the dead; but Christ has shown Himself stranger to death."
The Synaxarion:
On the Holy and Great Saturday we celebrate the burial of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ in His divine body, and His descent into Hades, by which our race was called out of death and transported to eternal life.
Watchmen, in vain do you guard the tomb. No grave can contain the source of life.
In Your inexpressible condescension, Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
On Great Saturday, the Church contemplates the mystery of the Lord's descent into Hades, the place of the dead. Death, our ultimate enemy, is defeated from within. Our focus is on the Tomb of Christ. This is no ordinary grave. It is not a place of corruption, decay and defeat. It is life-giving, a source of power, victory and liberation. Great Saturday is the day between Jesus's death and His resurrection. It is a day of watchful expectation, in which mourning is being transformed into joy. The day embodies in the fullest possible sense the meaning of xarmolypi, joyful-sorrow, which has dominated the celebrations of Holy Week.
Great Saturday is the day of pre-eminent rest. Christ observes a Sabbath rest in the tomb. His rest, however, is not inactivity but the fulfillment of the divine will and plan for the salvation of humankind and the cosmos. He who brought all things into being, makes all things new. the recreation of the world has been accomplished once and for all. Through His incarnation, life and death, Christ has filled all things with Himself. He has opened a path for all flesh to the resurrection from the dead, since it is not possible that the Author of Life would be dominated by corruption.
The solemn observance of Great Saturday helps us to recall and celebrate the great truth that "despite the daily vicissitudes and contradictions of history and the abiding presence of hell within the human heart and human society," life has been liberated! Christ has broken the power of death. The death of Christ is the greatest miracle as well as the ultimate manifestation of God's boundless love for the whole creation. It is no mere man who died. The One who was laid in the tomb is none other than the eternal deathless Word of God, who taking on flesh humbled Himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross.
It is not without significance that the icon of the Resurrection in our Church is the Descent of Christ into Hades, the place of the dead. This icon depict a victorious Christ, reigned in glory, trampling upon death, and seizing Adam and Eve in His hands, plucking them from the abyss of hell.
This is the only day in the entire liturgical year that the Church may not assemble for a eucharistic celebration. Sadly, this prohibition has been inadvertently circumvented by a faulty liturgical practice, caused by the gradual shift of the Paschal Vesperal Liturgy to the morning hours of Great Saturday.
On Friday evening the faithful gather around the kouvouklion which is decorated with flowers in which is placed the icon of the Burial of Christ, the Epitaphios. The engomia are sung which are short poetic verses lamenting the passion, death and burial of Christ. They are divided into three stasis or stanzas, which according to the liturgical texts number 185. In parish usage the numbers are greatly reduced.
After the Engomia are sung the Evlogitaria are sung. In the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church there are two types, the resurrectional (which are prescribed for Sundays) and the funereal (which are prescribed for funerals and memorial services). Even though we are observing the burial of Christ, the resurrectional evlogitaria are chanted. The reason for this is clear. On Great Saturday we contemplate the defeat of death. The Author of Life is trampling down Hades and is transforming death into life. Funeral hymns are not appropriate to Him Who is the source and giver of life. Also the funeral evlogitaria presuppose deceased Christians and are not appropriate for Christ.
The procession of the epitaphios takes place at the conclusion of the Doxology and is usually conducted outside the Church. During the procession it is customary to sing the Trisagion- Agios o Theos in a solemn manner and there are usually three or four stops where the Priest intones portions of the Fervent Litany. In many places it is customary that the people pass under the Epitaphios as they reenter the Church. By this practice, we express the belief that we have already passed from death to life.
Upon the Return of the Epitaphios into the Church, the Priest removes it from the Kouvouklion and places it on the Holy Table to remain there until the Apodosis of Pascha (Wednesday before the Ascension).
Saturday of Lazarus Palm Sunday Great Monday Great Tuesday
Great Wednesday Great Thursday Great Friday Great Saturday