APOLYTIKION:
Giving us before Thy passion an assurance of the general resurrection, Thou hast raised Lazarus from the dead, O Christ our God. Therefore, like children, we carry tokens of victory, and cry to Thee the Conqueror of death: Hosanna in the Highest; blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord.
The solemnities of Great Week are preceded by a two day-festival commemorating the resurrection of Lazarus and the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem. These two events punctuate Christ's ministry in a most dramatic way. By causing the final eruption of the unrelenting hostility of His enemies, who had been plotting to kill Him, these two events precipitate Christ's death. At the very same time, however, these same events emphasize His divine authority. Through them Christ is revealed as the source of all life and the promised Messiah. For this reason the interlude which separates Great Week from the Great Fast is Paschal in character. It is the harbinger of Christ's victory over death and the onrush of His kingdom into the life of the world.
The Saturday of Lazarus is counted among the major feasts of the Church. It is celebrated with great reverence and joy. The resurrection of Lazarus occasioned the disclosure of Christ's two natures, the divine and the human. He manifested His divine power by His foreknowledge of the death of Lazarus and by the final outcome, the miracle of his resurrection. In the course of the dramatic events Jesus displayed deep human emotions. The Gospel records His deep feelings of love, tenderness, sympathy and compassion, as well as distress and sadness. The Gospel reports that He sighed from the heart and that He wept.
GOSPEL READING: According to St. John 11:1-45
Saturday of Lazarus Palm Sunday Great Monday Great Tuesday
Great Wednesday Great Thursday Great Friday Great Saturday