Holy Week

The last week before Pascha, served day by day in the order of the Passion. On the first three evenings the Bridegroom service is sung, behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and on Holy Wednesday many parishes serve Holy Unction for all. Holy Thursday keeps the Mystical Supper with the Liturgy of St Basil, and that evening the Twelve Passion Gospels are read, and in the Greek use the Crucifix is carried out after the fifth. On Holy Friday, with no Liturgy at all, the Royal Hours are read, and at Vespers the body of Christ is taken down from the Cross and laid in the tomb in the Epitaphios; at Matins that night the Lamentations are sung around it and it is carried in procession. Holy Saturday morning brings the Liturgy of St Basil with fifteen readings from the Old Testament, until the vestments are changed from dark to white and the choir sings Arise, O God, judge the earth. The Descent into Hades is kept that day, in stillness, before the midnight of Pascha.