Apology for the Liturgy of Great Saturday #

George Neminuschy

Introduction #

In our present-day liturgical practice, the shortage of clergy, the necessity of undertaking practical tasks in preparation for Pascha, and the desire to rest before the all-night service of Paschal Matins and the Paschal Divine Liturgy often lead to the omission of one of the most important parts of the Passion–Paschal cycle: the service of Great Saturday evening—that is, chiefly, the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, together with the Vespers that precedes it, which includes fifteen Old Testament readings (paremias). Sometimes this service is performed, but not in its fullness—without the Liturgy. This happens, for example, when a single priest is responsible for several parishes.

In recent times, however, a kind of theological rationale has begun to appear in certain parishes to justify the omission of the Great Saturday Liturgy—one that is no longer based on the practical issue of a lack of clergy. The justification now offered is this: “It is unlawful,” say the advocates of this practice, “to serve the Liturgy of Great Saturday in the first half of the day.”

But what is the nature of this alleged unlawfulness? — “It lies in this,” they respond, “that the final days before Pascha—Great Friday and Great Saturday—are appointed by the Ustav as days of strict fasting, and already in the ancient Church the strict fast of awaiting the Bright Resurrection of Christ did not include the celebration of the Eucharist—the Banquet of the Kingdom—until the night from Saturday into Pascha.”

It is indeed true that in the Church Rule (Tserkovny Ustav) and in the Bright Triode, the Palestinian custom is recorded of not celebrating the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (which is otherwise appointed on the evenings of Wednesdays and Fridays during Great Lent) on the evening of Great Friday, because “Christ is not yet risen.”

Expanding on this argument, the proponents of omitting the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil on Great Saturday in its current form claim that, since Christ remained in the Tomb throughout the day on Saturday, the Eucharist should not be celebrated on that day either—especially not in the morning.

Let us call this opinion debatable and subject it to critique. This brief study is intended, therefore, to bring the discussion to a conclusion.

At the outset, we should note that the Ustav does, in fact, provide for a version of the Great Saturday service without the Divine Liturgy (a sort of “Plan B”). In this alternative, instead of the Liturgy, the Sunday stichera in Tone 1 are sung, followed by “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart…,” the conclusion of Vespers with the troparion “The noble Joseph…”, then the Resurrection troparion in Tone 2 “When Thou didst descend unto death…”, and finally “The myrrh-bearing women…”

However—and this is crucial—the Ustav permits such a shortened form of the service only in cases of “some great necessity”, thereby strongly emphasizing the desirability—and in fact the normative expectation—of serving the Divine Liturgy on Great Saturday.

As already noted, “great necessity” might rightly refer to the absence of a priest in a given parish. But the assertion that the Liturgy of Great Saturday is unlawful to serve during the day pushes the issue beyond the scope of practical limitations and either ignores the Ustav’s instruction that, under ordinary circumstances, the Liturgy should indeed be served, or else—and this the proponents of “non-celebration” have not yet considered—requires the invention of some entirely new definition of “great necessity.”

In our study, we proceed from the universally accepted ecclesial understanding of the Resurrection of Christ, which may be summarized as follows:

• First, it is impossible to speak of a chronological moment of the Resurrection, and thus any attempt to “calculate” such a moment is inherently unfounded;

• Second, the Holy Body of the Savior remained in repose throughout the whole of Great Saturday;

• Third, Christ had already, so to speak, risen from the Tomb by the time the Myrrh-bearing Women, at dawn on the first day after the Sabbath, found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.

Taken together, these affirmations correspond to the idea that any discussion of the “moment” of the Resurrection within spatial and temporal terms must be expressed symbolically; and among all symbols, midnight—or, to use modern language, “zero hours, zero minutes,” the moment when “time is no more”—most fittingly serves as the temporal symbol revealing Eternity in relation to the Resurrection of Christ.

Having reviewed and analyzed the ancient ecclesiastical rules and directives concerning the fast and the liturgical services of Passion Week and Pascha—namely: the Apostolic Constitutions, Book 7, Chapter 23; the Apostolic Tradition, Chapters 21 and 33; the Canons of the Holy Apostles, Canon 64—and having compared them with our own Ustav (i.e., the Church Rule as expressed in the Oktoikh and the Bright Triode), we have found that these prescriptions are preserved in a condensed form in two statements of the liturgical Ustav that convey a common idea. These statements are found in full in the old-printed Bright Triode, as part of the continuous sequence of Passion Week services leading up to Pascha.

In the 1648 edition of the Bright Triode (“sixth year of Patriarch Joseph”), these passages are located on folios 137 verso–138 and 193 verso–194. We shall examine them closely in the third part of our study.

But even now we may note that, as instructions for interconnected parts of a unified sequence of services, these statements cannot—and do not—contradict the other portions of that same sequence. Moreover, in those very same folios of the Bright Triode, instructions are simultaneously given both for the order of the Divine Liturgy on Great Saturday and for the observance of strict fasting before Pascha. The simultaneous presence of these instructions—that is, to celebrate the Liturgy of Great Saturday and to keep the strict fast on that day—indicates a view of the liturgical theology of the Death and Burial of our Lord Jesus Christ that is somewhat different from that held by proponents of “non-celebration” (as discussed above).

It is important to keep in mind that our Triode represents a rite that had already taken shape through many centuries of the Church’s liturgical experience. As such, the Triode contains numerous references to earlier apostolic and patristic rules and commentaries, and at every point an attempt is made to synthesize the ancient rulings—so that none of them are ignored.

Thus, bearing in mind these two points:
a) that the Triode conveys a certain understanding of strict fasting “before the Resurrection of Christ” while simultaneously maintaining the celebration of the Divine Liturgy on Great Saturday, and
b) that the liturgical instructions of the Triode are of a synthetic character, incorporating and harmonizing the ancient rules—
we now undertake our investigation into the subject of this debate.

1. Historical Note: The Shift of the Original “Great Paschal” Liturgy from Pascha Morning to Great Saturday Evening #

From the testimonies of ancient Tradition, it is known that Christian worship in the early centuries made widespread use of night vigils, the culmination of which was the celebration of the Eucharist. By the third century, there is already evidence for an established order of worship, whose general pattern was as follows: a nocturnal vigil concluded with the Eucharist at dawn or early in the morning—typically on the “Lord’s Day,” that is, Sunday. The baptism of catechumens, which was also customarily assigned to Sunday and especially to Holy Pascha, took place at daybreak (since it is the “illumination” with the Light of Christ, and the sun was taken as a symbol of this Light), and it was crowned by the morning Eucharist of all the faithful (including those who had just become such through Baptism).

The fourth century brought a flourishing of public liturgical processions in cities, and with the restoration of the sacred sites in Jerusalem connected to the Passion and Resurrection of the Savior—this “restoration” being the construction of two church buildings at the site of Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre: the basilica of the Martyrion (or “Witness”) and the rotunda of the Anastasis (or “Resurrection”)—the local order of services for the Passion–Paschal cycle took on a distinctive feature: two consecutive Paschal Liturgies. One was celebrated in the Martyrion, and another followed almost immediately afterward in the Anastasis rotunda.

The first of these Liturgies was preceded by an all-night vigil consisting of Vespers beginning at sunset and the subsequent Baptism of a large number of catechumens (during which Old Testament readings and hymns were performed in the basilica—the prototype of our fifteen paremias, interspersed with doxologies to the Lord). The newly baptized then processed from the baptistery and joined the assembly of the faithful in the Martyrion, where the Eucharist was celebrated. This Eucharist is the prototype of our present-day Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on Great Saturday evening. At that time, however, it was still fully Paschal in nature and was most likely celebrated at dawn—meaning, on the actual Sunday of Holy Pascha.

Then the people of God, along with the bishop and the deacons, processed with singing from the basilica to the rotunda—and there, at the site of the Lord’s Tomb, a second Eucharist was celebrated, likely after or during sunrise, and preceded by a short festal rite (the prototype of our Paschal antiphons). This second Eucharist became the prototype of today’s Paschal Liturgy—that of Saint John Chrysostom, whose Proskomedia is now served during the so-called “dispersal” (the brief break after the midnight procession). The characteristic processions—first of the newly baptized, then of the whole assembly of the Church—formed the foundational model for the development of today’s great Paschal procession.

Later tradition bears witness that the first, or “Great,” Liturgy included the reading of the Apostle—reading 158 (1 Corinthians 15, on the Death and Resurrection of the Savior and His appearance “to more than five hundred”)—and the Gospel—readings 115–116 (Matthew 28:1–11), which now coincide with the Gospel read at the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on Great Saturday. In the later period (certainly after the era of Iconoclasm), this first, or “Great,” Liturgy began to be moved forward in time relative to the second, morning Liturgy, such that the dismissal of the first began to fall during the first hours of the night between Saturday and Sunday (these hours were reckoned from sunset, and thus were always in the late evening—i.e., before midnight). This service gradually took on the form familiar to us today: of psalmody and readings, and became the Liturgy of Great Saturday.

One of the most important sources describing this service is the Typikon of the Great Church—the cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople—often identified with the so-called “Sung Rite” (Pesnennoye Posledovanie) of the 9th to 11th centuries. In this Typikon, we find already established the structure of the order of services for Great Saturday and Pascha as we know it today.

The further development of the Ustav incorporated a synthesis of the essential elements of the Typikon of the Great Church and the monastic typika of the Sabaite and Studite traditions. By the 12th to 14th centuries, the present-day form of the Ustav had taken shape, and we find within it—down to the details—practically the same structure of the Passion–Paschal cycle that we use today. Following the Liturgy of Great Saturday (already identified at that point as the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great), the service of the Small Compline (Pavechernitsa) is appointed, along with all that follows it. The very presence of Pavechernitsa after the Liturgy clearly indicates that the dismissal of the Great Saturday Liturgy falls before midnight—that is, at the time when “Christ is still in the tomb.”

Thus, from the sufficiently ancient practice—over a thousand years old—of celebrating the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on Great Saturday evening, with its conclusion occurring before the coming of midnight, it follows that the holy authors of the Ustav were not especially concerned by the fact that this Liturgy is served “before the Resurrection of Christ.” If we are to seek an explanation for this, it is certainly not because they neglected the more ancient rules or failed to venerate the Passion and Burial of the Savior.

2. “Hour” or “Watch”? #

In our Ustav (see the Bright Triode “in the sixth year of Patriarch Joseph,” i.e., 1648/1656, fol. 193 verso), the conclusion of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great “on Great Saturday evening” is appointed for the “second hour of the night.” In the course of the present discussion concerning this liturgy, we were surprised to discover that at least some of the proponents of “non-celebration” (do all of them think this way?—hard to say, as we have not studied the matter specifically) seriously believe that the “second hour of the night” in the Ustav is nothing other than our modern 2:00 AM! Thus, they were convinced they had in their favor even a strict “numerical” confirmation for their practice of “non-celebration.”

We cannot here provide basic catechesis; for details on the elementary correspondence between liturgical hours and modern timekeeping, we refer the reader to The Law of God, and proceed to our main topic.

So then, the Ustav prescribes that the Liturgy of Great Saturday conclude during the “second hour of the night”—that is, around 8:00 PM local time. Taking into account various caveats and the later beginning of Vespers (timed to sunset, which varies with the changing date of Pascha), the Ustav “reserves” a later possible conclusion time for the Liturgy—up to the “fourth hour of the night,” or formally, up to 10:00 PM. However, it is well known that the ancient “hours,” which were oriented to the position of celestial bodies at different times of the year, did not in fact correspond in length to our modern abstract “hours.”

Furthermore, in determining the start and end of their services, the early Church oriented itself not by the modern hour system but by the Roman system of “watches”—four watches of the night and four of the day, each approximately three modern hours long. This was only approximate, of course, because the length of day and night varied depending on the movement of the sun and moon: in summer, nights were shorter and the “night watches” likewise passed more quickly than in winter. Frequently, in ancient liturgical rubrics, these “watches” were also referred to as “hours.”

The correspondence between the ancient night watches (daytime watches are not relevant here) and modern timekeeping is approximately as follows:

• First watch of the night, or “evening” — 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM

• Second watch of the night, or “midnight” — 9:00 PM to 12:00 AM

• Third watch of the night, also called “midnight” — 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM. As we can see, in antiquity, “midnight” referred not only to a single moment but to a fairly lengthy span of time.

• Fourth watch of the night, “cock-crow” — 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM

If we suppose that our current Ustav contains remnants of these ancient “watches”—a quite plausible assumption, since the Bright Triode includes quotations from early patristic texts prescribing fasting “until midnight” and “until cock-crow”—then we may suggest that in the “later” version of the dismissal time for the Liturgy of Great Saturday, where the Ustav mentions “four hours of the night,” this originally meant “the fourth watch of the night.” In that case, the Liturgy would indeed conclude in the morning, “at cock-crow.”

It appears to us quite possible that our present Ustav retains traces of ancient Paschal liturgical elements. Perhaps the numerical reference to the hour of the Liturgy’s conclusion—such as the “third” or “fourth” hour of the night—once had different content: that is, it may have referred to the third or fourth watch of the night. If so, then this would be an echo of the earliest period, when this Liturgy was a strictly Paschal one.

However, having mentally attempted to “serve” the entire current order of the Great Saturday service using these altered time references, we have concluded that in such a case the internal coherence of the entire “Great Saturday rite” is lost (as is clearly evident from the presence of Pavechernitsa and something akin to a Midnight Office immediately after the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great). Meanwhile, the “second,” genuinely Paschal, Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom is pushed back to a very late hour, ceasing to be a true “morning” liturgy.

Therefore, in the order of services as given in the Triode—which includes both Pavechernitsa and the canon “The deep hath covered the pursuing tyrant…” after the Liturgy of Saint Basil on Great Saturday—the hours given for the conclusion of the Liturgy of Saint Basil clearly correspond to our modern understanding of clock time, not to the ancient Roman watches. The Liturgy itself, then, is situated fully within the course of the evening of Great Saturday—at the time when “Christ is still in the tomb.”

3. “The Deathliness of Christ” and the Eucharist: A Violation of the Ustav or a Revelation of Glory? #

And now, at last, we come to the heart of the matter. How can the non-celebration of the Liturgy on Great Saturday be connected to—or ought it to be connected to—the “death-state” of the Savior? The particular theology advanced by the “non-celebrants,” zealous in their own way for piety, is heavily influenced by a passage from the Ustav (Bright Triode, fols. 137 verso–138), which reads:

“It is fitting to know that as we received in Palestine, on this holy day of Great Friday, we do not perform the Presanctified, nor again the Complete Liturgy. For it is found in one of the canons of the holy councils, handed down by the holy apostles, that ‘whoever loves the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ, from the time of the Tradition (from Great Thursday, when the commemoration of the Mystical Supper and the betrayal by Judas is celebrated) until He shall rise again, let him not eat.’ For this reason, neither do we set a table nor eat on this day of the Crucifixion. For thus we received from the discernment of the holy apostles—not to eat on Great Friday. As the word of the Lord said to the Pharisees: ‘When the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, then shall they fast in those days’” (Bright Triode, 1648, fol. 137 verso).

If one were to absolutize these words, tearing them from their context, it would seem to imply that anyone who “eats” at the end of Passion Week does not love the Lord.

The passage then mentions the typikon of the Studite monastery, according to which the degree of abstinence from food in Passion Week is the same as in the first week of the fast. Referring also to the rule of the Athonite monasteries (“the typikon of the Holy Mountain”), the Triode continues: if possible, it is best not to eat at all on Great Friday and Great Saturday; “but if not—at least on Saturday. On Friday, however, let one eat bread and raw greens and drink water” (fol. 138). Here we even see a preference for Saturday over Friday: if one lacks strength to fast, it is better to “weaken” on Friday than on Saturday.

These instructions correspond to the Canons of the Holy Apostles, one of which—Canon 64—forbids anyone from fasting on Saturdays, “except for one”—that is, Great Saturday, on which fasting (evidently total abstention from food) is assumed as a matter of course. In his interpretation of this canon, the 12th-century canonist Theodore Balsamon explains the abstinence from food on Great Saturday with the Gospel words about the sons of the bridal chamber, who fast when the Bridegroom is taken from them.

Undoubtedly, these ancient rules reflect the ancient—primarily early Christian—liturgical practice we outlined earlier (in sections 1 and 2). But as we have already noted (see the Introduction), our Ustav cannot contradict the ancient rules. This means that the Liturgy of Great Saturday, which for over a thousand years has concluded before midnight on Saturday—that is, during the time when strict fasting still continues—is not in contradiction with the ancient rules. Composed by the inspiration of the same Spirit, both the early church instructions and the liturgical regulations refined in the post-iconoclast period express a unified understanding—though in slightly different forms—of the same faith: lex orandi, lex credendi.

Therefore, assuming a priori the theological and dogmatic consistency of the Church’s liturgical development, we may say that in the form in which the Ustav for the services of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ has come down to us (namely, the form recorded in the Bright Triode of pre-schism editions), a synthesis of ancient apostolic and patristic directives is preserved. In it, a structure of services has been developed in which the fast of the Savior’s “death-state” is still preserved, albeit in a somewhat altered form (it is now absolute on Great Friday, and on Great Saturday the only permitted Food, with total abstention from all other nourishment, is the Eucharist).

At the same time, the development of the Ustav reveals—and the Church always presupposes—a distinct moment within Great Saturday: a unique fast-paschal celebration, in which is disclosed the fulfillment and revelation of the true Meaning of the world’s creation. That Meaning is the all-encompassing Sacrifice of Christ, through which the newly created world stands in the “white stillness” of the “Great Silence.” The world “enters into the Lord’s Rest”—to become a partaker in the Glory of the Resurrection.

The Bridegroom was taken away from us: we beheld the “assembly of the lawless,” which “meditated vain things,” and we received the “plaintive lamentation of compassion,” as we took down the Master from the Tree together with Joseph and Nicodemus. We suffered alongside the Mother of Jesus, “venerating the Passion” of Christ. We have walked the path to Golgotha with Christ—and now we draw near to the Life-Giving Tomb.

But already on Great Friday, the theme of Victory, the theme of the Resurrection, began to thread its way like a crimson thread through the entire service. The Bridegroom was taken away—we fast—but Arimathea already “cries out joyfully: Glory to Thy Providence, O Thou Who lovest mankind!” For “Life sleepeth—and Hades trembleth”! At the Matins of Great Saturday, the festive exclamation “God is the Lord…” is heard, and after the troparion “The noble Joseph…” is sung twice, we sing at “Glory…” the Resurrection troparion in Tone 2: “When Thou didst descend unto death, O Immortal Life…”, and at “Both now…”—“The Angel stood by the myrrh-bearing women at the tomb, crying out…”: the theme of the Resurrection grows stronger.

In place of the usual kathismas, we sing the expanded 17th kathisma, the great Psalm 118—a psalm of both memorial and Resurrection Matins character. The Righteous One has fulfilled the commandments of His God, having loved the Law of God as the Law of the Father—and now He is at rest. All has been fulfilled. All is “finished.” The great Economy of God concerning mankind has been unveiled and is recognized by the Church. “He who has understood the mysteries of the Cross and the Tomb understands also the purpose for which God originally brought all things into being” (St. Maximus the Confessor). After Psalm 118 at the Matins of Great Saturday, we sing the troparia “Blessed art Thou, O Lord…”—about the myrrh-bearing women and the angel proclaiming the Resurrection. Following the famous and magnificent canon “The deep hath covered the pursuing tyrant…,” the exclamation “Holy is our Lord God” is proclaimed (the same as on Lazarus Saturday)—yet another distinctively Resurrectional feature of this service.

Such is the structure of our Passion–Paschal worship—and for this structure not to culminate in the Eucharist on that same Saturday would be nonsensical. Thus, upon the invariable fast of the Passion cycle, an additional level is overlaid—developed in the liturgical tradition from about the same period (at the very least, more than a thousand years ago): the truth revealed in the contemplation of the Great Divine Rest. This contemplation presupposes, as its essential condition, the Eucharist.

And what is this truth? It is approximately this: in the “death-state” of Christ, we partake not of death, but of Life. The death of the Lord is a necessary moment in the infinite, incomprehensible, and all-encompassing Mystery of the Providence of the Unoriginate and Infinite, Unknowable God concerning us. The key word here is Providence, not death. The death of Christ is the unthinkable, utterly unique Revelation of the Almighty Power of God. This is truly the Depth of the riches of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God. Only such a God is the True God.

In the post-iconoclast era—primarily from the 9th to the 12th centuries (notably, this period coincides roughly with the time when the order of the Great Saturday service known to us was established)—serious dogmatic differences began to emerge between the Western and Eastern Churches. The rift between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism was becoming clearly defined. One of the significant points of division was the interrelated debate on “to whom the Sacrifice of Christ was offered” and on “the presence of the Holy Spirit in the dead Body of the crucified and buried Christ.”

The Orthodox position, unchanged from the beginning, regarded Western arguments “against” it as novel and foreign. It was expressed as follows: the Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ—if we may speak of any “offering” at all—“offered,” as is said in the prayer “at the transfer” of the Gifts, being Himself both the Offerer and the Offering, the Receiver and the One distributed. He offered Himself, and with Himself all creation, to the Father—that is, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the One Unoriginate and Infinite God, the “only true God” (John 17:3), worshipped and glorified in Trinity. In other words, He offered Himself to Himself—as the Pre-eternal Word, the Wisdom, and the Image of the Father’s Hypostasis.

Accordingly, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, the “Breath of the Father,” is ever-present in Christ, never departing from Him. To say otherwise is blasphemy and heresy. The Spirit of God did not depart from Christ even during His Crucifixion and Rest in the Tomb.

It should be noted that this most profound truth was formulated in the course of disputes between “Eastern” and “Western” theologians over their differing approaches to the “matter” of the Eucharist: the “East” serves on leavened bread, the “West” on unleavened.

The Orthodox theses were perceived by the “Westerners” as paradoxes, not subject to logic and therefore unacceptable. After all, it is written that on the Cross Jesus “gave up the ghost” (τὸ πνεῦμα — Matthew 27:50). Indeed, nothing compels us to write the word “Spirit” with a lowercase letter; “gave up,” in the opinion of the Westerners, meant “was left without.” But the Western side failed to account for the fact that, when it comes to Infinity—things not governed by the four-dimensional space-time continuum—it is absurd to apply crude earthly measures and categories.

And indeed, it must be proper for eternal Truth to appear to us in paradoxes—paradoxes which may even seem absurd if we insist too rigidly on submitting them to the demands of human logic.

Thus, the Church of Christ—expressed in the voice of Eastern Orthodoxy through the form of the Liturgy of Great Saturday—confesses the original truth revealed to her by the Holy Spirit from the moment of her very birth: Christ “became a corpse” by His own will, “by His sovereign power,” never for a moment ceasing to be “the Author of life.” He cried out, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and ceased to breathe on the Cross. His body (ptōma in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark; see reading 69, Mark 15:45) was requested from Pilate by Arimathea and handed over—as though a lifeless object—by Pilate to Joseph, through the Creative and Upholding Will of the Giver of Life, the Hypostatic Word of God, Christ our God. And the Spirit of God remained in Him inseparably. Just as He had earlier been “cast forth” (ekballei—again, in Mark, reading 2; Mark 1:12) by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, so too by the same Spirit of God He ceased to live “hanging upon the Tree” and then lay, “having fallen asleep in the flesh,” in the cave of the Tomb—and the Spirit of God was in Him, and He was in the Spirit of God. All this was the good pleasure of the Father—and therefore of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one consubstantial and indivisible Trinity.

Therefore, the “death-state” of Christ is a necessary moment in the infinite Mystery of God’s Goodness and Love, a Mystery filled with the Presence of Power, and as such, cannot be grounds for abstaining from communion.

The Apostle Paul writes: “I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you: that every time you eat this Bread and drink this Cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Therefore, not only on Great Saturday—but every time the Eucharist is celebrated—and even on Holy Pascha—we proclaim the Lord’s death. And the Lord Himself says: “Take, eat—this is My Body, which is broken for you. Drink of it all of you—this is My Blood, which is poured out for all, the New Covenant!” For every Eucharist of the Church of Christ is the manifestation of the Eternal Covenant—the everlasting union with God, a Covenant sealed by the Love of God in the Blood of the Lamb of God. And this Blood that is poured out, as well as the Body that is broken, clearly imply Sacrifice, and therefore—death.

From the beginning, it was hinted to humanity—and fully revealed in Christ—that the entire world came into being and is sustained by one universal and all-encompassing Sacrifice, offered “before the ages.” The fulfillment of this Sacrifice, its Revelation, and its Creative Essence are made manifest in Christ, and are celebrated in the Eucharist of Great Saturday.

At this Eucharist, according to our Ustav, in the order of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, the hymn “at the Transfer” of the Gifts contains words drawn from the Liturgy of the Apostle James: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and stand with fear and trembling, and let it not think of anything earthly. For the King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ our God, comes forth to be sacrificed and to be given as food to the faithful…”

Conclusion #

Thus, our investigation leads us to the following conclusions:

1. The claim that it is forbidden to celebrate the Liturgy of Great Saturday before the end of that very Saturday—on the grounds that “Christ is still in the tomb”—must be recognized as unfounded.

The Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on Great Saturday is a unique service, profound in its theological content. It is the logical and mystical culmination of the entire Passion liturgical cycle; it is its summit. Christ has completed “the dispensation on our behalf,” having conquered hell and death. The Divine Rest of Great and Most Blessed Saturday is a contemplation, or a kind of “pause” upon the summit, a “station” of vision upon the completed Victory. The Son of God cannot but appear as the Victor—and He will appear: that is Pascha. But the fact that He is already the Victor, that He has already accomplished all—this we come to know precisely now, at the Liturgy of Great Saturday.

And to deliberately and consciously not celebrate this Divine Liturgy—is it truly possible, “loving,” as the Ustav says, “the Master”?!

We concede, however, that those who voice this thesis might soften their position if, in current practice, the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great “on Holy and Great Saturday evening” were actually served in the evening, strictly according to the Ustav: beginning with Vespers and the readings (paremias) around 4:00 PM and ending around 8:00 PM local time with the dismissal, after which the Ustav prescribes a modest lenten meal of blessed bread dipped in wine. In such a case, the strict fast of Great Saturday and the “non-celebration” of the Liturgy during the daytime would be extended by several hours.

But this would require such an effort that, as a rule, the strictly “typikon-based” evening celebration of this liturgy is not seriously considered by anyone. In any case, we are not aware of any attempts to follow the Ustav in this regard—and understandably so: the shifting of Matins to the evening did not begin yesterday, nor did the festive All-Night Vigils lose their character of actual “vigil” only recently, nor were the Presanctified Liturgies of Great Lent, along with their preceding Vespers, only yesterday moved to the morning. This general shift in liturgical time also “dragged along” the Liturgy of Great Saturday.

Long ago, the Baptism of catechumens ceased to be a celebration of the whole Church, having turned into an individual, privately requested “service.” The entrance of a new people into the Church of God—the culmination and fulfillment of the preceding fast, and the beginning of the Feast of Feasts—has disappeared—irretrievably?—into the past. Human “weakness,” and the difficulty of strictly fulfilling the Ustav (which is based in large part on monastic tradition—see section 1 of this study), are the decisive factors in parish life.

Indeed, if one were to serve the Saturday Midnight Office and Hours in the morning (even this does not fully align with the Ustav, but exact adherence would be even more unmanageable in a parish setting), then until 4:00 PM local time (the beginning of Vespers and the Liturgy), there would have to be a long break—a “dispersal”—which is very inconvenient for those who live far from the church. Then, after 8:00 PM, having made a brief pause after the Liturgy for a light meal, one would begin the Small Compline with the Canon of the Burial of God-In-The-Flesh and the Lamentation of the Theotokos, and immediately after it, begin reading the Acts of the Apostles. This would have to be timed so that there would still be time, after the “fourth hour of the night” (after 10:00 PM), to serve the Canon of Great Saturday (“The deep hath covered the pursuing tyrant…”), during which readings from the Holy Fathers are appointed after the third and sixth odes.

With such an arrangement, the service of Great Saturday would smoothly transition into the service of Holy Pascha. It is not difficult to see that from 4:00 PM one would need to remain in church without interruption, literally “on one’s feet,” until the blessing of food after the dismissal of the morning Paschal Liturgy (this blessing typically takes place around 6:00–7:00 AM local time). The prospect of at least 15 hours (!) of continuous wakefulness, without sleep, is daunting for the modern person: it is far more manageable for most today to “push through” the night and “make it to the blessing of the Paschal food” after a good rest, with the festive table prepared and the home cleaned in advance.

Meanwhile, at best, a zealous priest might persuade the typikon reader to serve with him in a half-empty or empty church the Vespers and Liturgy of Great Saturday. At worst (in which case he is no longer so zealous), he will simply abandon the service “due to weakness,” rather than seriously risk his health by pouring all his strength into a more-than-half-day continuous liturgical undertaking.

Undoubtedly, fulfilling the Ustav with greater exactitude would require a completely different arrangement of life. In our current reality, the overwhelming majority of parishes continue to formally fulfill the Ustav, so as not to abandon the Divine Service altogether: all services—including the Liturgy of Great Saturday—are performed “at a convenient time.”

Let us pose a question, which we believe to be rhetorical. What is better: acknowledging our weakness, to nonetheless continue—“when circumstances allow” (for in life many circumstances prove inconvenient; see above)—to celebrate the Liturgy of Great Saturday, even if during the day? Or, striving to rigorously “fulfill the ancient Ustav,” to take a principled stand against this practice and, knowing the immense physical challenge of serving “exactly according to the Triode,” to permanently deprive one’s parish of the Liturgy of Great Saturday?

One must also consider this: if we serve this Liturgy during the day, we can from the ambo remind the faithful that those who partake of this Liturgy, trusting in the power of God, have every reason to try to abstain from other foods until the following morning—and having already tasted and seen “that the Lord is good,” having partaken of the true and heavenly Food and Sweetness, to continue their prayerful and pre-festal procession toward the Encounter with the Risen One.

But if one rigorously cancels (forever!) this Liturgy and then, toward evening (or immediately after the Hours and Vespers in the daytime), “sips a little tea” to regain strength for the “effort” of the Paschal service—will this not be pharisaism?

And in which case will there be the “greater fast”—in the first or the second? In which of the two will there be more “love for the Master”?

And finally,

2. The authors and adherents of the “principle of non-celebration” we have been critiquing, in cases where they conduct the service of Great Saturday “according to Plan B”—that is, Vespers without the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great—must somehow justify the implementation of “Plan B” in their parish. Specifically, they must somehow interpret the Ustav’s instruction concerning a “certain great necessity,” which alone may serve as a reason to omit the Liturgy. Their colleagues, who omit the Great Saturday service altogether “due to weakness,” have at least a clear and “respectable” answer when asked for the reason for their “non-celebration”: namely, that same “weakness” (illness, fatigue, household duties, the faithful “didn’t come,” travel obligations, and so on). But the “theologizers” and “foundation-layers” (see the Introduction) are obliged to offer a no less convincing, yet distinct, substantial argument.

We could think of nothing more “convincing” on their behalf than the following: that this “great necessity” is the entire “era of liturgical shifting,” that is, our present age. In that case, their “theology” begins to resemble, in part, the priestless teaching about the Antichrist—curiously, in a form that assumes the impossibility of celebrating only one Liturgy, rather than all—yet is being carried out “by the priests themselves.”

Perhaps this “new doctrine” deserves to be discussed at some level, maybe even synodally—but something tells us that here, too, their “still-celebrating” colleagues are standing on firmer ground: after all, they still serve! They dare, then, to go against the current—clearly, to a greater degree than the “non-celebrants”—striving not to be “conformed to this world” (Epistle reading 108; Romans 12:2).

George Neminuschy.
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, 2020.