Bright Week #
Among Orthodox Christians, it is well known that all of Bright Week is honored with the same reverence as the day of the Bright Resurrection of Christ itself—as though this day were magnified sevenfold in accordance with the greatness of the work of our redemption accomplished therein. On the following Sunday, known as Thomas Sunday, the renewal of the feast is celebrated. Thus the first and most solemn days of the feast form a group of eight, a number which bears sacred significance both in the books of the Old Testament and in the Tradition of the Church.
Already in the Book of Leviticus, the sacred nature of this number is especially marked: “For seven days you shall offer offerings made by fire to the Lord; on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord: it is the closing of the feast; you shall do no servile work therein” (Leviticus 23:36). If the ordinary cycle of the seven-day week is understood by the holy theologians as a symbolic image of earthly time itself, then the eighth day is for them an image of the age to come.
“After the conclusion of the sevenfold time,” writes St. Gregory of Nyssa, “following the seventh day, there shall come the eighth day, called the eighth because it follows the seventh, yet it allows no further succession in number; for it abides forever as a single day, undivided by the darkness of night. For it is brought forth by another Sun, which shines with the true light, and once it has appeared to us […] it never sets in the west, but, encompassing all with its radiant power, produces in the worthy an unceasing […] light, making those who partake of this light into new suns themselves, as the Word says in the Gospel: ‘Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun’ (Matthew 13:43)” (Commentary on the Sixth Psalm).
All this expresses and defines the single mystical meaning of the special celebration of the seven days following Pascha, which culminates on the eighth day with its Renewal. Following this same symbolism, the Church hymns for each day of this period are sung in one of the eight Church tones.
Moreover, on each of these days, according to the Ustav, the same Paschal canon is sung as at the Paschal Matins, along with the Paschal stichera. The Midnight Office, Small Compline, and the Hours are also celebrated according to the special Paschal rite.
Special attention is given during these days to the readings from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel. These readings recount the appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples in the first days after His Resurrection, as well as the earliest events in the life of Christ’s Church in Jerusalem, which was led and guided by the apostles—who had received grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit through His breathing upon them. At Vespers on the very day of Pascha, the Gospel tells of how Christ appeared in the evening to His disciples, who had gathered in secret. Entering through shut doors, He said: “Peace be unto you. As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said unto them, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:21–23). In this way, the foundation was laid for the hierarchical authority in the Church, which has since been passed down continuously from the apostles to the archpastors and pastors of our own day—not as a human institution, but as the fulfillment of the saving will of God Himself.
With the full warmth of their hearts, with prayerful contemplation and all their senses, Christians—who had grieved with their Lord during the sorrowful days of His Passion—now rejoice with light and inspiration over Him Who is gloriously risen. In this they fulfill His words: “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:21–22). This joy we share with His Most Pure Mother, who beheld Her Divine Son alive after His sufferings and death on the Cross. In memory of this, special Theotokion troparia are added to the Paschal canon at Matins during Bright Week, praising the boundless consolation of the Mother and the joy of the faithful disciples of Her Son:
“Rejoice, O Pure One, beholding Christ, Whom thou borest in the flesh, risen from the dead as He foretold, and magnify Him as God, O Most Pure One.”
“He Who reigneth over all creation made His abode in thee, O God-rejoicing one, becoming man, and having endured crucifixion and death, He rose in divine majesty, raising us up with Himself, as the Almighty.”
Additionally, on Bright Tuesday, the Flowery Triodion appoints a special commemoration of the God-bearer as Hodegetria—a Greek title meaning “She Who Shows the Way.” The icon bearing this name was originally painted, according to Tradition, by the Evangelist Luke and brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in the fifth century by the pious Empress Eudocia. It was placed in the Blachernae Church and venerated as a pledge of God’s protection over the city from every disaster and enemy assault. For this reason, the icon was also called the Mighty Protectress. The custom of celebrating the Hodegetria spread from Greece to Orthodox Rus’, where many other icons of the Queen of Heaven are revered under the same title: the Smolensk, Tikhvin, Shuya, and others.
In liturgical books published after the time of Patriarch Nikon, the Friday of Bright Week includes a service to the “Life-Giving Spring” of the Most Holy God-bearer, composed by the fourteenth-century church writer Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, the author of the Synaxaria of both the Lenten and Flowery Triodions. The canon from this service is also found in Old Believer manuscript collections, and the icon of the Life-Giving Spring can likewise be seen in churches and homes of traditional Orthodox Christians. This icon and service glorify the spring located near the Golden Gate of Constantinople, known since ancient times for many miraculous healings. Near the spring, a church dedicated to the God-bearer and a women’s monastery were built. These were destroyed during the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, but later restored.
Throughout Bright Week, the Royal Doors in the churches remain open, symbolizing the open Tomb of the Lord, from which the Angel rolled away the stone, and also the entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, which has been opened to us by the Risen Savior.
Among the Church customs of Bright Week is the blessing, elevation, and breaking of the artos—a large round loaf of bread stamped with a cross—which is blessed after the Paschal Divine Liturgy. Then, on each day of Bright Week following the Liturgy, it is brought out of the altar and carried in procession around the church together with the Gospel, the Cross, the icon of the Resurrection of the Lord, and other holy icons. On Saturday, the artos is broken and distributed to the faithful as a sacred gift.
St. Maximus the Greek gives the following explanation for the origin of this custom. After the Resurrection of the Lord, he writes, the apostles traveled through the land of Judea and, when stopping to eat, would always leave a place at the table unoccupied for their Divine Teacher, placing on a clean cushion a portion of bread set aside in His name. After the meal, the Apostle Peter would take this “bread of Christ” from the cushion, raise it up and proclaim: “Christ is risen!” And the other apostles would respond: “Truly He is risen!” This they would repeat up to three times.
To this day, Christians carry the blessed artos in the Paschal processions of Bright Week, signifying the unseen but true presence of Christ with them, and strengthening themselves in the hope of a fuller and more perfect union with Him in the age to come. During these processions, the words of the ninth ode of the Paschal canon are sung—words which all of us, the faithful disciples of Christ, ought to remember and silently repeat throughout all the days of our life:
“O Pascha, great and most holy, Christ! O Wisdom and Word and Power of God! Grant us to partake of Thee more fully in the unwaning day of Thy Kingdom!”