This month we are approaching Great and Holy Week and, ultimately, Holy Pascha. During this time we follow the steps of the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, to His Divine Passion. The hymns of the Church call us to “accompany Him, and with minds purified from the pleasures of this life, and let us be crucified and die with Him, that we may live with Him.” We are able to become partakers of His Resurrection! Having labored for forty days during Great Lent, we come to week to experience the true joy of Christ's glorious Resurrection!

Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas in his book, Great Week and Pascha in the Greek Orthodox Church, writes: Pascha, which commemorates the resurrection of our lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is the oldest, most venerable and preeminent feast of the Church. It is the great Christian festival, the very center and heart of the liturgical year. Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection constitute the essence of His redemptive work. The narrative of these salvific actions of the Incarnate Son of God formed the oldest part of the Gospel tradition. The solemn celebrations of Great Week and Pascha are centered upon these events. The divine services of the Week, crafted long ago in continuity with the experience, tradition, and faith of the first Christians, help us penetrate and celebrate the mystery of our salvation.

The Passion of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ during Holy Week is without a doubt the most important and beautiful opportunity for our souls to be spiritually uplifted. The divine services create a moving and meaningful atmosphere during worship. We are not spectators in this, but partakers in the Lord’s passion as those apostles and disciples of the Church were. Experiencing the holy Passion of Christ brings us to a deeper relationship with our Lord.

We come to Holy Week tired and worn out, but in the midst of the suffering of our Lord we find joy beyond joy. We see the embodiment of His love and compassion for us. Our salvation is the result of the Passion and the Sacrifice of our Lord “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness.” (1 Peter 2:24) Jesus Christ “died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him Who died for them and rose again.” (2 Cor. 5:15)

St. Gregory of Nazianzus writes in his Festival Orations, “Let us become like Christ, since Christ also became like us; let us become gods because of him, since he also because of us became human. He assumed what is worse that he might give what is better. He became poor that we, through his poverty, might become rich. He took the form of a slave, that we might regain freedom. He descended that we might be lifted up, He was tempted that we might be victorious, He was dishonored to glorify us, He died to save us, He ascended to draw to himself us who lay below in the Fall of sin. Let us give everything, offer everything, to the one who gave himself as a ransom and an exchange for us. But one can give nothing comparable to oneself, understanding the mystery and becoming because of Him everything that He became because of us.”

All that we commemorate during Holy Week and Pascha, Christ did because of and for us! When we take seriously the reality of what the Church offers in His Passion and Resurrection, we can only be moved to respond in one way: the way the faithful of the Church have always done so. We are compelled to commit our whole lives to Him, who offers us Life.

Χριστός Ανέστη! Αληθώς Ανέστη!
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!