Ukrainian Catholic Holy Saturday tradition questions; for Eastern and Latin rite people

[Vman358]

Christ is Risen!

In our Ruthenian parish, we a have a full cycle of services. Holy Saturday evening we have Vespers with Divine Liturgy and Father does bless the baskets. There is no Christ is Risen though–He is not yet Risen. Many folks who come once or twice a year attend. The altar vestments are typically still in Lenten red and not white. Thematically, this Saturday Liturgy is concerned with the descent of Christ into Hades, rather than His resurrection.

Sunday morning, we have Resurrection Matins, followed by Divine Liturgy and then Father blesses the baskets. It is about 3 hours. Christ is Risen is the theme of the morning. The Church is packed.

We have many young families in the parish who travel from far and wide, so I suspect there are pastoral reasons for not having Paschal services at midnight.

Can you tell me more about your Holy Saturday tradition? Is it Basil’s liturgy at your parish that you speak of?

Can you go more in depth about your Easter Basket blessing service?

 

[Vman358]

Diak, you seem to know lots about this stuff, so I direct this more toward you, but if anyone else knows, please answer. Thank you!

So St. Basil’s Divine Liturgy is the equivalent of a Latin Easter Vigil mass? (Both are vigils, right?)

What is the Anastasis Service?
What is Agape Vespers?
What is Jerusalem Vespers?

I think I need a complete breakdown of what happens Easter weekend for both Byzantine and Latin Rite. How it should be done and what can change.

 

[Holupki]

Can you tell me more about your Holy Saturday tradition? Is it Basil’s liturgy at your parish that you speak of?

Can you go more in depth about your Easter Basket blessing service?

---

Christ is Risen!

On Holy Saturday, we celebrate (Jerusalem) Matins for Great and Holy Saturday in the morning (8 a.m.).

Then in the evening at 7 p.m., we have Vespers with Divine Liturgy for Great and Holy Saturday. Baskets are blessed for those who attend, for many people will not return to Church the following morning for Matins, Liturgy and the Blessing of the Paschal foods. Yes, it is the Liturgy of St. Basil that we celebrate.

The Blessing of Paschal Food begins on page 52 here.

Personally, I hate to miss this Saturday evening vesperal liturgy. The readings are beautiful. Yet, there is nothing like the full cycle of services on the morning of Pascha…when the Great Fast ends and we can partake of the Paschal Foods!

We seem to have lost the distinction between two actions of the Lord–descent and resurrection. Ideally, we should attend Liturgy on both Holy Saturday and Pascha, unless the Pachal services begin late Holy Saturday evening and end early on Pascha morning.

 

[Diak]

Diak, you seem to know lots about this stuff, so I direct this more toward you, but if anyone else knows, please answer. Thank you!

So St. Basil’s Divine Liturgy is the equivalent of a Latin Easter Vigil mass? (Both are vigils, right?)

What is the Anastasis Service?
What is Agape Vespers?
What is Jerusalem Vespers?

I think I need a complete breakdown of what happens Easter weekend for both Byzantine and Latin Rite. How it should be done and what can change.

To answer the question, Vespers and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil does start the Paschal Vigil. The vigil ends with Paschal Matins and the Divine Liturgy, which are services of the day of Pascha itself and not the vigil. The “Anastasis service” is the service of the Resurrection, the Midnight Office, Matins and Divine Liturgy of the Resurrection. Agape Vespers is the Vespers of Pascha on Sunday evening, and I believe you meant “Jerusalem Matins” which is the Matins of Holy Saturday morning (often anticipated on Holy Friday evening).

First of all, it is not always easy to draw direct parallels and analogies between very different liturgical traditions. Pascha, being the “Feast of Feasts”, has its own unique liturgical order not seen at any other time.

Friday evening or Saturday morning parishes will celebrate the Jerusalem Matins. This is the service with the lamentations at the tomb, the service of celebrating the holy resting of our Lord on the Sabbath in his tomb. This is the proper service of Holy Saturday morning. (There is no Eucharist from Holy Thursday evening until the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil with the rare exception of the coinciding celebration of the Annunciation).

In many parishes of the Slavic tradition the Jerusalem Matins is anticipated on Holy Friday evening. In some places another procession with the burial shroud (Plashchanytsia in Ukrainian or Epitaphios in Greek) takes place. Various readings or simply a single person guarding the tomb may occur in some parishes in the time between Jerusalem Matins and Holy Saturday Vespers and Divine Liturgy of St. Basil.

Holy Saturday afternoon or late morning (should start no earlier than 11 a.m. or so) the Paschal vigil begins with the Vespers and Divine Liturgy of St. Basil. Vespers begins the vigil throughout the ecclesiastical year, as has been pointed out above. So similarly Vespers and the Liturgy of St. Basil does begin the Paschal vigil. The high points of the Vespers and Liturgy of St. Basil are the reading of the 15 prophecies (if a parish takes all of them) with a festal singing of antiphons at the Song of Moses and the Song of the Three Holy Children. The first Gospel of the Resurrection is read at this service (which also coincides with the first regular Sunday Matins Gospel). This is also the only Liturgy of the year when “Alleluia” is not sung at the Gospel, but rather “Let God arise”.

The celebration of Pascha itself, the day of the feast, begins with a short service at the graveside (the Midnight Office). If the burial shroud from Holy Friday and Holy Saturday has not yet been placed on the altar it is placed here. Having come to midnight and thus the chronological time of day, the vigil proceeds into the services of the day itself of Pascha, the vigil realizing its fulfillment if you will. The Paschal Matins (Orthros in the Greek reckoning or Utrennya in Ukrainian) then usually begins immediately after the Midnight Office. Matins starts with a procession around the Church ending with the priest coming to the closed doors of the Church. In some traditions a Gospel passage of St. Mark is read, but in any case the priest sings Christ is Risen, the people respond, and then versicles of Psalm 67 are sung with the refrain “Christ is Risen”. The priest takes the hand cross, knocks on the door in the form of a cross, and the doors of the Church are opened to a fully lit Church with the bells tolling joyfully.

Paschal Matins is centered on the Paschal Canon of St. John of Damascus, which has the real heart of the catechetical content of Pascha, an essential part of the liturgical corpus of the Byzantine tradition. In some parishes Matins is celebrated at or near midnight; in some places the graveside service begins before dawn with Matins being sung as the sun arises (an especially moving liturgical experience if you ever get the chance). An excellent translation of the Paschal Canon with some good explanatory notes can be found at anastasis.org.uk/paschal_canon_with_notes.htm

After Paschal Matins the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom usually begins immediately. Agape Vespers is the rather short (by Byzantine standards) and extremely joyous Paschal Vespers when a Gospel is read (the only time Vespers has an appointed Gospel without a Divine Liturgy) that is often read in several languages (as is sometimes the Gospel of the Divine Liturgy of Pascha itself).

I don’t profess to be an expert on the Latin practices, so I will leave it there. In many Latin dioceses I do know there are different prescriptions on what time the Vigil may or may not start.

So chronologically the order is: Jerusalem Matins; Vespers and Divine Liturgy of St. Basil; Midnight Service and Paschal Matins; Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom; and Agape Vespers. Other services such as the Paschal Hours or a Paschal Moleben may also be celebrated after the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

 

[Diak]

And on top of this the Paschal food blessings commence sometime after the Vespers and Divine Liturgy of St. Basil and continue after all of the services; I’ve even been present when food was brought for blessing at the end of Agape Vespers for the Sunday evening family meal on Pascha. There are also some particular Bright Week liturgical variations, such as the Paschal Hours being used for all of the services besides Vespers and Matins, the use of the Sunday resurrectional services of the Octoechos during Bright Week, the use of Psalm 67 and verses with antiphonal singing of “Christ is Risen”, in addition to the cultural traditions such as “Water Monday”.

I apologize for such a short and abbreviated answer for what is the greatest of Feasts and its liturgical cycle. There is more good information regarding our particular tradition on the St. Elias website, saintelias.com/ca/services/gtweek.php and saintelias.com/ca/feastday/pascha.php

We sort of have the reverse phenomena of the Latin church, in that usually few people come to the Vespers and Liturgy of St. Basil vigil service but most come to the Paschal Matins and Divine Liturgy. In my experience it seems many Latins rather go to the Vigil Mass of Holy Saturday.

I don’t have the text of the blessing of Paschal foods at hand, but these are contained in the Trebnyk or book of blessings and are also contained in the Anthology, our book of Divine Liturgy texts, music and other prayers for the faithful.

 

[Aramis]

Part of that, Fr. Deacon, is that for Latins, the Holy Saturday Vigil Mass is treated as an anticipatory liturgy for Easter Sunday, fulfilling the Pascal Sunday obligation.

According to the Ruthenian Rubrics, the Holy Saturday Vesperal DL of St Basil does not fulfill the Paschal Sunday obligation. (Or so the last 4 pastors I’ve been under have said…)

Since it isn’t obligatory, and it doesn’t fulfill the Sunday obligation, many don’t bother.

(But we had some 50 people… pretty much our normal Sunday crowd. Pascha itself was around 120.)