Great and Holy Friday
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Great and Holy Friday is the fifth and most solemn day of Great and Holy Week - the final week before the feast of Pascha. On this day, we commemorate the crucifixion, death, and burial of our Lord, God, and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In the Byzantine Catholic Church, Great and Holy Friday is memorialized penitentially as a day of strict fast, prayer, and solemnity closing with an evening Vespers service, known as Entombment Vespers.
The first part of the service (the hymns of Lamp-lighting) recalls to our minds the events of this day:
All creation is transformed with fear
when it beheld you hanging on the Cross, O Christ.
The sun was darkened and the foundations of the earth trembled.
All creation suffered with the One who created all things.
O Lord, who willingly suffered for us, glory to you.
These hymns are followed by three readings from the Old Testament, followed by an epistle and Gospel. The Epistle (1 Corinthians 1:18 - 2:2) begins with Saint Paul's words: "The message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin; but to us who are experiencing salvation, it is the power of God." The Gospel reading (made up of verses drawn from Matthew, Luke, and John) retells once more the story of the crucifixion, from the handing over of our Lord to Pilate, to his death, the taking down of his body from the cross, and his burial.
According to Jewish custom, it was necessary for the interment to take place before sunset - making Friday (by Jewish reckoning) the first of the three days our Lord would spend in the tomb. Thus, the second part of the service of Vespers focuses on the hours immediately after our Lord's death on the cross. An embroidered cloth with the image of our Lord's lifeless body, called the burial shroud or plashchanitsa, which represents the body of our crucified Lord and Savior lying in the tomb. This forms a focus for the services which recall our Lord's burial, and his Sabbath rest in the tomb.
At the end of the service of Vespers, the burial shroud is carried around the church in procession on the back of the priest. At the end of the procession, the priest places the shroud on a table or into a niche representing the tomb of Christ. As the service of Vespers draws to a close, the faithful come forward to the tomb to venerate the cloth. They venerate the five wounds of Christ, while the following hymn is sung:
Come, let us bless the ever-memorable Joseph,
who went to Pilate by night to beg for the Life of all:
Give me this stranger, who has no place to lay his head.
Give me this stranger, who was handed over to death by his wicked disciple.
Give me this stranger, whose Mother wept, seeing him on the cross,
mourning and crying out in motherly lament: Woe is me, my child!
Woe is me, my light, my beloved whom I bore in my womb!
What was foretold by Simeon in the temple comes to pass today:
A sword has pierced my heart;
but change my tears into the joy of your resurrection.
We bow to your passion, O Christ.
We bow to your passion, O Christ.
We bow to your passion, O Christ,
and to your holy resurrection.
The Lord will descend to Hades, in search of those who were lost, while his body rests in the tomb; on Great and Holy Saturday, we will commemorate these events. But this night, it is traditional for the faithful to keep private vigils before the tomb of the Lord. In this we imitate Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, who kept watch at the tomb (Matthew 27:61). We do this in church or in the home in a spirit of repentance and thanksgiving, and pray for our salvation and that of the whole world.
Adapted from Great and Holy Friday: Metropolitan Cantor Institute.