Easter. Holy Christ's Resurrection. The Resurrection of Christ is the Foundation of the Christian Faith

The word "Passover" from the Hebrew language is translated as "exodus, deliverance."
The holiday itself, called Easter among the Jews, is associated with their liberation, on this day the prophet Moses helped his people begin liberation after four hundred years of Egyptian slavery.

The night the Israelites planned the exodus, they celebrated the first Passover meal in history. In each family, a one-year-old lamb (lamb or goat) was slain and the doorposts were smeared with its blood (Ex. 12:11). And the sacrifice itself, baked in the fire, had to be eaten in such a way that its bones remained intact:

“So eat it like this: let your loins be girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staffs in your hands, and eat it with haste: this is the Passover of the Lord. And this very night I will go through the land of Egypt and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from man to cattle, and I will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. And your blood will be a sign on the houses where you are; and I will see the blood and pass over you, and there will be no destructive plague among you when I strike the land of Egypt” (Ex. 12:11-13).

The exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt turned out to be the most significant event in the history of the Old Testament. And Easter, which coincided with this exodus, in remembrance of this, began to be celebrated every year.
During the "tenth plague", the angel of the Lord, who struck Egypt, saw a special sign on the doors - the blood of the Paschal lamb. Then he passed by these Jewish houses and spared Israel's firstborn (Ex. 12:13). This confirms the exact translation of the word "Easter", from the Jewish Pesach - "passage", "mercy".

Later, in special prayers, the historical events of the Easter holiday began to be expressed. And the ritual meal, which consists of lamb meat, bitter herbs and sweet salad, recalls the bitterness of Egyptian slavery and the sweetness of the freedom received. Unleavened bread symbolizes the hasty harvest, and the Passover meal itself is accompanied by four cups of wine. This historical night is considered the second birth of the Israeli people, from which they began their independent history.
But the complete and final salvation of the world, the victory not over the physical, but the spiritual "Egyptian slavery", was to be carried out from His Resurrection after many centuries by God's Anointed of the lineage of King David, the Messiah (in Greek - Christ). So they called all the biblical kings until the real Savior was born. And so, every year, on Easter night, the Israelites waited for the appearance of Christ.
For Catholics, Christmas is considered the main holiday, since on this day the Savior came to our world.
And for Orthodox believers, the most important holiday is considered to be Christian Easter. On this day, almost 2000 years ago, the most important event of mankind happened - the Resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ!

WHEN EASTER IS CELEBRATED

At the holiday Easter there is no fixed date, it is calculated every year according to the lunar calendar. Such a decision was made at the first Ecumenical Christian Council in Nicaea (325), the participants of which were saints and.
Easter is celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, on the first Sunday after the full moon, but if the full moon fell on Sunday, then Easter is postponed to the next week.

Easter - the Bright Resurrection of Christ - the Church celebrates 40 days - the same as Christ was with the disciples after His Resurrection. The first week after the Resurrection of Christ is called the Bright or Easter week.

Christ's Resurrection in the Gospels

The gospels say that Jesus Christ died on the cross on Friday at about three o'clock in the afternoon and was buried before dark. On the third day after the burial of Christ, in the early morning, several women (Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Salome and Mary of Jacob and others with them) carried the incense they had bought to anoint the body of Jesus. Going to the place of burial, they mourned: “Who will roll away the stone from the tomb for us?” - because, as the evangelist explains, the stone was great. But the stone had already been rolled away, and the tomb was empty. This was seen by Mary Magdalene, who came to the tomb first, and Peter and John, who were called by her, and myrrh-bearing women to whom a young man in luminous robes, sitting at the tomb, announced the Resurrection of Christ. The four Gospels describe this morning in the words of various witnesses who came to the tomb one after another. There are also stories about how the resurrected Christ appeared to the disciples and talked with them.
The meaning of the holiday

For Christians, this holiday means the transition from death to eternal life with Christ - from earth to heaven, which is also proclaimed by Easter hymns: “Easter, Lord's Easter! From death to life, and from earth to heaven, Christ God has led us, singing victoriously.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ revealed the glory of His Divinity, hidden until then under the cover of humiliation: a shameful and terrible death on the cross next to the crucified criminals and thieves.
With His Resurrection, Jesus Christ blessed and confirmed the resurrection for all people.

History of Easter

The Old Testament Passover (Pesach) was celebrated as a remembrance of the exodus of the sons of Israel from Egypt and deliverance from slavery.

In apostolic times, Easter united two memories: the sufferings and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The days preceding the Resurrection were called the Passover of Suffering. Days after the Resurrection - Easter of the Cross or Easter of the Resurrection.

In the early centuries of Christianity, different communities celebrated Easter at different times. In the East, in Asia Minor, it was celebrated in 14th the day of the month of Nisan (March - April), no matter what day of the week this number falls on. The Western Church celebrated Easter on the first Sunday after the spring full moon.

At the First Ecumenical Council in 325, it was decided to celebrate Easter everywhere at the same time on the Alexandrian Paschalia. This continued until the 16th century, when the unity of Western and Eastern Christians in celebrating Easter and other holidays was broken by the calendar reform of Pope Gregory XIII.

The Orthodox Church determines the date of the celebration of Easter according to the Alexandrian Paschalia: the holiday must be on the Sunday after the Jewish Passover, after the full moon and after the spring equinox.

Church celebration of Easter

Since ancient times, the Easter service has been held at night. Like the people chosen by God - the Israelites, who were awake on the night of their deliverance from Egyptian slavery, Christians do not sleep on the sacred pre-holiday night of the Bright Resurrection of Christ.

Shortly before midnight on Great Saturday, the Midnight Office is served, at which the priest and deacon approach the Shroud (a canvas depicting the body of Jesus Christ taken down from the cross) and take it to the altar. The shroud is placed on the throne, where it must remain for 40 days until the day of the Ascension of the Lord (in 2014 - June 13) - in memory of the forty days of Christ's stay on earth after His Resurrection.

The clergy take off their white Sabbath and put on festive red Easter vestments. Before midnight, the solemn bell ringing - the blagovest - announces the approach of the Resurrection of Christ.

Exactly at midnight, with the Royal Doors closed, the clergy in the altar quietly sing the stichera: “Thy Resurrection, Christ the Savior, the angels sing in heaven, and vouchsafe us on earth with a pure heart to glorify Thee.” After that, the curtain is drawn back (the curtain behind the Royal Doors from the side of the altar), and the clergy again sing the same stichera, but loudly. The Royal Doors open, and the stichera, in an even higher voice, is sung by the clergy for the third time up to the middle, and the choir of the temple sings the end. Priests come out of the altar and together with the people, like myrrh-bearing women who came to the tomb of Jesus Christ, go around the temple in a procession with the singing of the same stichera.
Procession

The procession of the cross means the procession of the Church towards the resurrected Savior. Having gone around the temple, the procession stops in front of its closed doors, as if at the entrance to the Holy Sepulcher. The ringing stops. The rector of the temple and the clergy sing the joyful Easter troparion three times: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and bestowing life (life) on those in the tombs!”. Then the abbot recites the verses of the ancient prophetic psalm of King David: “May God arise and His enemies (enemies) be scattered…”, and the choir and the people sing in response to each verse: “Christ is risen from the dead…”. Then the priest, holding a cross and a three-candlestick in his hands, makes the sign of the cross with them at the closed doors of the temple, they open, and everyone, rejoicing, enters the church, where all the lamps and lamps are lit, and they all sing together: “Christ is risen from the dead!” .
Matins

Then they serve Paschal Matins: they sing the canon compiled by St. John of Damascus. Between the songs of the Paschal Canon, priests with a cross and a censer go around the temple and greet the parishioners with the words: “Christ is Risen!”, To which the faithful answer: “Truly Risen!”.

At the end of Matins, after the Paschal canon, the priest reads the "Word of St. John Chrysostom", which tells with inspiration about the joy and significance of this day. After the service, all those praying in the temple christenate with each other, congratulating on the great holiday.

Immediately after Matins, the Easter Liturgy is served, where the beginning of the Gospel of John is read in different languages ​​(if several priests serve). On Easter, all those who pray, if possible, partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

After the end of the festive service, Orthodox Christians usually “break the fast” - they treat themselves to consecrated painted eggs and Easter cakes in the temple or at home.

What can not be done on Easter?

On this day, you can not be sad, walk gloomy and swear with your neighbors. But just remember that Easter is not 24 hours, but at least a whole week - Bright Week. In the liturgical plan, the Resurrection of Christ is celebrated for seven days. Let this week be an example of how we should always behave in society, among people. How should you spend Easter? Rejoice, treat others, invite them to visit you, visit the suffering. In a word, everything that brings joy to your neighbor, and therefore to you.

Priest Igor Fomin

The Orthodox holiday "The Resurrection of Christ", which is also called Velikden or Easter, is the oldest and greatest among Christian holidays, and one of the main among the twelve Orthodox holidays that the church celebrates with special solemnity.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place on Nisan 15 (the first month of the year in the Jewish religious calendar). Evangelist John, however, specifies that Jesus died on Nisan 14, at the time when the lambs were sacrificed in the Temple on the Jewish holiday of Pesach. The Pesach holiday, which means “to pass by,” is the Old Testament Jewish Passover, which is celebrated in honor of the release of the Israeli people from Egyptian slavery. The name of the holiday is associated with an angel who came to Egypt to destroy all the firstborn, but when he saw the blood of the Paschal lamb on the doors of the Jewish house, he passed by.

In the Christian Church, the name "Easter" received a special understanding and began to denote the transition from death to life, from earth to Heaven. This is precisely what is expressed in the sacred hymns of the Church: "Easter, the Lord's Easter, for from death to life and from earth to heaven, Christ God has translated us, singing a song of victory."

For the first Christians, the Passion of Christ, His death became the hope for liberation from sins, because Christ himself becomes the Lamb of God. He, having brought a majestic sacrifice, with his blood and suffering gives humanity a new chance for life in the light of the New Testament.

The description of the historical event of the Resurrection of Christ, which is present in all the Gospels, originates from the Jerusalem community. From there comes the first exclamation with which the Paschal liturgies all over the world open: “Christ is Risen!”.

According to the Gospel, the Resurrection of the Savior is a secret act of God, during which not a single person was present. Only the consequences of this event became known to the inner circle of Jesus Christ - the myrrh-bearing women, who first saw His death and burial, and then saw that the tomb where they put Him became empty. And at that moment the Angel announced to them about the resurrection and sent to tell this message to the apostles.

The Feast of the Resurrection of Christ was established by the Apostolic Church and was already celebrated in those days. Special names were used to designate the first and second parts of the holiday: Easter of the Cross, that is, Easter of suffering, and Sunday Easter, that is, Easter of the Resurrection. After the Council of Nicaea, held in 325, new names were introduced - Holy and Bright weeks, and the day of the Resurrection itself was called Easter.

In the first centuries of Christianity, Easter was not celebrated at the same time in different places. In the East, in the churches of Asia Minor, they celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan (March), regardless of what day of the week it was. And the Western Church honored her on the first Sunday of the spring full moon. An attempt to establish agreement on this issue between the Churches was made in the middle of the 2nd century under St. Polycarp, Ep. Smirnsky, but without success.

Two different customs existed before the 1st Ecumenical Council (325). At the Council, it was decided to celebrate Easter everywhere according to the rules of the Alexandrian Church - after the spring full moon between April 4 and May 8, but that Christian Easter should always be celebrated after the Jewish one.

Holiday traditions

Easter celebrations begin with a detour around the church, accompanied by bells. This detour is a symbolic procession of the myrrh-bearing women on Sunday morning to the Lord's tomb.

After the detour, before the closed doors of the church, as before the sealed tomb of God, matins begins in honor of the Resurrection of Christ. Here, for the first time, we hear the joyful proclamation: “Christ is risen from the dead...”, and while singing the same song, the priest opens the doors of the church with a cross as a sign that Christ’s death has opened the way to Heaven for mankind.

The oldest Christian statutes say that at the end of Sunday Matins, during the singing of the stichera of Pascha, with the words “and let us embrace each other”, a mutual kiss took place, which today is called “christening”. People greet each other: “Christ is risen! - Truly risen!

All the time throughout the entire Bright Week of the holiday, the doors in the iconostasis remain open as a sign that Christ, by his resurrection, opened the doors of the Kingdom of God to mankind.

On the day of Pascha, at the holy liturgy, after the prayer beyond the ambo, the artos is blessed. "Artos" is translated from Greek as "bread". Artos is a symbol of the bread of eternal life - our Lord Jesus Christ. On the artos you can see the icon of the Resurrection. Artos stands on the throne or on the tetrapod all Bright Week. On Bright Saturday, after a special prayer, it is crushed and distributed to believers.

During the period of Pentecost, namely from the feast of Easter to the feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, as a sign of Sunday joy, they do not bow, do not kneel. At the Council of Nicaea, it was proclaimed: “Because some kneel on the days of the Lord and on the days of Pentecost, for the sake of uniformity in all dioceses, at this time they offer standing prayers to God” (Rule 20). The Sixth Ecumenical Council also has a similar decision in Canon 90.

During the celebration of Easter, and sometimes during the entire Bright Week, the daytime bell sounds as a sign of the victory of Jesus Christ over death and over hell.

The Ukrainian people have a custom to bless food on Easter. After a long fast, the Holy Church allows all kinds of food so that the faithful during the Paschal feasts, along with spiritual joy, also have joy from earthly gifts. The blessing of Paschal food takes place solemnly after the holy liturgy, usually in the churchyard.

The glorious Ukrainian krashenka and pysanky, which are of ancient origin, are associated with the blessing of Easter cakes. The ancient peoples had a custom according to which it was impossible to appear for the first time in front of a person occupying a high position in society without a gift. Reverent legends say that Mary Magdalene, preaching the science of Christ, went into the courtyard of the Roman emperor Tiberius and gave him a red egg as a gift with the words: “Christ is risen!”, And only after that did she begin her sermon. Other Christians followed her example and began to present each other with Easter eggs or Easter eggs on the day of the Easter holiday.

The egg plays such a big role in Easter customs because it has become a symbol of Christ's Resurrection. Just as new life is born from a dead egg shell, so Jesus Christ came out of the tomb into new life. The red egg is a symbol of our salvation through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

Various Easter amusements for children and adults are associated with Easter eggs and Easter eggs.

The divine essence of the holiday

The Resurrection of Christ is the liberation of mankind from the burden of sins, the transition from death to Life, from suffering to Love. This majestic and incomprehensible action is the indestructible foundation of the Christian faith. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is evidence that Jesus Christ is the true God and Savior.

Christ died in body, having endured great mockery and torment, both bodily and spiritual. But His physical (human) manifestation is united with God the Word into a single Hypostasis. And death itself, which kept the souls of men even for small offenses, could not have power over Him. Christ descended into hell to conquer death itself and rose again on the third day, freeing Adam and the entire human race from the slavery of sin.

Because of the original sin of Adam, the bodily beginning of the human race, mankind submitted to the law of death, and Jesus Christ became the Liberator of mankind, showing the victory of the spirit over the body. Jesus Christ approved the New Covenant between humanity and God, bringing a Majestic sacrifice before Divine justice. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Resurrection, also made people victorious over death and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven thanks to the saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, in due time, what happened to Jesus Christ will also happen to all mankind. The Apostle Paul clearly and confidently testifies: "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive" (1 Cor. XV:22).

The light of God's Resurrection on this day touches every believing soul, giving indescribable joy, love and new hope, igniting vital faith in the victory of the Spirit over the flesh. The New Testament, the Testament of Love, given to us by God, unites the earth and Heaven, bringing the Kingdom of Heaven closer to human hearts, opening the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven through our Savior Jesus Christ.

1 And after the sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.

2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord, who came down from heaven, came and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb and sat on it;

3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were as white as snow;

4 When they were afraid of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.

5 And the angel, turning his speech to the women, said: Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus crucified;

6 He is not here - He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay,

7 and go quickly, tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you in Galilee; you will see him there. Here, I told you.

8 And coming out of the tomb hastily, they ran with fear and great joy to tell his disciples.

9 And as they were going to tell his disciples, and lo, Jesus met them and said, Rejoice! And they, coming forward, took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.

10 Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid; go tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.

11 As they were going, some of the guards went into the city and announced to the chief priests all that had happened.

12 And these, having assembled with the elders, and held counsel, gave enough money to the soldiers,

13 And they said, Say that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we slept.

14 And if the news of this reaches the governor, we will convince him, and we will save you from trouble.

15 They took the money and did as they were taught; and this word has spread among the Jews to this day.

16 And the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had commanded them,

17 And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted.

18 And Jesus drew near and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you all the days to the end of the age. Amen.

Resurrection of Christ

He ascended on high, captured captivity and gave gifts to people.
And "ascended" which means, if not that He descended
first into the lower places of the earth? Descendant He is
and went out above all the heavens to fill all
(Eph. 4:8-10).

If Christ is not risen, then our faith is in vain
(1 Cor. 15:17).

The “great and blessed Sabbath” has come: the Only Begotten Son of God, who humbled Himself to death on the cross (Phil. 2:8) and delivered His spirit into the hands of the Father (Luke 23:46) “having served the Sabbath in the flesh, He rested from all His works.” Recently they saw Him humiliated, but now His rest is an honor.

But there was no rest in Jerusalem: some were deprived of it by malice, and others by heavy, oppressive grief.

Enemies did not cease to persecute the crucified Truth even in the tomb, "where the unrighteousness of men and the righteous judgment of God brought her down"; the hands that killed the Savior sealed the tomb with His seal; fierce hatred and unbelief guarded her integrity (Matt. 27:62-66).

And at this time, the disciples of the Lord with His Most Pure Mother indulged in great sorrow. All the apostles, except for the beloved disciple (John 19, 26), left their Teacher, and now they learn from others about the last days of His life - how He endured reproach, how he suffered, how he cried out to His Father in the midst of terrible torments on the Cross: “ My God, My God! Why did you leave me” (Matthew 27:46)! These stories tore their souls with dreary bewilderment: “Who was He? We saw His wondrous miracles, speaking of divine omnipotence, heard His word, filled with unknown power and inexplicable love, - and now His enemies defeated Him, and even God, Whom He called His Father, left Him! He died a shameful death on the cross, and we hoped it was that He was the one who should deliver Israel (Luke 24:1). The apostle Peter wept bitterly, having denied Him whom he had promised to love unto death (Mk. 14:27-31; 66-72). But incomparably more bitter tears were shed by the Mother of the Lord: a sharp weapon pierced Her soul (Luke 2:35) and inconsolable lamentations broke out of her sorrowful heart: “Where, My Son and God, is the annunciation spoken to me by Gabriel? He called You King, Son and God on high, and now I see You, My sweet light, naked and ulcerated dead.” “Behold, my light, hope, life, and my God died out on the cross. From now on, joy will never touch Me, - My joy and light have entered the tomb; but I will not leave Him ... - here I will die and be buried with Him! Listening to the cries and groans of His Mother, the God-man mysteriously spoke to Her heart from the tomb: “Oh, how the abyss of bounty has been hidden from You?! for although I saved my creature, I was pleased to die, but, as the God of heaven and earth, I will rise and magnify you.

So some with anguish, while others with gloating joy, looked at the silent, sealed and guarded tomb of the Redeemer. But what was happening at that time behind the doors of the life-giving tomb was hidden from the world. Only the Most Pure Body of the Lord rested here; With His deified soul He descended into the abyss (Rom. 10:7); to the very stronghold of the primordial murderer (John 8:44), where the souls of the earthly, deprived of heavenly bliss for the sin of the ancestral bliss, languished for centuries. “Christ,” says the holy Apostle Peter, “in order to bring us to God, suffered once for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, being put to death according to the flesh, but made alive by the spirit, by which he came down and preached by the spirit in prison” (1 Pet 3, 18-19). “The deified soul of Christ descends into hell so that, just as the Sun of righteousness shines on those who live on earth, so that light shines on those who sit under the earth in darkness and the shadow of death, so that both those on earth and those who are in hell, Christ proclaims peace, deliverance to the captives, enlightenment to the blind, and for those who believed he was the author of eternal salvation, but for the unbelievers he was the accuser in unbelief” (St. John of Damascus).

The day of Christ has come (John 8:56) for those who from afar, separated by millennia and centuries, only foresaw it in the shadow of types and prophecies. And with the preaching of the Gospel (St. Clement of Alexandria) and the remission of sins (St. Irenaeus), the Lord descends into hell. With a rapture of inexplicable joy, the host of forefathers and prophets met the Lord Jesus. Here, behind the gloomy gates of the “dull hell” (St. Gregory the Theologian), the Savior “sees Adam shedding tears; sees Abel covered with blood, as with purple; sees Noah adorned with righteousness; sees Shem and Japheth adorned with reverence for their father; sees Abraham crowned with all virtues; sees Lot laboring in hospitality; sees Isaac blooming with constancy; sees Jacob sitting patiently; sees Job like a wrestler prepared for wrestling; sees Phinehas armed with a spear; sees Moses consecrated by the fingers of God. Comes to Nun, and he is surrounded by an army; comes to Samuel, and he shines with the anointing of kings; goes to David, and he is buried with a psalter; comes to Elisha, and he is clothed in mantle. Isaiah joyfully shows the head, cut off from him with a saw. Jonah is famous for saving the Ninevites. Jeremiah is anointed with mud from the ditch. Luminous are the eyes of Ezekiel from terrible visions. The kisses of the lions are still fresh on the feet of the Daniels. The bodies of those in the furnace sparkle with fire. The squad of Maccabees is surrounded by instruments of torment. The head of the Baptist shines with beheading. He also sees holy women, who in no way yield to their husbands: he sees Sarah, shining with the Abrahamic faith; sees Rebekah prospering with beneficial drink from a water-carrier; sees Rachel shining with chastity in marriage; sees the mother of strongholds against the tormentor, walled by seven sons; sees every righteous man, looks at every prophet - and preaches: "Behold Az!" (St. Ephraim the Syrian).

Hell “trembled at the meeting” with the second Adam (1 Cor. 15:45-48), whose plagues showed omnipotence, “and perished from a formidable look.” The "eternal faiths" of hell were broken. The dominion of death and the devil ended (Heb. 2:14): “The Holy and True One, who has the key of David” (Rev. 3:7), having opened for believers, enclosed by the sins of their forefathers, the doors of paradise and, accompanied by a host of the redeemed, entered “heaven itself.” ” (Heb. 9:24). “All the righteous who were swallowed up by death were redeemed, and after this, each of the righteous said: “Death! Where is your pity? Hell! Where is your victory? (1 Cor. 15:55). We have been redeemed by the Victorious." (St. Cyril of Jerusalem).

Two days have passed since the day of the death of the Lord Jesus on Golgotha... The feeling of restless malice in the souls of the God-killers, who firmly remembered the Savior's prediction of the resurrection on the third day (Matt. 27, 63), moved more strongly; in the souls of Christ's disciples, his dawn kindled a ray of vague hope for the manifestation of the power of Divine omnipotence over their dead and buried Teacher (Luke 24:24). But indifferently, alien to malice and hope, the soldiers stood guard at the tomb, where the Hope of all creation was buried (Rom. 8, 19).

In the silence of the deep morning, in the midst of the general peace of nature, “Truth shone forth from the earth” (Ps. 84:12), the God-Man resurrected “from a sealed tomb” (St. Isidore Pelusiot), when “seals and a stone lay on it” (St. John Chrysostom). There were no witnesses to that greatest miracle, not yet seen by the world, - they were not needed: the entire subsequent history of the Church of Christ is an indisputable and silent witness to the truth of the Resurrection.

The soldiers guarding the tomb were eyewitnesses of the events that had already followed the Resurrection of the Lord, which He was pleased to clothe with sacred mystery. They stood calmly under the shade of the olive trees, carefully peering into the pre-dawn darkness that surrounded them. Suddenly they felt that the earth shook and, like lightning, cutting through the air, an extraordinary light shone - then an angel of God, descended from heaven, approached the tomb, rolled away a stone from it, and sat on it (Matt. 28, 2-3). Thus, “the seal placed by unbelief on the cold tomb of the Lord melted from the fire of the Deity hidden in it; the heavy stone of temptation that covered him fell and only struck the Jewish cruelty and Hellenic arrogance. (Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow). By the light of his appearance, the angel horrified the warriors: “from fear they trembled and became like dead men” (Matt. 28:4). The earthly guard at the tomb of the risen Lord ended, giving way to the heavenly one, to the luminous messengers of the all-joyful resurrection.

Christ is risen! - and for the whole universe, a true spring began, a bright, joyful morning of a new life. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the first real victory of life over death, if they were earlier, then they were incomplete, temporary, after which death again asserted its real dominion over life. Nature struggled with death, calling, according to the commandment of God (Gen. 1, 22), new lives to replace the faded ones. But for what? So that they disappear again, be replaced by others, which, in turn, will be replaced by third ones, etc. The life of nature, therefore, is nothing more than a motley, bright cover on an incessantly decaying corpse, woven from many fleeting mortal lives. The heroes of human thought, the great sages of the East and West, also fought against death, but they did not overcome it: their lot, like all other people, was death, after which they did not rise. Powerless before death were also people of great moral power, for example, the Old Testament righteous: along with the villains, death brought them to the gloomy sheol or hell.

The final victory over death could not be won until its source in the world was destroyed - the sin that divided it into two. Sin bound the human spirit with passions and thus violated the correct relationship between it and the body: the last of the obedient tools for the activity of the god-like human spirit turned, thanks to sin, into an insurmountable obstacle on the path to moral perfection. The fight against sin without Christ is impossible for a person, it only leads him to the consciousness of his impotence, tearing out from his soul a mournful cry: “I am a poor man! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:7-24)

And now, in the world, conquered by sin and inextricably linked with it by death (1 Cor. 15:56), “when the fullness of time had come” (Gal. 4:4), the God-Man Jesus Christ appeared for its salvation, fully realizing the will of God in His life . His entire earthly life was a free and arbitrary feat of self-abasement, undertaken to accomplish the work entrusted to Him by the Father (John 17:4). The hero of our salvation "was like us, tempted in everything, except sin" (Heb. 4:15). Therefore, death, like its prince, had nothing for itself in Him (John 14:30). He defeated them. They were powerless before the boundless moral-free spiritual power in Christ, and the Lord Jesus resurrected as a spirit incarnated forever, uniting with the fullness of the inner spiritual being all the positive aspects of bodily existence without its external limitations. Death had no power not only over the spirit, but also over the body of Christ - "his flesh saw no corruption" (Ps. 15:10; Acts 2:31). “By the soul of God the realm of death has been destroyed, the resurrection from hell has been accomplished and proclaimed to souls, but corruption has been brought into inaction by the body of Christ and incorruption has been revealed from the tomb” (St. Athanasius of Alexandria). As the Son of Man, obedient to His Father until His death on the Cross, the Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected “by the glory of the Father” (Rom. 6:4), by the action of His omnipotence (Acts 2:24; 4:15; Rom. 8:11; 2 Cor. 13:4), and as the Son of God, the eternal Word, He Himself returned His deified soul to a glorified body (John 10:17-18).

The Resurrection, crowning the life of the Lord Jesus, as the God-man, also crowns His feat as the Messiah - the Savior of the world.

It regenerated the apostles, turning fearful fishermen into selfless preachers of Christ, who carried the word of the gospel, according to the commandment of the Teacher, from Jerusalem "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1, 8). When the Lord was taken in the garden of Gethsemane by the messengers from the chief priests and elders of the people, the disciples fled; like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 14:27), they scattered in despair and horror, and even the stone of faith - St. app. Peter (Matt. 16:18) was shaken “at the meaningless word of a slave girl like a leaf in the wind.” (Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow). They expected that the Messiah would visibly open His glorious kingdom of Israel on earth. But the cross shattered those hopes, shattered their theocratic dreams. In the eyes of the disciples of Christ, as well as all people of that time, the cross was the most terrible and shameful of all that a person could only experience in his life; he was a sign of such a terrible curse that the Teacher Himself yearned for them and mourned before him to a bloody sweat. Golgotha ​​with its torments eclipsed the faith in Christ as the Messiah in the souls of the apostles, leaving them faith in Him as a prophet, “who was mighty in deed and word before God and all the people” (Luke 24:19). But Christ arose, and the cross shone in their eyes with the light of unfading glory; the plagues revealed divine omnipotence, and the tomb became the cradle of indestructible faith that death had been conquered, that there was eternal life. With a sermon about Christ crucified and risen, they go out into the world, enduring persecution and deprivation. How truly thorny was the path of the heralds of Christ in the world, the Apostle of Tongues describes: “I,” he says, “was in labor, immeasurably in wounds, more in prisons, and many times at death. Five times the Jews gave me forty blows less one. Three times I was beaten with sticks, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent night and day in the depths of the sea. Many times I was on travels, in dangers on the rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from fellow tribesmen, in dangers from pagans. In labor and exhaustion, often in watchfulness, hunger and thirst, often in fasting, in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor. 11, 23-27). What supported them during such trials, turning the very sorrows into joy, reproach in honor (Acts 5, 10-41)? They lived by faith, “that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise up through Jesus and” (2 Cor. 4:14) them. And by the power of this faith they conquered the world, brought to the foot of the cross those for whom the "word of the cross" (1 Cor. 1:18) seemed to be a temptation and madness (1 Cor. 1:23).

They realized that only in the resurrected Christ could they find satisfaction for the deepest needs of the human spirit. People are exhausted by sin and hunger for righteousness, but Christ was “delivered for our sins and rose again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). People languish under the joyless yoke of the law and yearn for grace-filled freedom - having killed by his death the offspring of the law - sin (Rom. 7, 9) and having defeated Him with His resurrection (1 Cor. 15, 25), the Lord Jesus Christ opened the way to true freedom for His followers (John 8, 36) and replaced the heavy, unbearable yoke of a harsh law with a good and light burden of His teaching (Matt. 11, 30). People fear death, but Christ "is risen from the dead, the firstborn of those who have died" (1 Cor. 15:20). By His resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ opens for man the doors of such a longed-for immortality. Death can no longer be terrible for him, if he believes in Christ, acquires by faith His righteousness, His eternal life, His spirit (Rom. 8, 9-11; Gal. 6, 8), if he lives in Christ, then and will live with Him (John 14:19), preserving not only the soul, but also the body. Christ in His resurrection acquired glorification for His humanity, and at the same time acquired the hope of glorification for our all-begotten humanity. Where from eternity He dwelt and abides as God, He entered as the God-man with soul and body. In the resurrection of the God-man, therefore, we have unfalse evidence that we too will be resurrected, and without fail with the body. Let's not ask how this will happen? If the Lord Jesus resurrected, exalted, and reigned His faith, in His very person, cast down into the tomb and brought down to hell, then we cannot doubt that He will justify our faith in the resurrection through Him. Otherwise, Christians would be the most miserable people on earth (1 Cor. 15:19); a Christian is a temporary guest, a wanderer and a stranger on earth, who is inevitably accompanied by malice and hatred on the part of the majority of those around him. Suffering is just as inevitable in his life as in the life of the Savior (1 Pet. 2:21). But Christ is risen and through this founded our hope deeper than the present world and raised it above the earth: “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also by His Spirit who lives in you” (Rom. 8, 11).

Not one person is burdened with sin and longs for immortality: a vague and indistinct attraction to deliverance from evil and the desire for immortality is inherent in all nature; she, brought from the present path of development by the fall of man, suffers and languishes (Rom. 8:20-22), waiting for that great day when “the last enemy will destroy death” (1 Cor. 15:26), when the resurrected Son of Man “and He himself will submit to Him who subdued all things, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). Then the kingdom of glory will come, access to which Christ with glory opened to the whole world.

1. Service led. Saturday morning can. item 4, trop. 1, stichera for praise, 2 glory.
2. Service is great, heel, povech. canon. item 7, trop. 1, n. 3, and now; item 5, trop. one; can. p. 9, glory.^
3. Service led. saturday morning can. item 4, trop. 3.
4. Service led. saturday morning can. item 4, trop. 3.
5. Service of St. Easter morning can. item 6, irmos.
6. The stay of Christ in the body in the tomb, the descent of the soul into hell, the stay on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, the Church remembers on Holy Saturday. Shedding tears of love and gratitude for the One who laid down His life for His friends and enemies, who rested in the body in the tomb, the Church calls everyone and everything to the most holy and precious tomb - the aspiration of all languages, calls to it both heaven and earth, and angels and people, surrounds it a holy cloud of ancient witnesses who have seen it for thousands of years, and a cathedral of New Testament heralds, here, before the Crucified One, as if giving an account in their universal sermon about His redemptive cross, death and resurrection. The entire service of Great Saturday represents a wonderful combination of the most opposite feelings - sorrow and joy, grief and joy, tears and bright jubilation. At Matins, funeral singing is performed over the Divine Dead. It consists of the 17th kathisma (118 psalms), which prophetically depicts the suffering life of the Savior on earth, called “immaculate” and divided into 3 articles (or stations). To each verse of the kathisma, meek hymns or "praise" to the dead and buried Lord are added. As a foreshadowing of the non-Evening Light that will rise from the tomb, the believers stand with lit candles. After the great doxology, a procession is made with a shroud around the temple, vividly and clearly transferring our thoughts and feelings to the time when Joseph and Nicodemus, forgetting all fear of the Jewish host, with caring love, with indestructible devotion, paid the last honor to the Crucified, His Most Pure Body “wrapped in a clean shroud” and “in a new tomb” laid. The Liturgy (of Basil the Great) is the completion of the passionate service and the immediate pre-feast or forerunner of Pascha. After a small entrance, 15 proverbs are read, which contain almost all the main prophecies and types relating to the person of Jesus Christ, who crowned the great work of redemption with His glorious Resurrection. After reading the apostle, while singing “Rise, God,” the dark clothes of the throne and the clergy change to light ones, and the deacon, like a bright angel, the first witness and herald of the resurrection of Christ, proclaims this all-joyful gospel gospel. From the angel, the first news of the resurrection was heard by St. peace-bearing wife. Like them, who met the risen Lord outside Jerusalem, we also make a procession around the temple before Easter matins. At the beginning of the canon and each of its songs, the priest with a cross and candles burns the whole church incense, in commemoration of the repeated appearances of the Lord after the Resurrection. The joyful Paschal greeting reminds us of the state of the apostles (Luke 24:14-34), in which, when the news of the resurrection of Christ suddenly spread, they asked one another with joyful enthusiasm: “Christ is risen!” and answered one another: "Truly He is risen." Mutual kissing is an expression of love and reconciliation with each other, in memory of our universal forgiveness and reconciliation with God, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The red egg serves as a symbol of the resurrection of Christ and our rebirth into the life to come. As from an egg, from under a dead shell, life is born, which was completely hidden, so Christ, who lay in the tomb, like a dead man, rose from this dwelling place of death and decay. Just as a living being is born from an egg and begins to live a full life when it is freed from the shell that contains its embryo, so at the second coming of Christ to earth, we, having cast aside all perishable here, where the name is already the embryo and the beginning of eternal being, by the power of the resurrection Christ, let us be reborn and rise again for another life. The red-dyed egg reminds us that our new life was acquired by the pure blood of Jesus Christ. The custom of mutual exchange of eggs owes its origin to St. Mary Magdalene, who, presenting herself to Emperor Tiberius, offered him a red egg with the greeting "Christ is Risen". The all-Easter service and church rites are especially solemn, imbued with a single feeling of joy and reveal to the believer everything that in Christianity is mysterious, lofty and saving for the soul, bright, gratifying and comforting for the heart.

These are "Holidays Feast" and "Celebration of Celebrations".

The bright feast of the Resurrection of Christ is named Easter according to its internal relationship with the Old Testament feast of Passover, which, in turn, was so named in remembrance of the event when, during the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, the angel who destroyed the firstborn of Egypt, seeing the blood of the Paschal sacrificial lamb on the doors of Jewish dwellings, passed by (Heb. " Pesach" - lit. "transition", transl. "deliverance"), leaving inviolable the Jewish firstborn. In accordance with this Old Testament memory, the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, denoting the passage from death to life and from earth to heaven, received the name Easter.

The meaning of the Resurrection of Christ

With the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, the Divine-human feat of salvation, the re-creation of man, was completed. The Resurrection was evidence that Jesus Christ is the true God and Lord, Redeemer and Savior. Christ died in the flesh, but His flesh is united into one hypostasis, unmerged, unchanging, inseparable, inseparable from God the Word. Christ is resurrected, for death could not hold in its power the body and soul of Christ, who are in hypostatic unity with the Source of eternal life, with Him Who, according to His Divinity, is the Resurrection and Life.

In the Dispensation of Salvation, the Resurrection of Christ is a manifestation of Divine omnipotence: Christ, after His death, descended into hell, "like a desire", overthrew death, "like God and Master." He is risen three days and with Himself resurrected Adam and the entire human race from the bonds of hell and corruption. Having broken the gates (stronghold) of death, Christ showed the way to eternal life.

Jesus Christ has risen as the firstfruits of the dead, the firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18). Having risen, He sanctified, blessed and approved the general resurrection of all people who will rise from the earth on the universal day of resurrection, as an ear grows from a seed.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ testifies that He truly is the Son of God - "he is risen like God." It revealed the glory of His Divinity, hidden before under the cover of humiliation.

The body of Jesus Christ has risen in glory. In Him, a great and saving new-creative action takes place. He in Himself renews our nature, which has fallen into decay.

Christ is risen by conquering death. But even after His Resurrection, death in humanity temporarily still continues to carry away its victims. But it only melts down the vessels of our soul - the body to be recreated on the day of resurrection in a new, spiritually renewed form. And since flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and corruption does not inherit incorruption, our soul-body life is only a seed for sowing, which must rot - in death, in order to give an ear - new life. Our corruption in death is the path to incorruption. Just as Christ died according to the flesh and came to life in the Spirit, so we too are freed by Him from the law of sin and death according to the law of the Spirit and life in Him (Rom. 8:2).

Through His Resurrection, Christ made us conquerors of death, and by life in Christ we receive the forerunners of immortality granted by His Resurrection to our mortal nature: “Let no one be afraid of death,” exclaims St.

Therefore, the soul of a Christian is so enthusiastic on the day of Holy Pascha: the saving and luminous night of the Resurrection of Christ is the herald of the future day of the general resurrection. This is truly a great Pascha, Pascha, which opens the doors of paradise to us, for death passes away, incorruption and eternal life appear.

history of the holiday

Easter is the oldest holiday of the Christian Church. It was established and celebrated already in apostolic times. Probably, the circle of holidays of the Ancient Church until the century was exhausted by Sunday afternoon. Hardly in words. Paul: “Our Passover was devoured for us by Christ; let us celebrate the same, not in kvass vets” (1 Cor. 5, 7-8), one can see an indication of the Christian Easter as opposed to the Jewish one. Rather, such an indication can be seen in the thoroughness with which St. John the Theologian notes the coincidence of the death of Christ with the Jewish Passover (John 19:4; John 18:28; compare John 13:1). The persistence with which Christian tradition has always attributed the institution of Great Lent to the apostles themselves allows us to look for at least its beginnings in that time. It is possible that the words of the Savior: “When the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they fast,” cited by Tertullian as a possible basis for Great Lent, were understood in this sense by the apostles themselves and encouraged them to sanctify each year with fasting, which they generally loved (Acts 13 2), the day of the Lord's death. Since this day fell on Jewish Passover, when the observance of Jewish holidays by Christians ceased, the latter could easily come to the idea of ​​consecrating the day of Passover with fasting in remembrance of the death of Christ. In the form of such a fast, the Pascha of Christ originally existed, as can be seen from the testimony of St. Irenaeus of Lyon (v.).

In this regard, an important passage from the letter of St. Irenaeus, Ep. Lyons, to the Roman Bishop. Victor, preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea. It sheds light on the original character of the Passover feast. The epistle was written about the disputes about the time of the celebration of Easter, which began even under St. Polycarpe, ep. Smyrna (+167), which caused a series of councils and continued with even greater force under St. Irenaeus (+ 202). The disputes concerned the question: to celebrate Easter together with the Jewish one (on the 14th - 15th day of the first spring lunar month) or on the first Sunday after this day.

An excerpt from the text of St. Irenaeus shows that the dispute about the time of Easter arose because by this time the nature of the holiday itself, the view of it, gradually began to change. If earlier they looked at Easter as a fast in honor of the death of the Savior, who died precisely on the day of the Jewish Passover, now they wanted to combine with it the joyful remembrance of the Resurrection of Christ, which could not be combined with fasting and was more suitable not for any day of the week, on which fell on the Jewish Passover, but on Sunday.

In Rome, the Passover of Christ very early began to acquire such a character, while in Asia Minor church life did not move with such speed, and the original ancient view of Pascha was preserved longer. Therefore, the bishops of the West and the East simply did not understand each other.

To this passage from St. Irenaeus Eusebius adds his story about the dispute regarding Easter at St. Policarpe, when, during a visit by the last Roman Bishop. Anikita, it turned out their disagreement both on this issue and on others, then “both of them did not argue much among themselves regarding other subjects, but they immediately agreed, but they didn’t want to argue about this issue, even Anikita could not to convince Polycarp not to observe what he always observed while living with John, the disciple of our Lord; neither Polycarp persuaded Anikita to observe, for Anikita said that he was obliged to preserve the customs of the presbyters who preceded him.

After St. Polycarp, Meliton, ep. Sardis, who wrote "Two books about Easter" (c. 170). Her opponents (literary) were Apollinaris, ep. Hierapolis, Clement of Alexandria and St. Hippolyte, Ep. Roman. Councils were held in Palestine, Rome, Pontus, Gaul, and Greece in favor of Roman practice. Dad