Lazarus Resurrection and Holy Week in Jerusalem

A Guide for Rural Pastors. The price for the annual publication is five rubles on the spot, with postage six rubles in silver. Subscriptions are accepted at the editorial office of this magazine, at the Kiev Theological Seminary. Contents: Pastoral meetings as an expression of pastoral communication. – Lazarus resurrection and Vai week in Jerusalem. – Reasons why church services sometimes do not dispose us to heartfelt prayer before God. – Folk customs for the Annunciation of St. Our Lady of Nazareth. – Which of the clergy should take precedence at cathedral services!.. Pilgrimage life in Jerusalem reaches its highest intensity especially at the end of Lent. The last days of the sixth week and the entire Holy Week until Vespers on the first day of Easter seem to be a continuous church festival, in which every true pilgrim considers participation a sacred duty. The temples of Jerusalem, day and night, are resounding with church chants at this time, church litanies and processions of the cross are constantly taking place in them, and the people, in the many thousands, who have come here from different parts of the world - “from the west and the north, and the sea and the east,” often depriving themselves of sleep and food, constantly overflow these churches. Holy Week and the first day of Easter are at the same time the end of the pilgrimage season, because the vast majority of pilgrims, after the liturgy on the first day of Easter, leave Jerusalem and rush to Jaffa to catch the first Russian steamship leaving for Russia. Consequently, each pilgrim, attending long services in the Holy City church, has to spend a lot of time walking around the shops to purchase all sorts of Jerusalem relics as gifts to relatives in memory of the pilgrimage to St. To the coffin. Therefore, there is great excitement on the streets, and local and visiting merchants, who come here with their goods from afar, affectionately invite pilgrims in different languages ​​and dialects, praising their goods and amazing them with the wonders of their imagination and ingenuity. The Svyatograd church, usually dirty, grimy and extremely sloppily maintained, in view of the onset of great holidays, begins to be cleaned and takes on not only a beautiful, but even a solemnly majestic appearance. Local icons are replaced by new icons depicting the “Passion of the Lord” embroidered in gold on dark purple velvet. Everyday icons at the Edicule of the Holy Sepulcher are removed, and new and expensive ones are put in their place, strewn with pearls, precious stones and decorated with fresh flowers. In the altar of the Resurrection Church, along the cornices, in the church on ropes, in the form of fancy garlands, in various directions, around the edicule of the Holy Sepulcher and in the niches of the dome of the church, rich silver and gilded lamps with multi-colored cups are placed and hung in countless quantities. Along the cornices of the edicule, patterned wax candles are installed in several rows with various cherubs between them. Above the doors of the Holy Sepulcher hangs a huge precious lamp with five glasses - a gift from the late Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich. The Life-Giving Coffin inside is sprinkled with aromas and decorated with expensive candlesticks and vases of flowers. The cleaned precious lamps, burning unquenchably over the Divine bed, are filled with oil. Three huge chandeliers descending from the dome of the church are overflowing with huge candles. Precious clothes clothe the altar in the main altar, on which silver candlesticks are placed - beautiful Viennese workmanship, in the form of palm trees. The festivities in Jerusalem begin with the solemn service of the patriarch on the Saturday of Righteous Lazarus. In ancient times, in memory of this significant event that took place in Bethany, the celebration of this day was transferred from Jerusalem to Bethany, where on the site of the cave in which righteous Lazarus stayed for four days, Queen Helena erected a magnificent church. A solemn litany was performed here from Jerusalem by the patriarch, and the liturgy was served here, but after the destruction of the church, of which no traces now remain, under severe oppression from the Muslim rulers, all these solemn services and litanies were abandoned and were not performed until recently. Currently, the celebration of this day is timed to coincide with Olivet, so as to be, so to speak, in sight of Bethany and near the burial cave of the righteous Lazarus. Here, in the courtyard, the middle of which is occupied by a round chapel, erected on the site of the Ascension of the Lord and storing under its domed arch the foot of the ascended Savior, miraculously imprinted on stone, a camp tent-church is pitched. The throne in it is the pedestal of one of the columns of the ancient church on the site of the Ascension of the Lord, erected by the zealous church builder St. Helena, mother of St. Constantine the Great. This pedestal is located on the right side of the mentioned chapel, since on the left side its place belongs to Catholics. In this camp church, the solemn liturgy is often celebrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, but more often by the elderly Jordanian Metropolitan Epiphanius, who built a house with a beautiful church for his permanent residence in the so-called “Little Galilee.” Since this elder bishop has visited Russia more than once and has an excellent command of the Russian language, during the liturgy on Olivet on this day he often pronounces exclamations in the Slavic language, and even sometimes reads the day’s Gospel in the same language, to the great consolation of our numerous pilgrims who crowd not only the courtyard of the named chapel, but also all the streets of the Arab village nestled here. At the end of the liturgy, if the weather is favorable, the Greek clergy, while singing the troparion of the holiday: “Assuring the general resurrection before Your passion,” performs a litany to the tomb of the righteous Lazarus in Bethany. Crowds of pilgrims accompany this litany. The burial cave of the righteous Lazarus is a natural cave carved into the rock. A staircase of several steps leads into it, carved into the same rock. This staircase leads to a cave or grotto with a rather lofty ceiling. In the corner on the right side near the wall there is a Catholic altar, on which a “mass” is celebrated on the day of the celebration of the memory of righteous Lazarus. Near this throne on the left side there is a small hole, half-covered by a huge monolithic stone, rolled away, according to the word of the Savior, who wept here over his friend. Several steps deep through this hole lead to a quadrangular room, on the left side of which there is a bed on which the dead body of the righteous Lazarus lay for four days until a powerful voice shouted: “Lazarus, come out.” (John XI, 43). This entire cave is reproduced with amazing accuracy by the masterful brush of the artist Svedomsky in the painting of the resurrection of Lazarus, painted on the western wall of the right nave of the Kyiv Vladimir Cathedral. Here, in the cave of righteous Lazarus, the gospel read about the resurrection of Lazarus, while singing church hymns corresponding to the remembered event, makes a deep impression on numerous pilgrims and draws involuntary tears from many of them... After the end of this litany, throughout the whole day, many pilgrims visit this cave, and under its arches the sounds of a touching troparion are constantly heard: “The general resurrection first Assuring your passion, you raised Lazarus from the dead, O Christ our God.” The pilgrims, who came with the litany to Bethany, then go to Bethphage, where the Savior’s disciples, according to His instructions, found for Him “a donkey tied,” on which He made his solemn entry into Jerusalem, and then through Olivet, resting under the hospitable roof of our Russians in the buildings erected by the labors and cares of the ever-memorable Fr. Archimandrite Antonin Kapustin, are in a hurry to return to the city, some to attend the solemn patriarchal service of the Great Vespers of Vai week in the Resurrection Church, and others to defend the all-night vigil in the Russian Holy Trinity Church on our buildings. On inclement and rainy occasions, they do not perform the litany in the cave of righteous Lazarus, and there are few people willing to make pilgrimages there on this day. The pilgrims, for obvious reasons, are not numerous, after listening to the liturgy on Olivet, kiss the Savior’s foot in the chapel and directly return to the city. Each of the pilgrims along the way considers it their duty to stock up on a palm branch, with which to stand throughout Matins and the Liturgy in Vai week. The branches here are not distributed in the churches, and each pilgrim stocks them up in advance at his own expense. Palm branches in their natural form and sometimes of enormous size, or very skillfully curled into crosses and stars and decorated with fresh flowers, are sold by local Christian Arabs near the Church of the Resurrection in the square and in the bazaars in huge quantities. Their price, depending on decoration and size, ranges between 10 kopecks and 2 rubles per piece. Vespers on the eve of Vai week is celebrated solemnly by the patriarch in the Church of the Resurrection, which, being magnificently decorated, burns with many lights. The Patriarch comes to the church, accompanied by the synodal bishops and numerous clergy of the Holy Sepulchre. He is met in the same way as on the eve of Orthodoxy, near the stone of anointing in the southern door of the church and, with singing, he is led first to the Holy Sepulcher for a kiss, and then to the throne standing on the right side of the Church of the Resurrection. Many hieromonks in rich vestments take part in the blessing of the loaves. This Vespers is celebrated as solemnly as on the eve of the Week of Orthodoxy. At night at the Holy Sepulcher, in ordinary times, the first liturgy is celebrated by one of the bishops, followed by many pilgrims who stay the whole night in the Church of the Resurrection. The Patriarch celebrates the second liturgy in the Church of the Resurrection in the morning, with the participation of the synodal bishops and many hieromonks. At the end of the liturgy, an internal litany is performed, much like the order of the litany during the Orthodox week. All participants in the litany hold branches and lighted candles in their hands along with bouquets of fresh flowers. The people in the church during the liturgy also stand with palm trees and candles. On this day, the procession is joined by a large olive branch, richly decorated with fresh flowers and carried by a cleric in a surplice, and a large banner depicting the resurrection of Christ, which follows the patriarch at the end of the procession. The Litiya is celebrated while singing the stichera: “Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together” and the festive canon. After going around the Edicule three times and the entire Church of the Resurrection, the procession stops in front of the Edicule, where the festive Gospel is read and a special litany is pronounced about all Orthodox Christians, and enters the Church of the Resurrection. The Patriarch, standing in the throne, distributes the antidoron to the pilgrims and performs the dismissal liturgy. At the end of the liturgy, the clergy accompany him to the patriarchate and are treated to it according to custom. The olive branch carried in the procession is snatched by pilgrims as a souvenir of the celebration. You might be interested in: