The third week of Great Lent is calledThe Holy Week. The photo of her main character - a cross decorated with flowers - you see on this page. The crucified week seems to sum up the first half of the hard way. On Friday evening service from the altar solemnly take out for worship the festively decorated cross. He will be in the middle of the temple on the analo until Friday next, the 4th week of Lent, reminding of the approaching Holy Week and Easter.
Beginning a conversation about the importance forOrthodox Christians The crucious week, it is necessary to give an answer to the question of why the cross, that is, the instrument of torture, is chosen as an object of worship.
The answer follows from the very meaning of godparentsthe suffering of the Savior. On him was His redeeming sacrifice, which revealed the gate of eternal life that was damaged by sin. Since then, Christians around the world have seen in the cross, above all, the symbol of the saving work of the Son of God.
Christian doctrine indicates thatfor the salvation of the human nature, damaged by the original sin, the Son of God, incarnated from the Blessed Virgin Mary, found all the elements peculiar to her. Among them are passion (the ability to experience suffering), decay and mortality. Sinless, He has contained in Himself all the consequences of original sin, in order to heal them in agony on the cross.
Suffering and death were at the cost of such healing. However, due to the fact that the two entities, the Divine and the human, were incompatible and inseparable in Him, the Savior rose to life, revealing the image of a new man freed from suffering, disease, and death. Therefore, the cross is not only suffering and death, but, very importantly, Resurrection and Life are eternal for all who are willing to follow Christ. The crucious week of Lent is precisely designed to direct the consciousness of believers to the comprehension of this feat.
This tradition was born fourteen centuries ago. In 614, Jerusalem was besieged by the Persian king Khosra II. After a long siege, the Persians captured the city. Among other trophies, they took out the Tree of the Life-Giving Cross, which had been kept in the city since it was found by Elena the Equal-to-the-Apostles. The war continued for many more years. United forces with the Avars and Slavs, the Persian king nearly captured Constantinople. Only the intercession of the Mother of God saved the Byzantine capital. Finally, the course of the war changed, and the Persians were routed. This war lasted 26 years. At its end, the main Christian shrine - the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord - was returned to Jerusalem. The Emperor personally brought him into the city. Since then, every year the day of this joyful occasion was celebrated.
At that time, the order of the Lenten church services had not yet been established in its final form, and some changes were constantly made to it.
In particular, the introduction of holidays,falling on the weekdays of Lent, on Saturday and Sunday. This allowed not to violate the rigor of fasting weekdays. The same happened with the celebration of the Life-giving Cross. He decided to celebrate the third Sunday of Lent. Tradition, according to which the Holy Week was the third week of fasting, has survived to our time.
On the same days, it was decided to start trainingcatechumens, that is, converts, the sacrament of baptism which was scheduled for Easter. It was highly advisable to begin their instruction in faith with the worship of the cross. This continued until the XIII century, when Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders. Since then, the fate of the shrine is unknown. Only a few particles of it are found in some ark.
The Holy Week of Lent hasa characteristic feature inherent only to it. The church services of this week recall an event that is yet to be accomplished. In everyday life, one can remember only what has already happened, but for God there is no concept of time, and therefore in the services to Him the faces of the past and the future are erased.
The third week of Lent - the Crusader -this is a memory of the coming Easter. The uniqueness of the Sunday church service lies in the fact that it combines the dramatic prayers of Holy Week and the joyful Easter chants.
The logic of this construction is simple. This order of chinology came to us from the first centuries of Christianity. In those days, in the minds of people, suffering and resurrection were merged, and were the links of one indissoluble chain. One logically flowed from the other. The cross and suffering lose all meaning without the resurrection from the dead.
The crucifix week is a kind of"Pre-holiday" holiday. It serves as a reward for all who have duly passed the first half of Lent. The situation on this day, although less solemn than the Easter service, but the general mood is the same.
The third week of Lent - the Crusader -has become especially important today. In the Gospel times, when the execution on the cross was considered shameful, and only runaway slaves were subjected to it, not all were able to accept as a Messiah a man who had come in such a humble appearance sharing a meal with tax collectors and sinners and executed on the cross between two thieves. The notion of sacrifice for the sake of others did not fit in the mind.
Madely they called the Savior. And it is not the same insanity in our days that the preaching of self-sacrifice for the sake of others seems? Is not the cornerstone of the slogan calling for enrichment and achieving personal prosperity by any available means? Contrary to the religion of enrichment currently practiced, the week of the Third Great Lent - the Crusader - reminds everyone that the greatest virtue is the sacrifice made to others. The Holy Gospel teaches us: what we do for our neighbor, we do for God.
