Introduction and Bright Week
(Some of the information herein taken from Fr. Thomas Hopko’s Orthodox Christian Faith Series) The week following Pascha (Easter), is called Bright Week, by the Church. Pascha is celebrated this year by the Orthodox Church on April 24, one week later than Christians of the Western Tradition. As Holy Week was a final time of anticipation and preparation for “the Feast of Feasts,” so Bright Week is a period of unique Resurrection joy, manifested outwardly in diverse ways. For instance, during Bright Week there is no fasting at all from various types of food; all liturgical hymns, ideally, are to be sung rather than read; and the Church remains highly decorated, with the royal doors and deacon’s doors of the iconostasis left open as they were during the Midnight Service. This latter practice emphasizes visually that the gates of God’s Kingdom have been open to man through the Cross, Tomb and Resurrection of Christ. Services during Bright Week are celebrated in a particularly glorious manner, identical to that experienced during the Midnight Service and Resurrection Vespers on Pascha Sunday. The traditional announcement, “Christ is Risen,” is sung repeatedly by the Church choir, and people greet one another with this same message of hope.
While Bright Week is a time of profound, perhaps uncommon celebration, the Resurrection season is not limited to one week. For forty days, until Ascension (this year June 2), the faithful recall in songs and greetings the joyous news that ‘Christ has trampled down death by death, bestowing life upon those in the tombs.’ Clergy and altar servers continue to wear their brightest vestments, and everyone stands (rather than kneels) in prayer, both at home and in Church. The practice of standing in prayer during the Paschal Season serves to stress our belief that in Christ we are already resurrected beings, residents on earth yet citizens of Heaven. The faithful continue this practice until Pentecost (this year June 12), when after Liturgy for the first time since Holy Week we kneel in prayer during three special prayers that are read from the ambo by the clergy.
The five Sundays following Pascha emphasize, through the appointed Scripture readings and hymns, (1) post-resurrection appearances of Christ; (2) the Church’s early life and missionary endeavors (epistle readings are taken from the Book of Acts); and (3) aspects of baptism, through which we ourselves have died and risen with Christ to a new life in God (Gospel readings are taken from the most “sacramental” of Gospel accounts, that of John the Theologian or Evangelist).
Commemorations for Post Paschal Sundays include:
St. Thomas the Apostle (May 1);
The Holy Myrrhbearing Women, David the King, the Righteous Joseph of Arimethea, Nicodemus, and James the Brother of our Lord (May 8);
The Paralytic by the Sheep Pool (May 15);
The Samaritan Woman (St. Photini (Svetlana)) (May 22); and
The Blind Man (May 29).