"Shine, Shine, New Jerusalem": The Spirit of the Pentecostarion

by Rev. Dr. PATRICK BAUMGARTH

Families of liturgical rites are akin to languages. The western Catholic Church has made so many changes to its liturgical calendar within the past century, by pruning it of what some would call clutter, that if it were a language, it would most closely resemble Esperanto. On the other hand, the organically developing tongues, such as French, Italian, and Russian, are more analogous to the Orthodox Liturgy.

Pascha, the Feast of feasts, the Celebration of celebrations, is the template for all other feasts of the Orthodox Church. Every feast has a pre-festal period (similar to Lent), the celebration of the feast itself (like Pascha), and an after-feast (think of Bright Week). This model took centuries to develop. Originally, the preparation for Pascha included only Holy Week, and the 40-day fast commemorating the Lord’s sojourn in the wilderness—what we now know as Lent—happened right after Theophany. Later the fast was moved to the spring. Also, in the ancient world, the festal continuation of Paschal joy, where we don’t fast or kneel, extended from Pascha itself to the Sunday of Pentecost.

Historical records show that Christians may have celebrated some version of Pascha as early as the first century. The original Paschal service was written by the early bishop Melito of Sardis, and it seems to be more ancient than St. John’s Gospel. It was a prayerful commentary on scriptural readings, such as the passages in Exodus relevant to the Passover, the creation account in Genesis, and Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac. These passages continue to be read in both the Orthodox service of Great Saturday and in its Roman Catholic counterpart.

An early dispute arose regarding when to celebrate the Paschal Service: at the very hour the Jews were celebrating Passover, or after the Jewish Seder—the meal that marks the beginning of Passover—was completed. At any rate, the Christians, just as the Jewish observers of Passover, would have fasted all day until the conclusion of their nocturnal celebration. That celebration included lessons from the Scriptures, a Eucharistic rite, and a festive meal. When, much later, the Paschal rite was permanently assigned to a Sunday, that fasting characterized the preceding Saturday: hence the tradition that Great and Holy Saturday is the only Saturday of the year requiring fasting.

The major dispute about the Paschal celebration seemed to have been between those who commemorated it once a year, no matter what the day of the week, and those celebrating it weekly on Sunday. The early Roman Christians apparently didn’t know about the yearly commemoration, but only the Sunday observance. When Rome began such a yearly commemoration, it connected this with a Sunday. Eventually the first Council of Nicea declared it should be done this way everywhere.

The week after Pascha maintains its resurrectional tone, both for the Orthodox, who term it Bright Week, and for the Westerners. The Sunday after Pascha is kept both in the West (where it was termed “Low Sunday”) and by the Orthodox as a commemoration of St. Thomas’s encounter with the Resurrected Lord.

Great feasts on the Orthodox liturgical calendar are accompanied by a Synaxis, commemorating saints associated with that feast. But we can’t do a synaxis immediately after Pascha, because we’re busy with Bright Week and Thomas Sunday. So we wait until the third Sunday after Pascha to remember the Myrrhbearers, Joseph, and Nicodemus. At the conclusion of the third week, we leave behind the commemoration of the empty tomb.

At first blush, the next three Sundays (of the Paralytic, of the Samaritan Woman, and of the Blind Man) have nothing explicitly to do with the Resurrection. What are they doing there? Perhaps the link is that they all occur around Jewish feasts, or that they all involve healings, which could be a link to the power of the resurrected Lord in the lives of the faithful. But I have another theory. The clue, I believe, is in the Gospel reading for the ancient feast of Mid-Pentecost. It describes Christ teaching in the temple, during the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles— which was associated with water. On the feast itself, a procession moved from the pool of Siloam to the altar of the temple, where the high priest sprinkled water from Siloam onto the altar.

It’s no coincidence that all three of these Sundays before Pentecost have themes also connected with water: The Paralytic is healed near the miraculous sheep pool; the blind man is healed at the pool of Siloam; and the Samaritan woman is invited by Christ at a well to drink of a special water. This imagery also resonates with our Lord’s description of Himself as a source of exceptional water. The water theme also predominates at Pentecost, a traditional occasion for Baptism. Thus, I believe these Sundays function as a prefeast for Pentecost.

The feast of the Ascension, which comes forty days after Pascha, centers on the Lord’s leave-taking of His flock and marks the end of the Paschal season. Then, on Pentecost, which occurs ten days later, we symbolically give back the feast in the form of the kneeling prayers. In antiquity, this would mark not only a return to kneeling, but to fasting as well.

The week following Pentecost is now a fast-free one. But in the ancient world, the next fast—what we now know as the Apostles’ Fast—would have begun the day after Pentecost. Every major fast commemorated a Biblical figure: The Nativity was associated with Elijah, Great Lent was associated with the Lord Jesus, and this final fast was associated with Moses, to mark the connection between the Jewish Pentecost and the giving of the Law.

On the Sunday after Pentecost, the Church honors all of her members, both known and unknown, who now enjoy citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem. On that day, she also concludes her use of the Pentecostarion, and it will not be until the Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican that She will again chant from those liturgical books that center upon the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection. To Him be all honor and glory!

The Reverend Dr. Patrick Baumgarth is an associate professor of political science at Fordham University and a deacon at the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection inNew York City.