Eastern Rite - Feasts of 3 April AM 7531

Today is Great and Holy Monday and the Feast of Our Venerable Father and Confessor Nikḗtas, Hegumen of the Monastery of Mydicius.

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Holy Week: A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week

3. MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY: THE END

These three days, which the Church calls Great and Holy have within the liturgical development of the Holy Week a very definite purpose. They place all its celebrations in the perspective of End Times; they remind us of the eschatological meaning of Pascha. So often Holy Week is considered one of the “beautiful traditions” or “customs,” a self-evident “part” of our calendar. We take it for granted and enjoy it as a cherished annual event which we have “observed” since childhood, we admire the beauty of its services, the pageantry of its rites and, last but not least, we like the fuss about the Paschal table. And then, when all this is done we resume our normal life. But do we understand that when the world rejected its Savior, when “Jesus began to be sorrowful and very heavy... and his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death,” when He died on the Cross, “normal life” came to its end and is no longer possible. For there were “normal” men who shouted “Crucify Him” who spat at Him and nailed Him to the Cross. And they hated and killed Him precisely because He was troubling their normal life. It was indeed a perfectly “normal” world which preferred darkness and death to light and life.... By the death of Jesus the “normal” world, and “normal” life were irrevocably condemned. Or rather they revealed their true and abnormal inability to receive the Light, the terrible power of evil in them. “Now is the Judgment of this world” (John 12:31). The Pascha of Jesus signified its end to “this world” and it has been at its end since then. This end can last for hundreds of centuries, but this does not alter the nature of time in which we live as the “last time.” “The fashion of this world passeth away...” (I Cor. 7:31).

Pascha means passover, passage. The feast of Passover was for the Jews the annual commemoration of their whole history as salvation, and of salvation as passage from the slavery of Egypt into freedom, from exile into the promised land. It was also the anticipation of the ultimate passage—into the Kingdom of God. And Christ was the fulfillment of Pascha. He performed the ultimate passage: from death into life, from this “old world” into the new world into the new time of the Kingdom. And he opened the possibility of this passage to us. Living in “this world” we can already be “not of this world,” i.e. be free from slavery to death and sin, partakers of the “world to come.” But for this we must also perform our own passage, we must condemn the old Adam in us, we must put on Christ in the baptismal death and have our true life hidden in God with Christ, in the “world to come....”

And thus Easter is not an annual commemoration, solemn and beautiful, of a past event. It is this Event itself shown, given to us, as always efficient, always revealing our world, our time, our life as being at their end, and announcing the Beginning of the new life.... And the function of the three first days of Holy Week is precisely to challenge us with this ultimate meaning of Pascha and to prepare us to the understanding and acceptance of it.

1. This eschatological (which means ultimate, decisive, final) challenge is revealed, first, in the common troparion of these days:

Troparion—Tone 8

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight,ox

And blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching,

And again unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep,

Lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom.

But rouse yourself crying: Holy, Holy, Holy, are You, O our God!

Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!

Midnight is the moment when the old day comes to its end and a new day begins. It is thus the symbol of the time in which we live as Christians. For, on the one hand, the Church is still in this world, sharing in its weaknesses and tragedies. Yet, on the other hand, her true being is not of this world, for she is the Bride of Christ and her mission is to announce and to reveal the coming of the Kingdom and of the new day. Her life is a perpetual watching and expectation, a vigil pointed at the dawn of this new day. But we know how strong is still our attachment to the “old day,” to the world with its passions and sins. We know how deeply we still belong to “this world.” We have seen the light, we know Christ, we have heard about the peace and joy of the new life in Him, and yet the world holds us in its slavery. This weakness, this constant betrayal of Christ, this incapacity to give the totality of our love to the only true object of love are wonderfully expressed in the exapostilarion of these three days:

“Thy Bridal Chamber I see adorned, O my Savior

And I have no wedding garment that I may enter,

O Giver of life, enlighten the vesture of my soul

And save me.”

2. The same theme develops further in the Gospel readings of these days. First of all, the entire text of the four Gospels (up to John 13: 31) is read at the Hours (1, 3, 6 and 9). This recapitulation shows that the Cross is the climax of the whole life and ministry of Jesus, the Key to their proper understanding. Everything in the Gospel leads to this ultimate hour of Jesus and everything is to be understood in its light. Then, each service has its special Gospel lesson :

On Monday:

At Matins: Matthew 21: 18-43—the story of the fig tree, the symbol of the world created to bear spiritual fruits and failing in its response to God.

At the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts: Matthew 24: 3-35: the great eschatological discourse of Jesus. The signs and announcement of the End. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away....”

“When the Lord was going to His voluntary Passion,

He said to His Apostles on the way:

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,

And the Son of Man shall be delivered up

As it is written of Him.

Come, therefore, and let us accompany Him,

With minds purified from the pleasures of this life,

And let us be crucified and die with Him,

That we may live with Him,

And that we may hear Him say to us:

I go now, not to the earthly Jerusalem to suffer,

But unto My Father and your Father

And My God and your God,

And I will gather you up into the heavenly Jerusalem,

Into the Kingdom of Heaven....”

(Monday Matins)

Troparion — Tone 8

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, / and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching, / and again unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. / Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, / lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom. / But rouse yourself crying: Holy, Holy, Holy, are You, O our God! / Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!

Kontakion — Tone 8

Jacob lamented the loss of Joseph, / but his noble son was seated on a chariot / and honored as a king. / For when he refused to be enslaved / by the pleasures of the Egyptian woman, / he was glorified by the Lord who beholds the hearts of men, / and bestows upon them an incorruptible crown.

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Saint Nikḗtas the Confessor was born in Bithynian Caesarea (northwest Asia Minor) to a pious family. His mother died eight days after his birth, and his father Philaretos became a monk. The child remained in the care of his grandmother, who raised him in a true Christian spirit. From his youth, Saint Nikḗtas attended church and was a disciple of the hermit Stephanos. With his blessing, Saint Nikḗtas set off to the Mydicia monastery, where Saint Nikēphóros (March 13) was the igumen.

After seven years of virtuous life at the monastery, famed for its strict monastic rule, Saint Nikḗtas was ordained presbyter. Saint Nikēphóros, knowing the holy life of the young monk, entrusted to him the guidance of the monastery when he himself became ill.

Not wanting power, Saint Nikḗtas devoted himself to the enlightenment and welfare of the monastery. He guided the brethren by his own example. Soon the fame of the lofty life of its inhabitants of the monastery attracted many seeking salvation. After several years, the number of monks had increased to one hundred.

When Saint Nikēphóros departed to the Lord in his old age, the brethren unanimously chose Saint Nikḗtas as igumen.

The Lord granted Saint Nikḗtas the gift of wonderworking. Through his prayer a deaf-mute child received the gift of speech; two demon-possessed women were healed; he restored reason to one who had lost his mind, and many of the sick were healed of their infirmities.

During these years under the Emperor, Leo the Armenian (813-820), the Iconoclast heresy resurfaced and oppression increased. Catholic bishops were deposed and banished. At Constantinople, a council of heretics was convened in 815, at which they deposed the holy Patriarch Nikēphóros (806-815), and in his place, they chose the heretical layman Theodotus. They also installed heretics in place of exiled and imprisoned Catholic bishops.

The Emperor summoned all the heads of the monasteries and tried to bring them over to the Iconoclast heresy. Among those summoned was Saint Nikḗtas, who stood firmly for the Catholic confession. Following his example, all the igumens remained faithful to the veneration of holy icons. Therefore, they threw him into prison. Saint Nikḗtas bravely underwent all the tribulations and encouraged firmness of spirit in the other prisoners.

Then the Emperor and the false Patriarch Theodotus attempted to trick those who remained faithful to Catholic teaching. They promised that the Emperor would give them their freedom and permit the veneration of the icons on one condition: that they take Communion from the pseudo-patriarch Theodotus.

For a long time, the saint had doubts about entering into communion with a heretic, but other prisoners begged him to go along with them. Acceding to their entreaties, Saint Nikḗtas went into the church, where icons were put out to deceive the confessors, and he accepted Communion.

But when he returned to his monastery and saw that the persecution against icons was continuing, he then repented of his deed, returned to Constantinople and fearlessly denounced the Iconoclast heresy. He ignored all the Emperor’s threats.

Saint Nikḗtas was again locked up in prison for six years until the death of Emperor Leo the Armenian. Enduring hunger and travail, Saint Nikḗtas worked miracles by the power of his prayers: through his prayer the Phrygian ruler released two captives without ransom; three shipwrecked men for whom Saint Nikḗtas prayed, were thrown up on shore by the waves.

Saint Nikḗtas reposed in the Lord in 824. The saint’s body was buried at the monastery with reverence. Later, his relics became a source of healing for those coming to venerate the holy confessor.

Troparion — Tone 4

You were a firm pillar and an undaunted guardian of sacred tradition, O Nicetas; / you were adorned with holy dispassion and became an illustrious confessor of the Faith. / Accept the prayers of those who cry to you, / interceding for them with Christ our God.

Kontakion — Tone 2

You acquired a heavenly mind and life, / shining as brightly as the sun in the splendour of your deeds! / Father Nicetas, you enlighten those in the darkness of life guiding them all to God. / Pray without ceasing for us all!