Holy Week is something unique in the church year. In importance, after all, of world-saving events, according to Saint John Chrysostom, due to the name of the holiest week of the year as "Great".
In the liturgical act of the Church, the start of the next day is from the afternoon of the previous one. So, Well, the Masses held on the evening of Holy Week, they are about the next day's events. Our texts, following this practice, they will describe the events of the next day, but they will concern the Sequence of the day they are published.
Every day with the help of Archimandrite Fr. Filoumenou Roubis, general secretary of the Holy Archdiocese of Athens- we will give the "stamp" of the day for the whole Holy Week until Easter Sunday. also, Mrs. Evelena Kardamila, PhD candidate in Folklore will "travel" us to the customs and traditions in every corner of Greece, which have their roots deep in time.
On the morning of Great Monday, the Presanctified Divine Liturgy is celebrated. As Archim explains. Philoumens Roubis, today we are in the habit of communing at infrequent intervals. To the first ones, Nevertheless, centuries of the life of the Church, the faithful partook in every Liturgy, that is, necessarily every Sunday and every Saturday and in the middle of the week, as many times as the Divine Liturgy was celebrated. Basil the Great testifies that the Christians of his time regularly took communion four times a week.
If again it was not possible to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the middle of the week, then the faithful kept portions of the Holy Communion on Sunday and communed alone during the week. In the Monasteries, and especially in the desert places, where the monks were not allowed to attend Masses other than Sunday, they did what the seculars did. They were holding, that is, portions of Holy Communion from Sunday or Saturday and communed privately. The monks, Nevertheless, they were small or large groups and all had to come and commune during these private Communions.
Thus a small Order began to form. All together they prayed before the communion and all together they thanked God, which he claimed them to share. If only there was a priest, he offered them Holy Communion. This was done after Vespers or Ninth Hour Service (3 p.m.), because the monks usually ate once a day, after Vespers. Slowly – slowly they wanted to include their Society in the context of an Order, reminiscent of the Divine Liturgy. In this way a type began to form, which evolved into the current form of the Pre-sanctified Divine Liturgy.
The parable of the ten virgins
On Holy Monday in the evening, the Orthros of Holy Tuesday is chanted. In the Synaxari of the day we read that on this day the parable of the Ten Virgins is commemorated.
The Gospel containing this parable is read on Holy Tuesday morning at the Divine Liturgy. Christ spoke this parable shortly before the voluntary Passion. The last teaching of Christ before the Last Supper is contained in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew and is purely eschatological. Refers, that is, in the kingdom of heaven and in the second coming of Christ.
At the beginning are placed the two well-known and related parables: the parable of the Ten Virgins and the parable of the talents, or maybe "Hidden talent", and the well-known cut of the coming crisis follows. The hymns, Well, of this day they talk about all three of these events.
The faithful are called to follow the example of the five wise virgins, which were alert, and to avoid the example of the five babies, who were raging. The readiness of a lifetime of wise virgins is praised, that is, the long duration of their repentance and virtue.
One, maybe, one of the most beloved Troparies and beloved by Christians is the one chanted from Palm Sunday afternoon to Holy Tuesday afternoon, against the Orthros, that is, of the first three days of Holy Week: "I see your Bride". This is inspired by the parable of the Ten Virgins. In a modern Greek rendering, says the following: “My savior, I see the marriage house decorated, but I have no proper clothes to go in. Brighten the garment of my soul, You who give the light, and save me".
The teaching of parables is like a mother's voice
"Christ, when he tells these parables, he cares not for the discipline of man. She doesn't scold him like he's the bad kid. On the contrary, the teaching of parables is like a mother's voice", epoints out the general secretary of the Holy Archdiocese of Athens.
And he adds: "Parables call to repentance. To repent means to turn my mind to God. ‘If the mind is turned towards God, immediately then man's heart and will also turn to God. Then the will, as an executive organ of the inner man, will only perform the,what is in accordance with the will of God and what,what is written in the law of God (St. Nikolaos Velimirovich)”».