Great and Holy Friday 2008 - 04/25/08
As we move from Holy Week to Great and Holy Friday, our "myrrh-bearers" worked to prepare the church and the tomb of the Lord for the services of both Vespers, when we commemorate the taking Christ down from the Cross, and the Lamentation Matins, which mark His Burial.
A typical "Byzantine" Orthodox feature of the Lamentation Matins is that the whole church gathers around the Tomb of the Lord and the Holy Shroud ("Petafi") and joins in the singing the haunting hymns, culminating in the priest sprinkling the entire church with rose water.
The conclusion of the Service and our inauguration into Holy Pascha is the Burial Procession where we all pass under the Holy Shroud in remembrance of our baptism:
We who are baptized into Christ,
are baptized into His Death,
and therefore baptized into His burial
to be baptized into His Resurrection.