Categories: orthodox-life, parish-life, feast-days, spiritual-writings
Date: 26 April 2008 04:28:25
Today Hades cried out groaning: "My authority is dissolved; I received a mortal as one of the mortals; but this One I am powerless to contain; with Him I lose all those over which I had ruled. For ages I had held the dead but, behold, He raised up all."
Glory O Lord to Your Cross and Your Resurrection.Today Hades cried out groaning: "My power has been trampled on; the Shepherd has been crucified, and Adam has been raised up. I have been deprived of those over whom I ruled; and all those I had the power to swallow, I have disgorged. He, Who was Crucified, has cleared the tombs. The dominion of Death is no more."
Glory O Lord to Your Cross and Your Resurrection.
One of the most joyful acts of the church year to me occurred during the service this morning: during the chanting of the verses of Psalm 82 [which is actually 81 in the Byzantine church according to the Greek numbering], the priest proceeds around the church, scattering bay leaves far and wide to symbolise the triumph over death. Father seemed to greatly relish this: infants were sprinkled with leaves and many were thrown with great gusto atop the heads of adults. It is such a joyful part of the service.
This is also the service where the particular Cherubic Hymn, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence [a well-known hymn to me in my Anglican days] is also chanted. Growing up with the Western melody, it is still my favourite; but the slow chanting of this hymn in the Orthodox Church suits this day completely.
St John of Damascus, in his An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Chapter 29, writes of Christ's descent to Hades:
[Christ's] soul when it was deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness and shadow of death: in order that just as He brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, and of release to the prisoners, and of sight to the blind, and became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and to those who did not believe a reproach of their unbelief, so He might become the same to those in Hades: That every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth. And thus after He had freed those who had been bound for ages, straightway He rose again from the dead, showing us the way of resurrection.