Categories: orthodox-life, spiritual-writings
Date: 12 April 2009 23:56:16
One of my favourite books is The Pilgrimage of Egeria, a book we sadly only have in an incomplete form. Egeria, a woman from Spain or Gaul, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land sometime in the early 380s. She wrote an account of her journey, and in particular the religious sites and religious services, in a letter back to a group of women in her hometown. The Church of the Holy Sepulchure provides some further information on Egeria, and also has a more readable text of the Holy Week services Egeria recorded here.
Egeria's writing is a delight to read [for which thanks to translators as well]: her enthusiasm shows forth and her vivid descriptions cause late fourth-century Jerusalem to come alive in my mind. For example, this extract is from the description of the Procession of Palms:
And as the eleventh hour approaches, the passage from the Gospel is read, where the children, carrying branches and palms, met the Lord, saying; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, and the bishop immediately rises, and all the people with him, and they all go on foot from the top of the Mount of Olives, all the people going before him with hymns and antiphons, answering one to another: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.
And all the children in the neighbourhood, even those who are too young to walk, are carried by their parents on their shoulders, all of them bearing branches, some of palms and some of olives, and thus the bishop is escorted in the same manner as the Lord was of old.
It is a fascinating account of liturgies where the people actually go to sites visited by our Lord on certain days: and the strength and eagerness of them all puts to shame my laziness in even attending a few extra services during Holy Week. But at the same time there is joy, and a sense of continuation with these Christians of the fourth century, when I read of services and actions that, while not exactly the same, are similar to many we do even now. I find something special, and heartening, in that: not merely that 'traditions' are being kept alive for the sake of them, but that they are living traditions, traditions that speak to me now as they did to Egeria, and those with her, in the 380s. That is a most marvellous thing.
So, as I make an attempt to attend Holy Week services [starting with the Bridegroom Services], as I come home I like to read the relevant extract from The Pilgrimage of Egeria: perhaps as a travelogue in one sense, for she was a superb travel writer, but in another, more deeper way, as a sign that my faith, my beliefs, the story of and salvation in Christ, has continued and will continue to be told, in word and action, until Christ comes again.