Holy Week
(← click!) Why do the Eastern Orthodox celebrate Holy Week and Easter so late in the Spring? It goes back to the calendar that Julius Caesar authorized. Later, when the united Church decided to set the date for Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after Spring equinox, they were using that "Julian calendar."
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
The problem with that calendar was leap year: it inserted Feburary 29 every fourth year, period. Well, this was a bit too much, it should skip the leap year at the turn of each century except each fourth century. So by the 16th century, it was off by 8 days, Pope Gregory's astronomers informed him. The pope in 1582 unilaterally decreed that all Christians should adopt this new calendar, called the "Gregorian calendar." But the Eastern Church rejected it, saying the pope had no right to change the date of Easter ("Pascha" in the Eastern Church): only an all-church ("ecumenical") council could do that. By today, five centuries later, this 8-day difference has grown to 13 days, so now the Spring equinox comes 13 days later for Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Just after WWI, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch called a conference to decide, among other items, whether to adopt the Gregorian calendar. They voted to do this, but because the bolshevik revolution had just taken place in Russia, the old Turkish Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and Greece was in the throes of fighting for independence, the patriarch was deposed and the decision to adopt the new calendar wasn't implemented. That was 100 years ago. It takes a lo-o-o-ong time for the Orthodox Church to change!
How does this relate to the days of Holy Week? For at least 50 years, Bible scholars have known that "Friday," the commonly-accepted translation for the Greek word paraskeuin is not quite correct. It means "Day of Preparation" for the Sabbath, which is usually on the seventh day of the week, so the Day of Preparation is most often on a Friday. But any Jewish holy day is considered a Sabbath, so the Day of Preparation can actually be any day of the week.
In my first attempt to write a harmony of the Gospels, in about 1970, it became clear to me that the generally-accepted understanding of Holy Week contains several problems with the naming of the days. Previously, however, Bible scholars attempted to solve these problems by proposing that Wednesday was a "quiet day," i.e., that nothing is written about it in the Bible. But if over one-third of all the Gospels is taken up by Holy Week, how can one suppose that the Gospel writers simply lost track of one day?
When I researched this question more deeply, I noticed that Yeshua came to Bethany "six days before the Passover," Jn. 12:1, and "the next day," Palm Sunday, Yeshua entered Jerusalem, Jn. 12:12. Every day of Holy Week is described in detail:
1. Sunday: Jn. 12:12;
evening: Mk. 11:11
2. Monday: Mt. 21:18;
Mk. 11:12;
evening: Mk. 11:17-19
3. Tuesday: Mk. 11:20; and "after two days the Passover is coming" - Mt. 26:2
4. Wednesday: Mk. 14:12;
evening: Mk. 14:17
5. His arrest during the night leading into Thursday: Lk. 22:52;
Thursday morning: Mt. 27:1;
"late afternoon" (in Greek: "opsios") just before sunset: Mt. 27:57
6. Friday: Mt. 27:62-66, the special Sabbath: Passover, a "quiet day"
7. Saturday: Mk. 16:1;
Lk. 23:56b, the regular Sabbath, another "quiet day"
In some of the older Bible translations, the Greek word paraskeuin is translated as "Friday" leading people to conclude that Yeshua was crucified on Friday, but the word literally means "Preparation Day" (for the Sabbath). Now in the majority of new translations the word paraskeuin is translated simply as "Preparation Day." Usually the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, Saturday, but in the Old Testament we learn that every Jewish holy day was considered Shabbat or a Sabbath: Lev. 16:29-31; Lev. 23:2-8 and 24. In Mk. 15:42 and Jn. 19:14 we see that the crucifixion of the rabbi Yeshua, the Messiah, took place on "Preparation Day" before this special Sabbath, the day lambs were sacrificed for Passover, and in Jn. 19:31 we read that this was not the usual Sabbath, but "that Sabbath was a special one" - the greatest holy day of the Jews, Passover. And the previous Sabbath was not seven days before this great Sabbath, but "six days before the Passover" - Jn. 12:1. The Church, however, has traditionally accepted the common usage of the word paraskeuin as "Friday," the day before the usual Sabbath or Saturday.
Jews and Orthodox Christians normally reckon the day as beginning at sunset and ending at the next sunset. But Yeshua changed this sunset-to-sunset order when he prophesied that "the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" - Mt. 12:39-40s, and it was fulfilled:
* Day 1: Thursday, Preparation Day: the Lamb of God was sacrificed, died at 3 p.m., buried in "late afternoon" (Mk. 15:42), and the night leading into Friday;
* Day 2: Friday (the special Sabbath, Passover) and the night leading into Saturday; and
* Day 3: Saturday (regular Sabbath), after sunset the women bought ointment, rested, went to the tomb just before dawn on Sunday, and saw the angel (Mk.16:1-5).
This moves the "quiet day" to Friday, the special Sabbath day of rest, (click the photo→) Passover, which makes much more sense. See also Jn. 2:19-21 that they would destroy the temple of His body, and He would and build it in three days; also Mt. 27:40 and 63 - "After three days I will rise again"; also Mk. 14:58 and 15:29.
Joseph of Arimathaea had three hours in which to bury Yeshua, from 3 p.m., "the ninth hour" or "late afternoon" to 6 p.m. when began this special Sabbath, Passover. In my opinion, the Body of Yeshua, the Messiah, lay in the grave from Thursday before sunset through early Sunday before dawn, the Day of Resurrection – exactly three days and three nights. But if the reader prefers to think that Yeshua was crucified on Friday, that is also one of the various possibilities. Neither one or the other affects our salvation in any way. Such non-dogmatic differences in Bible interpretation are called "theolegoumena" in Orthodoxy. The reason for bringing this detail up is simply to answer the critics who say that the Gospel narrative or Yeshua was wrong when he said he would be dead for three days and three nights. The most important thing is the fact that the Messiah was betrayed and crucified for our sins and rose for our justification.
So, barring another bolshevik revolution or overthrow of empires, it may take at least another 50 years for the Eastern Orthodox Church to recognize that paraskeuin in Greek can mean something other than "Friday" ...but I'm not holding my breath until that happens.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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