Easter service in church: what time does it start. All about the Easter service

COMPLETE COLLECTION
WORKS OF A. K. SHELLER-MIKHAILOV.

SECOND EDITION
edited and with a critical-biographical essay by A. M. Skabichevsky and with the appendix of a portrait of Sheller.

VOLUME FOURTEEN.

Supplement to the magazine "Niva" for 1905.

ST. PETERSBURG.
Edition by A. F. MARX.
1905.

EASTER NIGHT

For the sake of revising ancient manuscripts, I had to spend the last weeks of one of the Great Lents in a small suburban monastery in the province. Here I also celebrated the Bright Sunday of Christ. Easter this year was very late, and spring was already in full swing - the snow had melted, the ice on the rivers had broken, the buds were turning green on the trees, from a distance it seemed that the forests and gardens were in full summer decoration. After lunch, I went to sleep in the room assigned to me, however, I could not sleep. A white morning looked out the window of my cell, the incessant chirping of birds reached my ears like an alarming whisper, memories of those happy years when I celebrated this bright holiday not in solitude, but among my beloved family, were resurrected in my memory, and a melancholy feeling pinched me heart, bitter thoughts began to swirl in my head about my loved ones who had gone to their graves, about the life I had lived, about the proximity of the time when my hour would strike. Questions arose, difficult, burning questions, about how life was lived, what was done. Oh, these damned, painful results! How many days, months, years have been lived and how little, shamefully little has been done! Having tossed and turned in fruitless efforts to fall asleep on my bed, I finally decided to get up and go out to cool my head in the air. The monastery stood on a fairly high bank of the river, separating it from the city, which was located on the other, low-lying bank of the river. The townspeople communicated with the monastery by ferry, although it was possible to get here through a bridge, but for this they had to make a long detour. I left the monastery fence through the gate that was open that night and sat down on a flat stone that replaced the bench at the monastery gate. Below, the river, now freed from its icy shackles, quietly carried its yellowish-turbid waters. Along the sandy shore stood several boats and ferries, moored by monastery workers who had completed their transportation work to a poorly constructed pier with vitally important walkways, a hastily knocked together booth and a puzzling staircase rising up from the raft. There were no people visible anywhere, neither on the shore, nor on the raft, nor on the boats. On the city shore, now slightly obscured by the darkness of the night, complete calm also reigned, there were no lights shining anywhere, no smoke rising above the houses. Everyone, obviously, enjoyed a sweet sleep, resting after the night service and breaking the fast. It was already almost light in the air, and the short spring night was ready to give way to a clear morning. “You woke up early today,” a pleasant and soft baritone was heard near me. I raised my head and saw in the open gate the slender and beautiful figure of one of the novices with a thin waist tied with a wide belt, with long, thick, wavy black hair, like a woman’s, scattered over the shoulders. A little surprised by his appearance, I answered: “I didn’t get enough sleep.” But how are you not sleeping? During Lent, it seems, they were quite tired... He smiled barely noticeably, a soft, sad smile. “I never sleep on the night of Holy Resurrection,” he answered. “This night is good!” He fell silent and stared somewhere into the distance with his beautiful dark gray eyes, which seemed black under his thick dark eyelashes. I've been interested in him for a long time. From the very first days of my stay in the monastery, I paid attention to this young man. At first I was struck by the remarkable beauty of this pale, matte face, the slenderness of this thin and graceful figure, the softness of his leisurely movements; then, rummaging through the monastery manuscripts, I saw in him an intelligent person, with some education, with a certain curiosity; Then I was interested in the question of why he went to the monastery, where he stands somehow apart, is distinguished by restraint and looks more like a scientist than a monk, rummaging through old manuscripts and books, putting in order the ancient monastery treasures. Now it seemed possible for me to have a heart-to-heart talk with him, ask him questions and find out at least something about his past, which greatly aroused my curiosity. “Yes, it’s a good night,” I repeated his words. “So I couldn’t sleep, because I remembered how this night was once spent in my own family... And you probably remember the same thing?” It’s not easy for a lonely person to get rid of these memories... “I didn’t have a family,” he answered briefly, continuing to look thoughtfully into space. Some bitter note sounded in his voice. “Are you an orphan?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered. “Rootless.” There was silence for a minute. He sank down next to me on a stone and, still looking into space, where a barely noticeable strip of ruddy dawn appeared, said thoughtfully: “Not only did I grow up an orphan: I almost became a criminal, an outcast of society, one of those who the right of self-defense is poisoned and exterminated, like wild animals that threaten both individuals and the entire society. It had to happen. .. He stopped for a minute, as if a little embarrassed to continue, and asked me with a soft smile: “You, of course, don’t believe in miracles?” Without giving me time to answer the proposed question, he finished: “It would have taken, if not a miracle, then a strong moral shock, for me to be saved from the fate that awaited me...” A quiet sigh escaped from his chest. I waited for several minutes, thinking that he would begin to tell me about the past. But he was silent, lost in thought. His pale, beautiful face looked serious, his thin black eyebrows knitted slightly, his eyes expressed concentration. I called out to him: “I hope your past is not a secret?” He shuddered; it seemed that he had forgotten about my presence and did not expect that I could speak. - No. What a secret!” he said, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “But perhaps I’m indelicately evoking sad memories in you,” I noted. A smile crossed his lips. “I haven’t forgotten anything and I can’t forget,” he answered. “What I can tell you out loud does not leave me for a minute... And with some special animation, as if with fear, he added : - Yes, and God forbid I ever forget this... What would happen to me then?..

“You once expressed surprise when you noticed my love of rummaging through old manuscripts and books,” my young interlocutor began his story. “It’s just a habit; she has been coming to me since childhood. As soon as I began to remember myself, I was among a mass of books, large and thick, old and dilapidated. Many of them were almost bigger and fatter, and in any case older than me, crawling among them in my teacher’s office. This was an old professor, scientist, academician, one of those persons about whom people speak with respect in an educated society, so as not to be branded as ignoramuses, and whose works no one ever reads, knowing that there is nothing interesting in them and nothing in common with life. How and when I got to him, I really can’t tell you. One of his relatives, my mother, threw me to him when I was two years old - she threw me not in the way that is usually done by simple women, not at the front door, not furtively, not at night, but in broad daylight she brought me to the old man and abandoned me. he has me. It is unlikely that he would have kept me with him if he had not had a cook, Domna Savishna, who grumbled angrily at him from morning to night for everything - both for the fact that he is a slob, and for the fact that he trashed the whole apartment rubbish and rubbish, as she called books and antiquities, and because he couldn’t think about the child. For the latter, he got it the most, and every time with this grumbling the old bachelor became lost, like a guilty schoolboy, and began to fuss, absolutely not knowing what he needed to do. He knew which shelf to put new book, but where and how to place the child - he himself could not figure it out; she, his housekeeper and leader in practical life, insisted that he take me in with her; She nagged him when, in her opinion, it was necessary to do something for me. My teacher was neither angry, nor rude, nor grumpy. He simply forgot about everything that existed, trying to resolve questions about what had long ceased to exist, and even about what, perhaps, had never existed. His forgetfulness reached the point that he often forgot to wash his face in the morning, smooth his tousled hair before leaving the house, wipe his beard while eating, and even take a fork when he needed to eat, whereby, without taking his eyes off the book, he would randomly reach out with his fingers. sauce, for roast, for fried potatoes. Domna Savishna grumbled long and lengthily about all this, constantly ending her grumbling with the same refrain: “Vyachenka doesn’t have pants, but you don’t have anything to do,” “Well, you have to teach Vyachenka, tea, but you don’t even know how.” And then my pants appeared, then they began to teach me. Grumbling at the old man, Domna Savishna, nevertheless, tried in every possible way to justify and elevate him in my eyes, explaining to me that he “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” “that he’s as simple as a child,” that “any rogue can deceive him.” It's all me I saw and understood without her, and in my own way I loved my teacher because he did not crowd me, did not scold me, did not drill me. Nevertheless, I loved Domna Savishna more; I almost adored her, and it seemed to me that there was no better creature in the world than her. I treasured her every caress and I could hardly have slept so sweetly and peacefully if before bedtime Domna Savishna had not come up to my bed to see if I was sleeping and stroke my hair with a plump soft hand in a quiet whisper: “Sleep.” ", little angel, Christ is with you." I spent almost all my free hours from school in the kitchen in the company of Domna Savishna. She first told me fairy tales, then conveyed her memories of the former life of serfs; I read books aloud to her, which she listened to, it seems, more out of love for me than for them, but most often I read her the Gospel, which she loved to listen to and which she asked me to read every time I forgot to do it myself. This is how my life passed until I was fifteen. The narrator stopped for a minute, as if finding it difficult to continue his confession. “When I was fifteen years old, my adoptive father fell dangerously ill,” he finally continued again. “Domna Savishna became very worried and followed him like a child, sometimes crying bitterly at the thought that he would die. At this time, for the first time, something new was reflected in my character. - “How will we live then?” “I once asked Domna Savishna. “What are we!” she answered. “God willing, we won’t die of hunger. It’s crushing me. It’s tormenting me beyond what God forbid.” She didn’t think about herself at all, but I began to think more and more strongly about both myself and her. Are we really going to have to go through the world? Has the old man really not made a spiritual will? Will the money he has really go to strangers? The old man’s torment no longer bothered me at all, and sometimes, imagining that he had not made a spiritual will, I began to be angry with him: “All my life I’ve been delving into all sorts of literary carrion, but I haven’t even thought about living people! Even if they perish - he doesn’t care! At the same time, some other inner voice reproached me for these feelings and thoughts: “The person who warmed and fed you is suffering and dying next to you, and you only think about what will happen to you next!” For two weeks this first internal struggle took place in me, which prevented me from even studying at the gymnasium, when suddenly one day my teacher felt very bad, and agony began. Domna Savishna whispered in tears: “It’s ending!” This word cut me like a knife. I approached the old man, looked at him, he was no longer breathing. “He’s dead!” I exclaimed in horror and immediately said in a breathless voice: “We must quickly look to see if there is a spiritual will, see how much money is left, otherwise everyone, everyone will take someone else’s.” Domna Savishna looked at me reproachfully, almost indignantly. “We didn’t close our eyes, but we’ll rob him!” she said sharply through her tears and added more softly: “That’s enough, Vyachenka!” I was confused and began to confusedly, as if in a fever, tell her that it was not right for her to go on, that she needed to know how she would exist. I talked all about her and thought about myself. She interrupted me: “I won’t go around the world, and I won’t be a thief! We’ll get by somehow...” And then people appeared—strangers, as I said—and took everything that my teacher had. Moreover, they gave orders at the funeral, looked at me with disdain and made hints that Domna Savishna had probably stolen part of the old man’s capital. They were convinced that he had much more money, and were looking for someone to take out their anger on for their disappointed hopes. I couldn’t stand this and in the evening I hotly said to Domna Savishna: “So they expected strangers to drive us out of here, and how they would drive us out, accusing and cursing us like robbers!” - “Come on, Vyachenka, they are not strangers, but relatives. We are strangers like that,” said the old woman. “Are you a stranger, when you’ve been babysitting him all your life?” - I exclaimed. - “I was his serf before, and then I served for a salary,” she answered: “and they are blood relatives.” - “Well, if you are not related to him, then I am not a stranger.” “,” I said passionately. “Come on, Vyachenka!” she said quietly and affectionately. “Of course, I shouldn’t tell you this, but now you can’t do without it, apparently. Your mother was the niece of the late Peter.” Dmitrievich, and you are not related to him, my dear, therefore, may the Lord God forgive her, she was not married to your dad...” Again the narrator interrupted the story, gloomily looking into the distance and as if experiencing in his soul everything that seemed to be has long been forgotten. Then he added abruptly in great emotion: “At that moment I seemed to hate the whole world, my teacher, my mother, my father, my illegitimate relatives!”

Despite the fact that I wanted to hear the end of this story, I would not have dared to ask the narrator to continue it, since these memories were apparently difficult for him. However, after being silent for a while and calming down somewhat, he himself continued the interrupted story. He looked at me intently with a questioning gaze and said: “Has anyone made sacrifices for you?” Has anyone laid down everything for you, life, soul? Has anyone fainted because of you under the yoke of labor and hardship? If not, then you will hardly understand what I went through, changed my mind and felt when, thrown out into the street from my teacher’s house, I found myself dependent on Domna Savishna, only her dependent. Words cannot express this; you have to experience it yourself to understand. There are such little things of feelings and thoughts: gratitude for the sacrifice made, the bitter consciousness that you live at someone else’s expense, torment for the efforts and suffering of another being and the fear that this being will break under the weight of labor - fear for him and for oneself. No matter how hard I try to convey to you all these shades, I will not be able to do it even halfway, and you will have to fill it all up with your own instincts. My old lady entered the service and began to support me, renting me a closet in the same house where she found a place for herself. In vain I ran around the city and looked for lessons, correspondence, and any kind of occupation. I found nothing and had to exist solely on the means of this simple old woman, who was now working tirelessly. She lived as a servant for a distant relative of my late teacher; in her free hours, she washed my linen or knitted and sewed various women's toiletries for sale; she went to bed late and got up early, and all this so that I was dressed, shod, fed and could study. I wanted to leave the gymnasium, but she did not allow me to do this and even became angry and offended. “Who will need you as a fool?” she told me. “Or have you become too lazy to work? So, I’m an old man, and I’m working.” I interrupted her hotly: “That’s why I want to leave the gymnasium, so that you , old, didn’t bend her hump for me.” “Well, am I going to sit with folded arms as the princess of Astrakhan?” she answered. “And what kind of place will they give you, an ignoramus and a youngster? Grow a mustache first, and then think about the place." I submitted to her and began to study zealously. But it could not drown out the ominous work of thought in my brain. My mother and father abandoned me as a three-year-old child to my old uncle and never even inquired about me. My uncle, like a little dog, allowed me to live in his house and didn’t even think about what I would do if I remained on the street after his death. His uncles, who did not visit him during his life because he was a “dirty old man,” who called him contemptuously a “walking mummy,” robbed all his property after his death and drove out the people close to him, me and Domna Savishna, to all four directions, not being ashamed to even hint that we probably managed to rob the old man fairly well. She works like an ox to support me, a stranger to her, and sees neither joy nor happiness, despite my kindness. Where is the truth? Where is the justice? I can’t tell you what had a particularly strong effect on my nerves - the cramped closet in the basement rented from a carpenter, the not particularly nutritious food, the persistent desire to go first in the gymnasium, the intense reading of all sorts of books indiscriminately in my free hours, or my gloomy thoughts , who could not find an answer - but I know one thing, that I had a terrible nervous breakdown. I lost my temper during arguments with my comrades; I would choke with anger if someone walked ahead of me in the class, especially when one of the rich people overtook me; I shuddered when unexpectedly someone called out to me or touched me; I either cried inconsolably in my corner, or became gloomy and felt some kind of bitterness in my soul. All somewhat wealthy people became my enemies, because I saw in them individuals similar in their criminal frivolity to my father and mother, or who reminded me of the callous egoism of my uncle, who withered among his learned research, or who resurrected in my imagination the images of those intoxicated ъ and my smart relatives, who treated the slobby old man with disdain and did not disdain to rummage through every corner of his home when the robbery called the division of inheritance was taking place here. In order not to resemble these people in any way, I began to take little care of my appearance, began to boast about the rips in my dress and the patches on my boots. But the main, predominant feature in my character was, I repeat, bitterness. A breakdown of strength always followed him. Kicking a dog that came across on the road, offending a comrade to tears, looking with pleasure at a violent bloody fight, all this amused me for a while, and then I cried, fought and repented in my closet, calling myself a scoundrel, a soulless creature, a scoundrel, and It was so easy to end all this - with my nervous disorder, and with Domna Savishna’s back-breaking work, and with fear for the future: all I had to do was rob the old man with whom Domna Savishna now lived. The narrator pronounced the last words especially clearly, as if emphasizing them, then interrupted the story, knitted his eyebrows again and breathed heavily, as if from fatigue. “These memories are hard for you,” I noted. “I’m ashamed that I...” He did not let me finish the sentence I had begun and answered somewhat abruptly: “No, well... I already told you that my the past constantly lives in my memory... It’s hard to talk and not remember... And, gathering his strength, he continued the story. - This fatal thought haunted me for not a day, not two. Like a nightmare, like a persecution evil spirit , she tormented me both day and night. I tried to get rid of her, but in my brain, against my will, evidence appeared that otherwise both Domna Savishna and I would only perish. If this old man dies, Domna Savishna will again remain on the pavement, and the first scoundrels who come across will take possession of his wealth. If Domna Savishna dies before him, I will no longer have any support, and I will even have to quit the gymnasium when those other scoundrels dressed in smart uniforms will eat the fruits of education. Back then I didn’t call the well-fed anything else than scoundrels. And what does it mean to this person if several thousand are missing from him? And even if this loss had a heavy impact on him, is it worth pitying him? He himself did not spare anyone, either before, when he was engaged in usury, or now, when he lives in retirement. Unfortunately, this man really did not deserve respect, love, or condescension. Once he was a moneylender, discounted bills at high interest rates and, having amassed large capital, lived for his own pleasure. Ill-gotten money was lived on in filthy debauchery. Wrinkled, toothless, bald, in a black wig, with painted eyebrows, this greasy old man became a regular at club masquerades, wandered along Nevsky, catching various unfortunate creatures. He took Domna Savishna in only because he knew her honesty and could calmly leave his apartment in her care during his evening and night excursions. It seemed to me a sinless thing to rob him. Little by little, the question began to boil down for me only to how to steal in order to bury the ends in the water. I had already begun to think about it as something that absolutely had to be done. In my opinion, this was a feat, not a crime. If anything delayed me from carrying out my intended plan, it was that sometimes the thought flashed through my head: “What if he catches me stealing?” To this, finally, a cruel answer appeared: “then we’ll have to put an end to him ourselves; the dog’s death is a dog’s death.” This thought encouraged and made me happy. He, this man whom I hardly knew and only saw briefly a few times, became in my eyes my personal enemy. According to the code of laws, he was a complete stranger to me, but I assured myself then that I was a relative, a close relative, and scolded and cursed him for the fact that he did not even want to know me. I needed pretexts for hatred and curses, to justify what I had planned. While visiting Domna Savishna, in the evenings I entered the rooms of the former moneylender, looked closely, thought, and sometimes I was consoled by the thought: “I’ll kill him here.” “Vyachenka, it’s time to wander around,” Domna Savishna called me from the kitchen then. “I’d rather read a book than wander around the rooms in the dark.” Willy-nilly, I returned to her and fulfilled her wishes, read her the “Gospel” and “Lives”... These readings were now torture for me. The “Lives” that she loved to listen to so much raised reproaches from my conscience in me. Here people were described who steadfastly endured all kinds of torment and became even more virtuous and kind in the midst of these torments. And I? I tried, deliberately deceiving my conscience, to blaspheme, to call all this fairy tales, fiction, impossible absurdities. The voice of conscience rose within me, but I tried to drown it out, deceiving myself. “And Domna Savishna? Does she ever complain about fate?” a question appeared in my head. “Wasn’t she horrified at the thought of getting rich by robbery when Pyotr Dmitrievich died? Didn’t she remain both pure and good amid all the trials...” “Well, she’s a narrow-minded and undeveloped woman, that’s all!” " I lied to myself and mocked, viciously mocked those who considered it necessary to be kind among the evil, virtuous among the vicious: “Sheep going to the slaughter! Chickens crawling under the cook’s knife!” “Vyachenka, my dear, what’s wrong with you? You should get some treatment,” Domna Savishna told me anxiously, looking at me sympathetically and feeling my head. “My head, my head, it’s burning like it’s on fire! Oh, you’re not good.” “It’s better to put it in a coffin.” She was right: I was sick, dangerously sick, not so much physically as morally.

The scarlet strip of dawn, on the left side of the city, where the river made a sharp turn, had long since begun to expand, and soon the sun should have appeared from behind the distant forest, which now seemed bluish-green and sharply outlined in the clear, transparent air. My interlocutor and I somehow involuntarily turned our gazes in that direction and admired the picturesque landscape. “It must be a very good day,” I said. “Yes, spring is in full swing,” my interlocutor answered with a quiet sigh. “And then it was spring when a great revolution took place in me.” Spring revives everything healthy and strong, but woe to the sick and weak at this time: the healthy breath of spring is often not tolerated by sick nerves and exhausted chests. The cradle of the healthy, it is the grave of the sick. I remember well how heavily the end of Lent and the beginning of spring affected my nerves. Domna Savishna, who strictly observed fasts in general and deprived herself of much for my sake, became seriously ill during Holy Week, and I was seized with horror. I was not so much saddened by the thought that she might die as I was afraid for my future in the event of her death. This fear was stronger than my love for her. I was aware of this, I scornfully castigated myself for it and could not overcome this feeling. I walked around as if in delirium, and thought only about one thing: “What will happen to me?” “Rob, rob the old man quickly,” a secret voice whispered to me, and I made plans on how to do it. And then, painfully, painfully, I asked myself: “What horror would my old lady be in if she knew what I was planning, what I was thinking about, foreseeing her imminent death?” Lord, what a chaos of contradictions sometimes happens in the human soul! In these feverish, half-mad thoughts, I celebrated the Holy Day. I did not go to matins and, sitting in my closet in front of the candle, thought over my plans. I opened the book, trying to drive away these ominous thoughts, but I did not succeed. They crawled into my head of their own accord, annoying, like delirium, like a nightmare. There was a terrible struggle going on inside me, and at times it seemed to me that I was going crazy. And from the street came the joyful gospel, speaking of the resurrection of the Redeemer of the world. I leaned my elbows on the table, resting my head on my palms, and it seemed to me that this head was ready to crack. Suddenly, behind me, quickly, as if from a strong gust of wind, the door opened, and someone’s voice, hasty and intermittent, spoke sternly: “I have risen... risen from the dead, and you... What are you doing? How dare you be here?.. Where are you? What are you?.. I am Christ, and you...” I jumped up in horror and found myself face to face with an emaciated pale figure, with short-cropped but thick black hair, in white clothes that fell to the floor like a chiton... In the semi-darkness, large, black, feverishly shining eyes angrily looked at me. I was bathed in cold sweat, I recoiled towards the table, but a man unknown to me in white clothes took another step towards me, and his emaciated face a single face with shiny black eyes is close leaned close to my face, and I heard a whisper that shocked me: “I am Christ, Judas!” I will never forget this look and this whisper, from which my whole body turned cold and my consciousness became clouded. Before I came to my senses, they burst into my room. some people made noise and rushed at a man unknown to me. He shouted and spoke quickly: “I am Christ! I'm risen! You want to crucify me again!" and began to struggle out of their powerful hands, But they had already managed to take possession of him. Not understanding what was happening to me, seeing only that they wanted to take him, that they were fighting with him, I rushed to defend him and began to shout: " Leave him, leave him, you villains!" I beat someone, grabbed someone’s clothes. But they pushed me away roughly, then they twisted the stranger’s arms and dragged him. I don’t know how long I screamed and begged these people to leave him, for how long I lay unconscious, but I only remember that when I came to consciousness in the morning, lying on my bunk, two women stood next to me: Domna Savishna, who could barely move her legs, and the wife of my landlord-carpenter, and the latter was talking in a sing-song voice, probably already in the hundredth time: “And why were you scared, my mother? Savka didn’t recognize our carpenter. It was Savka who ran away from the insane asylum and came running to him, and he was scared, Savka was a young fellow carpenter, who at first suffered from drinking, and then suddenly stopped. drinking and falling into melancholy. In a fit of serious mental illness, he once even tried to hang himself. He was taken out of the loop and sent to a mental hospital, where his mental illness worsened even more. A year ago I saw this Savva, I knew about his unaccountable melancholy, and his attempt to commit suicide, and his stay in the insane asylum, where he called himself Christ and from where he fled that night and unexpectedly entered my closet, raging previously and in the rooms of the carpenter-owner... All this was explained so simply, so naturally, and everyone laughed at the incident, at Savva, who imagined himself to be Christ, at my fear and attempts to protect Savka. I was the only one who didn't laugh. They advised me to go to sleep and left me alone. Tired, exhausted, I fell into a heavy sleep, and in my dreams I dreamed of this inflamed look and heard this ominous whisper: “I am Christ, Judas!” I woke up in a cold sweat and timidly looked around. The next day, Domna Savishna, dragging herself back to me again and seeing me, clasped her hands in horror, so I changed in one day. It was as if something was pressing me down... The young man fell silent for a minute and then, looking into the distance illuminated by the rising sun, he spoke again in thought: “I have nothing more to say.” In short words you cannot retell what is going on in the soul, but to spread the word - perhaps, the ability is not enough to convey everything, to find out everything. The thought that I would certainly become a scoundrel if I continued to live in the world did not cease to haunt me from that day on. It had slipped through my brain before, but it only slipped like the light of lightning in the darkness of the night. Now she illuminated my soul with a bright light. Yes, it became quite clear to me that I was incapable of either endurance or fight, that I was envious and unjust, that there was something vicious in me, something primarily driving me to crime. All around me there were still rumors and jokes about the drunken Savka, and I, only I, understood that in the person of Savka the Lord had sent me a warning against temptations. When I came to the gymnasium after the holidays, they remarked to me: “Why are you so lost in the water?” I remained like this all the time until I finished my course, until I entered the monastery. As soon as I stepped behind these walls, I breathed a wide sigh of relief: I felt that they sheltered me from crimes... “And your Domna Savishna did not hold you back?” I asked involuntarily. “She died,” the young man answered with a sigh. “Yes, even if she hadn’t died, she wouldn’t have held back: I would have told her everything, and she would have understood me.” Of course, all this may seem strange to you, but she was a simple person, it would be easy for her to understand all this... “And you don’t repent of your decision?” I asked, not without curiosity. -- What do you! What do you! The Lord is with you! - he exclaimed ardently protesting, almost in fear. - I have become a new person here...... And, as if not wanting to talk more about himself, he pointed out into the distance: - Look, look, water It really burns, reflecting the sun. What a wonderful picture! Indeed, the picture was amazingly good. The sun, rising from behind the forest, was now flooding everything with its bright light, reflecting in the water. People in colorful festive attire were already scurrying about on the city shore. White smoke curled over the houses from hundreds of chimneys, melting in the transparent air. On the ferry, stretching and shivering, two boatmen could be seen emerging from their booth. The cheerful ringing of bells could be heard in the air, and hundreds of birds continually chirped and sang, fluttering from branch to branch in the dense trees of the monastery cemetery and garden.

For more than thirty years - from March 1953 almost until his death in December 1983 - my father appeared weekly on Radio Liberty. His conversations were devoted to the most important thing, central to the Christian faith - the relationship between God and man, the world and the Church, faith and culture, freedom and responsibility.

IN Easter night when the procession of the cross, having gone around the church, stops at its locked doors and the last minute comes before the explosion of Easter joy, in the depths of our hearts we ask ourselves the same question that was in the hearts of the women who came early in the morning, as soon as the sun rose (), to the tomb Christ. This question is: Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us? (). Will this miracle happen, will the night once again become brighter than the day, will this inexplicable joy, independent of anything in the world, fill us once again, which all this night and so many more days will sound like an Easter greeting: “Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!”

This minute always comes. The doors open. We enter the church flooded with light, we enter the jubilant Easter Matins, but somewhere in our souls the question remains. What does all of this mean? What does it mean to celebrate Easter in a world filled with suffering, enmity, hatred, wars? What does it mean to sing “trampling death upon death” and to hear that “not one dead man is in the grave,” when death still remains the only earthly certainty? Is it really Easter, all this bright night, all the rejoicing - just a momentary escape from reality, only for a short time the opportunity for spiritual oblivion given to us, followed by the same everyday life, the same gray reality, the same count of inexorably running days, months, years, the same race towards death and oblivion?

After all, we have long been told that religion is a fiction, self-deception, opium that reconciles a person with his difficult fate, a mirage that is constantly dissipating. And isn’t it more worthy for a person to abandon this mirage and soberly face reality?

What can I say to this? Perhaps something like this: “This can’t all be just fiction! It is incredible that so much faith, so much joy, so much light for two thousand years was just opium, an escape from reality, a mirage! Can a mirage last for centuries?

This answer, of course, is weighty, but still not final. And it must be said frankly that there is no such final and comprehensive answer that could be published in the form of a “scientific explanation” of the Easter faith. Here everyone can only testify to their own experience, speak only for themselves. But, peering into this experience, when you suddenly find in it something on which everything else is based - something that illuminates everything with a dazzling light, in which, indeed, like wax from the face of fire (), all doubts, all questions melt away .

What kind of experience is this? I cannot describe it otherwise, or define it otherwise, as the experience of the living Christ. It’s not because I believe in Christ that since childhood I was given the opportunity to participate in the Easter celebration once a year, no! But that’s why Easter is possible, that’s why this single night is filled with light and joy, that’s why this greeting “Christ is Risen!” sounds with such victorious power. Truly He is Risen!” that my faith itself was born and is eternally born from the experience of the living Christ. How and when was she born? I don't know, I don't remember. I only know that every time I open the Gospel and read the words of Christ, I mentally, but with all my heart, with all my being, repeat what the servants of the Pharisees said, who were sent to arrest Him and did not do so: Never has a man spoken like this Human ().

So, the first thing I know is that the teachings of Christ are alive and there is nothing in the world comparable to it. But this teaching is about Him, about eternal life, about victory over death, about love that conquers and overcomes death. And I also know that in life, where everything seems so difficult, one thing will never change, will never fail - the inner conviction that Christ is with me. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you (), - He says and comes, and the heart knows this coming. In prayer - in this trembling of the soul, in its undoubted joy about the mysterious presence of Christ both in the temple and in my life - this experience, this knowledge, this evidence grows all the time: Christ is here. In joy and sorrow, in crowds and loneliness, this certainty of His presence, this power of His word, this joy of faith in Him is the only proof. “Why are you looking for Zhivago and the dead? Why are you crying into the aphids?” And therefore all of Christianity is nothing more than a new experience of this faith, its embodiment in words, sounds, colors.

To an unbeliever, all this may indeed seem like a mirage. He hears only words, sees only “incomprehensible ceremonies” and tries to explain them from the outside. But for believers they shine from within - not as proof, but as the fruit of their faith and its life in the soul, in the world, in history. Easter is not a memory of an event from the distant past, but a real meeting in happiness and joy with the One in Whom our heart has recognized and always recognizes, has met and always meets the Life of all life, the Light of all light. The entire Easter night is evidence that Christ is alive and abiding with us, that we are alive and abiding with Him. All of it is a call to see, experience, accept the “dawn of the mysterious day,” the Kingdom of love and light. “Today spring is fragrant and the new creation rejoices...” sings the Church, rejoicing in faith, hope and love.

Christ is Risen!

“You should not give treats to pets from the Easter table”

On Sunday, April 8, Orthodox Christians celebrate the holiday of Easter Sunday. Easter on the night from Saturday to Sunday is celebrated in different ways: some go to church, while others simply cover festive table Houses. Even children know that on this day they should congratulate loved ones with the words “Christ is Risen!” However, behind the external paraphernalia, many forget the true meaning of the holiday. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin told how to celebrate Easter correctly.

– After the end of the Soviet era, Easter is perceived by many as a secular holiday: colored eggs are considered the same symbols as tangerines on New Year. But if a person did not comply Lent, is it even possible for him to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection?

He needs to try to understand the meaning of the holiday. Even if someone did not fast, he can celebrate on Easter, but the main thing in the celebration is participation in worship, meeting with Christ. This holiday reminds us that you can enter the Kingdom of God only if you believe in Christ. The other paths do not lead out of hell; a person is doomed for eternity if he is not a Christian - as it were a good man neither was he.

This is the point: Easter is completely not tolerant, not politically correct and not inclusive - after all, Christ was resurrected in order to give people the only way to eternal life. This is the main thing, not tables and not visiting people, especially not drunkenness and not entertainment. If you don’t have the strength to come to the service at night, you can come in the morning, but without the service the holiday loses its meaning.

For most people, Easter ends with dinner on the night from Saturday to Sunday or with Sunday breakfast - the Easter cake is eaten, the egg is broken, you can return to ordinary life. How does the church recommend spending Easter?

On this day, after the service, people either relax or go to visit. Many come to the temple in the evening of the first Easter day, when the solemn vespers are celebrated. This day is well suited to ask for forgiveness from those you have offended, or from those who have offended you. It would be good to renew relationships with people with whom they were senselessly lost. You can visit sick, lonely people, for example, in a nursing home or orphans. All 40 days during which Easter is celebrated are good for good deeds.

It is necessary to find agreement around Christ - an unbeliever husband must be sanctified by a believing wife, she leads him and strives to lead her entire family to Christ.

– After the Easter Liturgy, are all the restrictions of Lent lifted? Are intimate relationships between spouses allowed again?

Yes, after returning from the temple you can eat meat and dairy. This applies to all norms - the fast is over, which means you can return to marital relations.

– A topical question about wine for Russian people: we know that Cahors should be at the Easter meal. Does it need to be consecrated?

People often bless wine; this is allowed, but not required. It can be used - for the glory of God. But it is important not to overdo it when celebrating the end of Lent: an extreme degree of intoxication never, including on Easter, makes a person beautiful.

– Sometimes pet owners ask: is it possible to treat a cat with an Easter egg, and a dog with a piece of ham? Wouldn't this be sedition?

This should not be done. Blessed Easter eggs are sacred; Even the shells from them are not thrown into the trash by pious people, but are saved to be burned later, and the ashes are poured, for example, under a tree. Therefore, animals should not be given Easter food.

How are church services going on Easter?

On the morning of Holy Saturday, which this year falls on April 7, services begin in churches. After it, from noon to one o'clock in the afternoon until six to eight o'clock in the evening (the schedule can be clarified in a particular temple), believers bring Easter cakes, Easter cakes, colored eggs and other food for the Easter table to be blessed.

At half past eleven in the evening the Easter Midnight Office begins - the priests take the Shroud (the canvas depicting the position of the body of Christ in the tomb) to the altar and place it on the throne. There she will remain for 40 days - until the Ascension of the Lord.

Before midnight, the bells solemnly ring, and at midnight the royal doors open and the procession begins. At its end, the priests sing the troparion: “Christ is risen from the dead!”

This is followed by Easter Matins, after which everyone shares Christ - kisses three times, gives each other colored eggs and says: “Christ is Risen!” - “Truly he is risen!” Starting from three in the morning on Sunday, you can also consecrate Easter food; the consecration will continue during the day - from 11-12 to five or six in the evening, as well as on Monday and Tuesday.

When can you start breaking your fast? After the end of the Divine Liturgy, which ends around three in the morning - four in the morning.

Folk customs

Despite the fact that Easter is a religious holiday, and the church does not approve of superstition, many Orthodox Christians continue to believe in the secrets of their ancestors. For example:

If a girl wants to get married this year, during the church service she must say to herself “The Resurrection of Christ! Send me a single groom!”

A baby born on Easter is predicted to have fame and a great future.

A person who dies on Easter is considered to be marked by God - he immediately goes to heaven. They bury him with red paint in his right hand.

A piece of Easter cake can be crumbled to the birds - they will bring good luck and wealth to the house.

There are many stars in the sky on Easter night - a sign of frost.

The shells from colored eggs can be put in an amulet and worn together with a cross - as a talisman.

Archimandrite Savva (Majuko)

My first all-night vigil spied. Our family was not a church family, but we always celebrated Easter. On Easter night, my mother, like a conspirator, went to a mysterious church service, and the morning for everyone began with breaking the fast with a Easter cake.

The day came, or rather the night, when they took me to this “gathering of conspirators.” I remember, and I feel happy and good. A sea of ​​people. Sea of ​​lights. Furious ringing of bells and incredibly noisy service. We never managed to get into the church. We stood at the all-night vigil on the street in the company of suddenly discovered neighbors. What the priests sang there, what the choir exclaimed about - I didn’t understand a word. And for some reason my soul was very light and joyful.

But that first Easter became a real revelation about myself, because I, a person who had been accustomed since childhood to avoid people and hide from crowds, for the first time experienced the delight of being surrounded by people who for some reason were no longer strangers.

And it doesn’t matter whether we know each other, what we came for, what we believe in, I was simply happy because there are people.

The Easter service certainly takes place at night. Easter is a night among people. Easter is never personal, for yourself. Easter is for everyone. Easter is a night gathering of Christians. We come together like conspirators, bound by a terrible and funny secret. We are all tied together by one big secret - Christ is risen!

Easter service - only at night. This service can only be sustained through the night. Prayer in the frame of the night. If it’s Easter, it means a night service, prayer all night, all-night vigil. This word is so closely ingrained in Easter that most people, when they say “Easter,” mean “all-night vigil.”

However, “all-night vigil” is a technical term for the liturgical regulations. This word denotes a type of service marked by special solemnity. All-night vigils are supposed to be celebrated every week, for example, on Saturday evening, as well as on the eve of great holidays.

The word “all-night vigil” is one of my favorites church words. It stands on a par with the words “midnight office”, “matins”, “compline”, or, in the old way, “evening service”. Once upon a time, the All-Night Vigils actually served all night, the Midnight Offices were celebrated at midnight, and Matins were sung at dawn. Times have changed, and the words “candied” have turned into liturgical terms that have little to do with the time of day. And the “fresh” parishioners are perplexed when they come to the service: it seems that they announced an all-night vigil, but prayed for some three hours...

And only the Easter service is truly an all-night vigil.

If you have memorized the Easter troparion

The Easter service is the simplest of church services. True, this incredible secret is known only to experts in divine services. The rest can only spy at Easter for Christians, remaining strangers, which should not happen on a holiday for everyone. The All-Night Vigil is one of the spiritual exercises that can only be done by everyone together.

Do our spiritual exercises stop at Easter? No. The emphasis is simply shifting somewhat. Easter is a sacrament of unity, a holiday of unity.

One of the simplest and at the same time most difficult spiritual exercises is the art of praying together, “with one heart and one mouth.”

The highest level is prayer “with one heart” - the experience of genuine, deep unity in God with each of our neighbors and with everyone together. It's very high. This sacrament is not revealed to everyone, but everyone must go to it, be ready to accept this gift. However, praying “with one mouth” is an exercise that everyone can do.

The Easter Vigil is the best occasion to immerse yourself in prayer “with one mouth,” but this spiritual exercise requires some preparation.

Even those who spied all-night vigil, the patterns of the Easter service are known. Firstly, the prayer is constantly interspersed with a joyful roll call:

- Christ is Risen!

- He is truly risen!

Secondly, for most of the service everyone sings a short prayer:

“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tombs.”

The meaning of this text is clear even to inattentive spies. This is the troparion for the holiday of Easter. The troparion is the name given to the main hymn of a particular church holiday, a kind of “calling card” of a liturgical event. Most often, these are small chants that should be known by heart and must be sung by the whole temple.

If you have already memorized the Easter troparion, consider yourself almost ready to go to the all-night vigil. Almost. Because there will be something else at this service.

The Easter service opens with the reading of the Midnight Office with the canon of Holy Saturday. At approximately midnight, the Procession of the Cross begins, which goes around the temple and stops at the closed church doors, symbolizing the stone at the entrance to the burial cave of Christ. Here the abbot loudly proclaims:

“Glory to the Holy and Consubstantial and Life-Giving and Indivisible Trinity, always, now and ever and unto ages of ages.”

The choir, and with it the whole people, sings “Amen.” And here the priests begin to sing the troparion of Easter for the first time, and sing it three times. In response, the choir, and therefore all those praying, repeat the same troparion after the priests three times. In general, the entire Easter service is woven from these countless, but not tiring, roll calls. This is a prayerful dialogue from which no one can escape, not a single cry can go unanswered.

The priests pick up the Easter verses “May God rise again,” there are four of them, and each people responds with the singing of a troparion, and the priests and banner bearers move for each verse in order to find themselves on the new side of the world with the singing of the next troparion. After the verses, the priests sing “Glory,” that is, “Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and they are answered with a troparion. The clergy drags out “And now,” that is, “And now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen,” and again the troparion. After which the roll call changes finishing singing: the priests sing the first half of the troparion, the people finish singing after them, and everyone enters the temple.

What has just happened is called the beginning of Easter Matins. Entering the church, the deacon says a peaceful litany, and this is also a well-known roll call: to the requests of the litany, people answer “Lord, have mercy.” Therefore, we do not stop, we continue to pray with “one mouth” and one breath.

After the litany it will be more difficult, because the singing of the Easter canon begins. The canon is short. It is not read, but sung, and this is the peculiarity of the Easter service: everything is sung, only Scripture is read. This means that you need to stock up on the text of the canon and sing along with the choir, especially since the melody is very simple and playful, and the text is easy to remember. By next Easter you will be singing it by heart.

While the canon is being sung, the priests continuously rush around the temple with censers, shouting “Christ is Risen.” Of course, you answer, but don’t forget to sing the canon – it’s very comforting.

The canon ends unexpectedly quickly with the singing of the luminary “Flesh Asleep,” after which the priests again pick up the Easter poems already known to us. But this time the choir, and therefore you and me, responds not with the troparion, but with the stichera of Easter, and they should also be learned by heart, for which you will just need to attend several services on Bright Week.

After the Easter stichera, the Catechetical Word of St. is read. John Chrysostom, two litanies sound, and Easter Matins is over. Such a simple service! It's strange that someone could get confused by it.

After Matins the Easter hours are sung. This is a small collection of short and encouraging texts that are sung not only in church, but also at home instead of morning and evening prayers. Need I mention that they should not only be sung with the choir, but also known by heart?

The Liturgy begins after the clock, and the beginning of this service is the same as the beginning of Matins after the Procession of the Cross. All repeats.

The rite of the liturgy for Easter retains its usual structure. But you should be prepared for some great moments. First of all, the altar doors remain open throughout the service. They do not close between services, and so on throughout Bright Week. I really like this, especially since the symbolism of this action is clear even to those who are not “spoiled” by theology.

The moment that many are waiting for is the famous and unique reading of the Gospel in different languages. It really is extraordinarily beautiful and comforting. Together with the incessant censing, running around the temple, shouting “Christ is risen,” this reading symbolizes the breadth and comprehensiveness of the Easter sermon of the apostles.

And in this reading one hears a justification of any language, an apology for the churchliness of every people, because the Lord is ready to entrust His great secrets to every language and tribe. This is a small incarnation of God, when the Eternal Word is embodied in the verbal flesh that every people gives Him, making God their own, becoming their own to God.

You also need to know the Father of the Easter by heart, which will not be difficult for you, since we already sang the irmos “Shine, shine” at the Easter canon.

That's all. Very simple. But how much joy and consolation there is to be at Easter his, not to “spy on someone else’s freedom,” but to join oneself in the united prayerful breath of the Church. And for those who breathe the same breath with the Church, something more will be revealed.

What did Chrysostom say?

The Easter Vigil gives believers the experience of praying “with one mouth,” one of the most beautiful and accessible church consolations. However, during Holy Week we joined the spiritual exercise of “purifying meanings” and acquired the skill of contemplating the Passion. The experience of contemplation is not interrupted in the Easter of the Resurrection.

Easter of the Cross contemplated Christ's Passion.

Easter of the Resurrection peers into the mystery of Life conquering death. The subject of contemplation of Easter days is “Abundant Life”, shining from the grave. But this is not just a matter of contemplation. We partake of Life itself in the Chalice of Communion. The Body of Christ becomes our body, His Blood flows into our veins.

At the very center of Easter is the Chalice of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist we partake of true Life, so it is impossible to imagine the Easter service without communion. Communion is the most important moment of the Easter service.

It is not the Easter hymns, not the Procession of the Cross, not the reading of the Gospel in tongues, not the blessing of Easter cakes that make Easter Easter, but the Eucharist, without which all these wonderful moments of the service do not achieve their goal.

Preparation for Lent began under the sign of the Easter meal. Remember the parable of the prodigal son. It ends with a meal, for which the fattened calf is killed. Therefore, the parable of the Prodigal Son is actually a parable about the Eucharist, about the last and never-ending feast of the Kingdom, to which each of us is called. This is not a feast for everyone personally. Easter is a holiday for everyone. Therefore, the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, and the prodigal son, and the description of the Last Judgment, and many other stories that we went through during Great Lent are about a meal that we must share not just with God, but also with the people who are nearby. However, I did not invite them to this feast and it is not my desire that determines with whom the Lord will sit me for this mysterious meal of eternity.

The Easter service closes the circle of images and signs that we contemplated during Great Lent. Helping to put all these images together is the Catechetical Word of St. John Chrysostom, which has been read on Easter night for centuries.

You should be prepared to read and listen to this important text. And even if you know the Scriptures well, still, when going to the Easter all-night vigil, re-read the parable of the workers in the vineyard from the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a master who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. And having agreed with the workers for a denarius per day, he sent them into his vineyard” (Matthew 20:1).

This is how the parable begins. The owner goes to the market at the third hour, at the sixth, ninth and finally at the eleventh, and each time he hires workers who go to cultivate the grapes. In the evening, the steward, by order of the owner, pays everyone a denarius, starting with those who came later than everyone else. The workers of the first hour complain: “These last labored for one hour, and you made them equal to us, who endured the hardship of the day and the heat” (Matthew 20:11). How these words resemble the insult of the “right” brother from the parable of the prodigal son! But unlike the meek father of this parable, the owner gives the offended workers a harsh rebuke:

“Take yours and go; I want to give this last one the same as I give you. Don't I have the power to do what I want? Or is your eye envious because I am kind?” (Matt. 20:14-15).

And only after this Gospel story can one listen to Chrysostom, who begins not with the theology of Easter, not with the revelation of mysterious meanings, but with a call to participate in the meal, because one should be immersed in Easter not theoretically, but experientially:

He who is pious and God-loving, let him enjoythis beautiful and bright celebration.
Let him who is a prudent servant rejoice and enter into the joy of his Lord.
He who has labored while fasting, let him take a denarius today.
Whoever worked from the first hour, let him receive his due payment today.
Whoever came after the third hour, let him celebrate with gratitude.
Those who managed to arrive after the sixth hour should not worry at all; for nothing will be lost.
Whoever has delayed until the ninth hour, let him begin, without any doubt, without fear of anything.
Whoever managed to arrive only at the eleventh hour, let him not fear for the delay.

For the generous Master accepts the last as the first;
calms the one who came at the eleventh hour in the same way as the one who worked from the first hour;
and he has mercy on the last, and cares for the first;
and to this he gives, and to this he bestows; and accepts deeds and welcomes intentions;
and honors activity, and praises disposition.

Chrysostom speaks of the inexpressible mercy of the Lord, who is glad to accept anyone at His feast. Chrysostom begs not to fear God, to reject fear and horror at least for this day, to forget the painful feeling of guilt that believers love to cherish, to rest from ourselves in God, to allow Him to heal our wounds, because it was not for our labors and merits that we received access to His life, but only thanks to His incomprehensible and inexplicable love for mankind.

Enter therefore into the joy of our Lord;
both the first and the second will receive a reward;
rich and poor, rejoice one with another;
you who are abstinent and careless, honor this day;
you who have fasted and those who have not fasted, rejoice now.

The meal is plentiful - be satisfied, everyone;
the calf is great, let no one go hungry;
everyone enjoy the feast of faith;
everyone, enjoy the wealth of goodness.

Let no one complain about poverty, for the common Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one cry over sins, for forgiveness has shined from the grave.

The meal is shared. The kingdom is common. Joy is shared.

Because Easter is for everyone. This is the holiday of God the Lover of Mankind. By His life and His love we live.

Therefore, the most important thing to do on Easter is to open up to this love, life and joy, to allow yourself, at least on these days, to be holy, pure and cheerful. But do not keep this joy for yourself, but share it with others.

And how natural, when after the Easter all-night vigil all the parishioners break their fast right there in the church, all together, around their shepherd, having shared the Chalice, they share a modest Easter meal with each other. For Easter is a common meal. Easter is a holiday for everyone.

What time does the Easter service in the church begin? This is the right question that many believers ask themselves on Holy Saturday. If you decide to attend the Easter service this year, you should find out in advance exactly when it begins in a particular church. Although, there are their own church canons, which all churches try to adhere to.

Important information about the Easter service

Easter prayers begin on Holy Saturday. Let us remind you that this is the last day of Lent, which always happens right before Easter. Each year, accordingly, the date of Holy Saturday will also be different, because it depends directly on the date of Easter. People gather for the service in advance and the onset of Easter itself is midnight, celebrated in the church. How to prepare.

On the night from Saturday to Sunday, that is, on the night of Easter, the Acts of the Holy Apostles are read in churches. They talk about how they witnessed the bright resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Saturday service ends with a religious procession, which is a harbinger of the morning service. The procession goes around the church.

The service in honor of the onset of Easter lasts, as a rule, from late Saturday evening until 2-3 o'clock in the morning on Sunday. If you plan to take children with you, then you need to be absolutely sure that during the long service they will not be capricious or distract the people who came to the temple to pray.

After the religious procession ends, this usually happens around midnight, and Matins begins. Then she goes to Divine Liturgy, after which you can partake of the sacraments of Christ. If you decide to receive communion after the Easter service, then you need to confess in advance and receive a blessing from the priest for this. Of course, if you ignore these rules, then no one will be denied communion. But we should remember that the true essence of this sacrament is to receive communion with a pure body and spirit, and not to turn everything into just a show for show.

Some important rules How to behave during the Easter service in church:
Under no circumstances should you turn your back to the altar during the service;
Turn off mobile phones upon entering the temple premises;
If you take children with you, you need to make sure that they behave quietly, understand the essence of what is happening, do not run around and do not distract people;
While reading, the priest often crosses himself with the cross and the Gospel; it is not necessary to be baptized every time, but you must bow at such moments.
Every believer who is at a church service must be baptized with the words: “Lord, have mercy,” “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” “Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
You need to cross yourself three times when entering the temple, and also three times when leaving the temple.
During the Easter service, it is not customary to kiss three times and give each other colored eggs; this must be done after the service is over.
Clothing should be clean and modest. Women should not come to church wearing trousers and without covering their heads.
It is always necessary to be baptized without gloves.
Please also note that you are not allowed to talk loudly to each other or talk on the phone during the service.

Advice! It happens that a person is baptized, seemingly out of place. There is no need to worry or be nervous about this, because you can be baptized at any time and this, of course, does not contradict the general rules of behavior in the church. If the gesture was made out of impulse of the soul, then there is nothing reprehensible in it.

When does the service start?

So, what time does Easter service start in church? This is the most important night for every Orthodox believer, preparation for which begins on Thursday evening. On this day, Easter cakes are baked and eggs are painted. On Good Friday they do nothing; on Saturday they always go to church with a basket to bless the food. Then in the evening they return to the temple to defend the festive service in honor of the Holy Resurrection of Christ. How to cook .

As a rule, the service begins on Saturday around 23.00 and ends on Sunday morning, somewhere at 2-3 am. After the first hour of the service, a procession of the cross takes place around the temple, after which the priest announces to everyone that Easter has come and Christ is Risen.

During the evening service on Holy Saturday, the priests talk about what the holy apostles, who were real witnesses of the Resurrection of Christ, wrote. Divine services begin at 23.00, so by this time you can gather in the temple. After procession everyone returns to the temple, the service and prayers continue.

Of course, a worldly person who decides to spend the festive Easter night in church and take part in the Divine service must behave correctly. Rules of conduct that will help you feel at ease have already been discussed in our material. Be sure to read the code of correct behavior in church again so that only pleasant moments and memories remain from the festive service. What date .

Now you can figure out what time the Easter service in the church starts. The service itself begins at 23.00, but on this night many believers come to churches, so in order to get inside and take a comfortable place there, you should come to the temple in advance. Moreover, there is always something to do there: pray, light candles, think about the upcoming Easter, about what happened to you, to your spiritual life during such a long fast and such a long period of preparation for Easter.