Essays on Eastern Orthodoxy
What Happens Here Stays Here
Essay on the Holy Saturday Liturgy of the Descent Into Hades
April 30, 2005
When Fr. Tom said there was going to be a Divine Liturgy on Holy Saturday morning in honor of Christ's Descent into Hades, I was rather non-plussed. I have always viewed Holy Saturday as (pardon the pun) dead time. It's not a time for a lot of church activity because everyone's worn out from Holy Week. Furthermore, Jesus doesn't get resurrected until the next day, so there's a lull in the action. It's a good morning to sleep in.
But Fr. Tom pointed out that somewhere in between the entombment on Friday and the women's discovery of the empty tomb early Sunday morning, the living Lord and Son of God, Jesus Christ, had to descend to Hades and announce his victory over death. That's what the Saturday morning service was all about, and that was a good enough explanation for me, so even though it seemed we'd spent half our waking hours in church for the last week, once again we were off to church on Saturday morning for yet another worship service.
It all started out pretty normal. The chanting was a bit more haunting than was usual for a Divine Liturgy and the crowd was smaller, but it was very typical and felt very comfortable.
That is until after the epistle reading. For us non-Orthodox who aren't used to standing for nearly the whole worship service, the epistle is blessed relief. We get to sit down for that. But after it's done, everyone stands back up, the priest comes out of the Royal Doors and blesses the people, and then announces the Gospel lesson for the day. Well the priest came out and blessed the people, but then he went back in and shut the Royal Doors and closed the curtain. I began to sit down because I've learned in Vespers and Matins services that whenever the Royal Doors are shut, the congregation sits down.
But this time nobody sat down. The choir didn't sing either. Instead we stood there in silence with the Royal Doors shut and the curtains closed.
At this point I need to explain Orthodox church architecture to those not acquainted with it. The front part of the church (the part that mainline and liturgical Protestants would call the chancel and independents would call the stage), called the sanctuary in the Orthodox Church, represents heaven. The nave (where the people sit) isn't heaven. (Neither is it earth, precisely. The narthex represents the world while the nave represents the Church and the Sanctuary represents heaven. So the nave is earthly, but it is specifically for the “called out” people of earth.) Since we cannot see heaven from earth, and at best see it as “through a glass darkly” according to St. Paul, there is a wall between heaven and earth. This wall is the iconostasis, where pictures of Jesus, Mary, the apostles, etc. are arranged in a set order. There are three doors on the iconostasis; the very large center double door (or Royal Doors) remain open for divine liturgy and are open for most worship services.
Protestants, who have a very strong tradition of free access into heaven through Jesus Christ, tend to be offended by the iconostasis. At first it seems to be not at all inviting. But this is the wrong metaphor. The wall is not designed to cut us off from heaven. The iconostasis is not about being invited in or barred from heaven. The correct metaphor rather has to do with sight. The simple fact is that we cannot see into heaven. That's what the iconostasis represents—a simple physical reality. We cannot see into heaven. But the iconostasis has windows into heaven (for that's specifically what an icon is, a window into heaven) as well as three doors. So it is that even though we cannot physically see into heaven, during worship we not only have windows to see into heaven, but the door is open, so that we can see into heaven directly, with our own eyes. But when the worship service is done it is time to return to the world and be Christ's witnesses in the world, so with the service completed, it's time to go home, so the doors are shut and a curtain is pulled across the front so that nothing is visible at all in the sanctuary.
And this is what happened right where the Gospel reading belonged . . . And nobody sat down.
So there we stood in silence. (I think it's the only time I've heard silence in an Orthodox church.) And then from out of this completely unnatural silence we heard noises from the sanctuary (ie, the altar area, now closed off by the curtain). There was scraping and clanging and whooshing. There were no bells nor any other liturgical sounds, this was just the sort of noise that comes from moving stuff around.
Finally a member of the church came up to Brenda and me and explained what was going on. I was kind of disappointed that she did, because the mystery of seeing this for the first time was overpowering. But don't worry, I won't spill the beans.
After a long time, the curtain swooshed open, and there stood the priest in the Royal Doors and we suddenly saw what all the hubbub was about back in the sanctuary. For me, the experience was astonishing To use the vernacular, it was waaay better than any Easter service I had ever attended! Then the priest came into the nave and did what they had done back in the sanctuary, in secret, behind the curtain. When he returned to the sanctuary with the curtain drawn back, the doors flung open, and their task accomplished, we knew that Christ had conquered death!
But there was no singing, “Christ is risen from the grave, conquering death by death, and giving life to those in the grave.” (This, by the way, is in my opinion, the greatest Easter hymn ever written.) You see, the Liturgy of the Descent into Hades is a sort of secret service, and what happens here stays here, for the moment. The myrrh-bearing women have not yet discovered the empty tomb, the angels have not yet announced, “He is not here, for he is risen from the dead!” Peter and John have not yet explored the empty tomb and found the grave clothes. We know what's going to happen, but it has not yet been announced.
So there was no singing, “Christ is risen from the dead.” Instead, the Gospel was read, and the service continued as it normally would have. When the liturgy of the faithful began the choir began to sing, as they always do at this point in the Divine Liturgy. The tune was the familiar non-Lenten version of “We Who Mystically Represent the Cherubim,” a song that I dearly love. I was too emotional to sing along and so I listened, and as I listened, I realized that while the tune was the same, the words were different: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence . . .” And we did. When the service was done we left the church and went home to continue the fast and pray for another twelve hours. Christ had defeated death, and yet we continued to watch and wait. The kairos, the time, for Christ's revealing had not yet come in its fullness.
Copyright © 2005 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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