Great and Holy Tuesday

The services of Great and Holy Tuesday belong to the developed cycle of Holy Week in the Byzantine rite, in which the first three days share a common structure of Bridegroom services drawn together around the parables of the last teaching of Christ. The day's material is arranged across a sequence of services: it begins with Vespers on the afternoon of Great Monday and continues through Great Compline, at which a triode—a three-ode canon—composed by St. Andrew of Crete is chanted.

The Bridegroom Matins, served Monday through Wednesday of Holy Week, gives the first three days their name and their central image, presenting Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church. An icon showing Christ wearing the purple robe of mockery and crowned with a crown of thorns is placed at the center of the temple for these services. For the sake of greater attendance, these Matins are commonly chanted on the evening before the day to which they belong.

The readings of the day were fixed to carry its themes forward. The Matins Gospel is Matthew 22:15–23:39. During the first three days of Holy Week the four Gospels are read in course across the Little Hours: on this day the Third Hour reads the second half of Mark, the Sixth Hour the first third of Luke (with an Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 1:21–2:1), and the Ninth Hour the second third of Luke. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is celebrated with Old Testament readings from Exodus 2:5–10 and Job 1:13–22 and a Gospel reading from Matthew 24:36–26:2; no Epistle is read.

The hymn most closely bound to this part of Holy Week is the work of Kassia (c. 810–865), a Byzantine composer, hymnographer, and poet of Constantinople who founded a convent in the western part of the city by 843 and served as its first abbess. She holds a singular place in Byzantine music as the only known woman whose music entered the Byzantine liturgy, and about fifty of her hymns survive. Her most celebrated composition, the Troparion of Kassiani, is appointed for Great and Holy Wednesday as a doxastichon at orthros and the Presanctified Liturgy; in Greek practice, where the Matins of Wednesday is served on Tuesday night, it is heard at the Tuesday evening service. Tradition recounts that the Emperor Theophilos, who had rejected Kassia at a bride show, later came upon her unfinished hymn at her monastery and added a line before departing, after which she completed the work.

The theological center of Great and Holy Tuesday is Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church and the summons to spiritual readiness for His coming. Through the Parable of the Ten Virgins the Church holds up the vigilance of the five wise virgins, who—unlike the foolish—were prepared when the Lord came to them, and so it teaches the necessity of being spiritually awake before the uncertain hour of the Second Coming.

The image of the bridal chamber carries a double sense in the services of the day: it is a symbol both of the Tomb of Christ and of the blessed state of the saved on the Day of Judgement. In this way the day joins the theme of watchfulness to that of divine judgment, setting the readiness of the wise against the exclusion of those found unprepared when the door is shut.

The parable has drawn distinctive interpretation within the tradition. St. Seraphim of Sarov taught that the failure of the foolish virgins lay not in a lack of good deeds but in 'a lack of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God,' warning against treating the Christian life as merely the performance of good works apart from the seeking of divine grace. The oil of the lamps is thus read as the grace of the Spirit for which the soul must watch and prepare.

The sorrowful and penitential character of the Hymn of Kassiani, with its themes of repentance, gives the observance of this part of Holy Week much of its tone. Together with the parables of vigilance and judgment, it sets before the faithful the call to keep the lamp of the soul filled and to await the Bridegroom.

The icon central to the Bridegroom services shown on this day depicts Christ as the Bridegroom, wearing the purple robe of mockery and crowned with a crown of thorns. It is placed at the center of the temple during the services of the first three days of Holy Week, giving visual form to the day's image of Christ the Bridegroom of the Church.

At Great Compline of the day a triode—a canon of three odes—composed by St. Andrew of Crete is chanted. The most celebrated hymn associated with this part of Holy Week is the Troparion of Kassiani, the work of the ninth-century Byzantine hymnographer Kassia; in Greek practice it is heard at the Tuesday evening service, since the Matins of Great and Holy Wednesday is served on Tuesday night. Its music is slow, sorrowful, and plaintive, running some ten to twenty minutes, and it stands among the most demanding pieces of solo Byzantine chant. Its penitential theme, drawn from the account of the woman who anointed Christ, lends the observance its mournful character.

The Bridegroom Matins is served again in the evening (Greek practice).

The Hymn of Kassiani is chanted at the Tuesday evening service in Greek practice.

• Matthew 25:1–13 — The Parable of the Ten Virgins—the central parable of the day, calling for vigilance and readiness for the coming of the Bridegroom.
• Matthew 25:14–30 — The Parable of the Talents, also commemorated on this day.
• Matthew 22:15–23:39 — The Matins Gospel appointed for the day.
• Matthew 24:36–26:2 — The Gospel of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.
• Exodus 2:5–10 — Old Testament reading at the Presanctified Liturgy.
• Job 1:13–22 — Old Testament reading at the Presanctified Liturgy.
• Ezekiel 1:21–2:1 — Old Testament reading at the Sixth Hour.