Slavonic: Velika Pjatnica

Great and Holy Friday is the fifth and most solemn day of Great and Holy Week—the final week before the feast of Pascha. On this day, we commemorate the crucifixion, death, and burial of our Lord, God, and Savior, Jesus Christ. Because the events of this day gained salvation for us, and re-opened to us the gates of heaven, this day is sometimes called Good Friday.

At the evening service of Vespers, the first part of the service (the hymns of Lamp-lighting) recalls to our minds the events of this day: ”All creation is transformed with fear when it beheld you hanging on the Cross, O Christ. The sun was darkened and the foundations of the earth trembled. All creation suffered with the One who created all things. O Lord, who willingly suffered for us, glory to you.”

Throughout the day, the Plaščanitsa has rested on the holy table in the sanctuary. It is incensed from all four times as the aposticha hymns of Vespers are sung. At the end of the service of Vespers, the burial shroud is carried around the church in procession on the back of the priest, who thus re-enacts the role of Joseph of Arimathea in taking our Lord's body to be placed in the Arimathean’s own, unused tomb. During the procession, troparia and sung, slowly and solemnly, by the people.

But these events are still in the future, from our vantage point on Great and Holy Friday. As the service of Vespers draw to a close, the faithful come forward to the tomb to venerate the cloth which represents the body of our crucified Lord and Savior.

The Lord will descend to Hades, in search of those who were lost, while his body rests in the tomb; on Great and Holy Saturday, we will commemorate these events. But this night, it is traditional for the faithful to keep private vigil before the tomb of the Lord, in church, or in the home—in repentance, in thanksgiving, and in prayer for our salvation and that of the whole world.