§ The Special Features of the Services of Great Friday. On the eve of Great Friday, the evening of Great Thursday, we commemorate the following events in the earthly life of Jesus Christ, which took place after His Mystical Supper: His farewell discourse with His disciples, His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, His arrest by the soldiers, the judgment before the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas, His being mocked by the servants of the High Priests, His Passion and death. All this is commemorated at night, because the believers keep vigil during the night leading into Great Friday. They gather in church late at night for the Mattins service. During this service, there are twelve Gospel readings relating to the Passion of the Lord, in which the events are commemorated in detail. During these readings, the faithful stand with lighted candles proclaiming that, even during His inexpressible sufferings upon the Cross, glory and majesty did not desert the Saviour. The Gospel readings are accompanied by the refrain, “Glory to Thy long-suffering, O Lord.” Between the Gospel readings, hymns are chanted in which we recall the ingratitude and love of money of Judas who betrayed the Lord, and of the Jewish people who condemned Him to death. In the canon itself, which is a composition in three odes, the greatness of the Saviour’s Passion is extolled, the vanity of the conceptions of the Jews who thought to condemn to the earth the One Who holds all creation in His hands.

Ode Five: “I seek Thee early in the morning, Word of God; for in Thy tender mercy towards fallen man, without changing Thou hast emptied Thyself, and impassibly Thou hast submitted to Thy Passion. Grant me Thy peace, O Lord Who lovest mankind.”

Ode Eight: “The holy children brought mockery upon the idol of ungodly wickedness; and the lawless Sanhedrin raged and took vain counsel against Christ, proposing to kill Him Who holdeth life in the hollow of His hand. The whole Creation blesseth Him and glorifieth Him to all ages.”

Ode Nine: “More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, thee who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, do we magnify.”

After the canon, in the chanting of the exapostolaria the touching repentance of the thief is remembered, which made him to be deemed worthy of the Heavenly Kingdom:

“OLord, Who at this very hour didst vouchsafe the Good Thief Paradise, by the wood of the Cross do Thou enlighten me also and save me.”

Before the dismissal of Mattins, we have this troparion:

“Thou hast redeemed us from the curse of the law by Thy precious Blood; nailed to the Cross and pierced by the spear, Thou hast poured forth immortality upon mankind. O our Saviour, glory be to Thee.”

The Liturgy is not celebrated on Great Friday, but in its place we have the Royal Hours. The hymns, readings, Gospels and Apostle readings appointed on these Hours speak of the passion and death of Jesus Christ.