“Holy Week started with brightness, with the passions of Christ filled with mourning; o come and attends, and celebrates faithfully”.
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Under the greatness of the impressive troparion started in Berat also as in all Christian World the Holy Week of the passions of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all experienced more the event that changed the world, because our church in this event, which makes the center of whole liturgical year, has written it so beautifully with a divine mastery. We all experienced the Holy, saving and terrible passions of the Lord and God Jesus Christ.
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It was also experienced the great emotion of the burial of the Divined body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the descent into Hell, through which our being was called from blasting to everlasting life. In these days we all are called: “You are a true God and you died for us in the wood, o naked dead and Word of the living God. Open the enclosed gates of Paradise, placing in it the luck.
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The Holy services, which were attended by a large number of believers, were celebrated under the leadership of his Eminence Ignati in the church of Saint Spyridon. Holy Week, which started with the service of the Bridegroom achieved its peak in the last three days where one after the other were celebrated the Crucifixion, the Burial and Resurrection.
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Everyday was a new emotion, the day of the Crucifixion where was seen crucified in wood the One who hang the earth over the waters, the godly burial where need to be emphasized the moments of the lamentations which were sang by the choirs of the believers and also the procession of the Epitaph around the Gorica neighborhood, which was accompanied by a largeprocession of believers.
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Every tragic moment already past and the joyful day of Holy Sunday of the Great Easter, in which we celebrate the Life-giving Resurrection of the Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ, had arrived because Christ descended against Hell alone and ascended after taking many spoils captive.
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It is the day when in environment we sing the triumphal hymn “Christ is risen from the death, trampling death by death, and to those in the tombs he is bestowing life.”
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The Divine Liturgy of the Lord’s Resurrection was celebrated on Saturday at midnight except in the Church of Saint Spyridon and in the historical Church of “The Dormition of Theotokos”, where next to that it is also the National Museum “Onufri” in the castle of the city. To give the joyful News of the Resurrection in this Church had arrived the Arch Shepherd of the Diocese of Berati his Eminence Ignati, who in his greeting said: “To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).
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The joyful greeting: Christ is Risen! – Truly He is Risen! Is heard every where the Christians are and as a spring sun warms our hearts. It fills them with hope and renewal desires for the winning of the life. Every time we say the Pascal greeting a vivid thing moves within us, because really for man it doesn’t exists a more precious gift than the gift of life that was offered by Christ in his Resurrection!
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The day of the Resurrection continued with the Agape vesper service in which the gospel was read in 6 different languages. After the Agape service in the Metropolis of Berati were organized a reception in which the most important local authorities, representatives of religious communities and many believers came and greeted. |
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Joan Qako
Translated by Gabriela Bezhani and Nathan Hoppe
