The General Funeral Prayer

• The Church has dedicated Holy Week to commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus for our sins, so that believers may devote themselves to worship, prayer, and meditation on the death of the Redeemer.

• No Divine Liturgies are celebrated on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in reference to the ancient rite that commanded the Passover lamb to be purchased on the tenth day and kept from the tenth until it was slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the month (Exodus 12). The lamb was to be slain between the two evenings on that day.

• Since Saturday was the beginning of the Passover in the year when our Good Savior was crucified, the lamb would have been slain on Friday, the 14th of Nisan, between the two evenings. Because our Lord established the New Covenant one day before the Jewish Passover lamb was slaughtered, there is no sacrificial offering from Monday to Wednesday. On Thursday, however, the Lord Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Thanksgiving (the Eucharist). The Lord also entered Jerusalem on Sunday.

• The Divine Liturgy is celebrated on Thursday, symbolizing that the Passover lamb had been kept but not yet slain.

• The Church dedicates this week to prayer, praise, and fasting, mourning for its sins while sharing in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shed His blood for it. Therefore, funeral services or incense prayers for the departed are not performed after the General Funeral Prayer at the end of the Palm Sunday Liturgy until Wednesday of the Holy Pascha, because the Church is completely occupied with the remembrance of the death of her Bridegroom.

• For this reason, the Church arranged the General Funeral Prayer to be prayed after the Palm Sunday Liturgy, for the souls of believers whom God may allow to depart during that week. If someone passes away during this time, the Church simply attends the Pascha prayers, and the readings appropriate to the hour when the body enters the church are read—whether from the day or night hours—without the Prayer for the Departed.

• On Thursday and Saturday, however, incense may be offered and funeral services may be conducted.

The Order of the Holy Pascha Prayers of Our Good Savior

• The Pascha prayers begin on the evening of Palm Sunday in the second choir, because the Lord Jesus was crucified on Mount Golgotha (Calvary) outside Jerusalem. The Holy Scripture says: “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:12–13).

• This reminds us of the seriousness of sin and disobedience, which caused Adam and Eve to be expelled from Paradise.

• The Coptic and Arabic lecterns are covered with black cloth, and the sanctuary door is closed and draped with black curtains.

• In the Church’s liturgical tradition, the day is counted from sunset to the sunset of the following day.

• The Holy Pascha prayers consist of ten daily hours, divided into five night hours and five day hours:
  the First, Second, Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh hours.

• During the week:

• The Gospel of Matthew is read on Tuesday.

• The Gospel of Mark is read on Wednesday.

• The Gospel of Luke is read on Thursday.

• The Gospel of John is read on the night of Bright Saturday.

The events of the Passion are recorded in the four Gospels in a remarkable harmony. To grow spiritually, we must read the Holy Scriptures, as the Lord said: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” (John 5:39).