Easter Week - Eastern Church

Eastern Church

In the Eastern Orthodox Church and in Eastern Catholic Churches, the days of Bright Week are named: Bright Monday, Bright Tuesday, etc. Each day repeats the joyful hymns of Pascha (Easter), with only a few variations, taken from the Octoechos, according to the Eight Tones of the Orthodox liturgy. One tone (with the exception of the Seventh Tone—known as the "Grave Tone") is assigned to each day:

• Sunday of Pascha (Tone One)
• Bright Monday (Tone Two)
• Bright Tuesday (Tone Three)
• Bright Wednesday (Tone Four)
• Bright Thursday (Tone Five)
• Bright Friday (Tone Six)
• Bright Saturday (Tone Eight)

Bright Week is considered to be one single joyful day, although the celebrations on the Sunday of Pascha are the most solemn. The Divine Services are completely different during this time than any other time of the year. Everything during the service is sung joyfully, rather than read. There is no reading from the Psalter, and the services are much shorter than usual. There is no fasting during Bright Week. The Holy Doors in the iconostasis remain open throughout the entire week, and the Artos (a leavened loaf of bread that was blessed during the Paschal Vigil) remains in the church and is venerated by everyone as they enter the temple as a way of "greeting the Resurrected Christ".

Bright Friday is the annual feast day of the Theotokos (Mother of God), as the "Life-giving Spring", and there are optional hymns which may be chanted in honor of the feast in addition to the paschal hymns. If any other feasts on the fixed cycle occur during Bright Week, they are transferred to a convenient day after Thomas Sunday.

Just before the beginning of the Ninth Hour on Bright Saturday, the Holy Doors are closed, and the services begin to return to their more normal form, although the chanting of the Troparion of Pascha, "Christ is risen from the dead...", as well as certain other paschal hymns, continue to be chanted until Ascension.