Holy Week 2025 – Schedule of Services

HOLY MONDAY & HOLY TUESDAY

Matins & 1st Hour; 3rd Hour; 6th Hour

8:00 AM – 12:30 pm
(Then morning break/readings)

9th Hour; Typika & Vespers

1:30 pm – 4:00 pm
(Then afternoon break/readings)

Great Compline

4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

HOLY WEDNESDAY

Matins & 1st Hour; 3rd Hour; 6th Hour

8:00 AM – 12:30 pm
(Then morning break/readings/Beginning of Communion Fast)

9th Hour & Typika [with mutual forgiveness]

1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
(Then afternoon break/readings)

Vespers, with Pre-sanctified Liturgy [Fr Spyridon] & Small Compline

3:30 pm – 6:30 pm

HOLY THURSDAY

Matins & 1st Hour; 3rd Hour; 6th Hour; 9th Hour; and Vesperal Liturgy of St Basil

8:00 AM – 1:00 pm
(Then afternoon break/readings)

Small Compline

3:00 pm

Matins [Reading of the 12 Gospels] approx. 3 Hrs

3:30 pm – 6:30 pm

GREAT & HOLY FRIDAY

The Great Hours

8:00 AM – 10:30 am
(Then Quiet time/readings)

Vespers [with Deposition of Christ & Exposition of the Epitafios] & Small Compline

1:00 pm
(Then Quiet time/rest)

Matins [of Holy & Great Saturday with Lamentations & Canon]
[Procession of the Epitafios]

4:00 pm – 7:00 pm

GREAT & HOLY SATURDAY

The Great Hours of Holy Saturday

8:00 am

Vespers with liturgy of Saint Basil Litrgy

8:45 am approx

(Evening) Reading of the Acts of the Apostles

10:30 pm approx

Midnight Office [Recession of the Epitafios]

11:00 pm sharp

HOLY PASCHA

Resurrection Matins; Pascha Hours & Typika

Midnight

The Holy Cross Mission Family invites everyone to stay after the Holy Services to break the Great Fast with food and beverages in our Trapeza Room.

4. Apostolic Tradition of the Church

These are:
i) the ancient oral traditions of the Apostles revealed in the writings of the Fathers
ii) the feasts and fasts as set out in the Great Typicon (the book of directions)
iii) the hymnody and manner of performance (rituals) of the Church Services.

These Four Criteria are always in harmony and in total agreement, complementing and supplementing each other.

We may say they are the benchmark, the filter or test if you will, of what is truly Christian.

When our belief/doctrine is confirmed by all Four Criteria, then we can safely accept that the:
• Teaching (doctrine, dogma, theology)
• Worship (format and protocols applied)
• Tradition (behaviour, customs, way of defined lifestyle) offered to us, is the true mind of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

This infallible Truth is protected by: the Giver of Life who is the Spirit of Truth: the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father.

However, we must take the warning of the apostle Paul seriously, that the letter kills, but the Spirit makes (us) alive [2 Corinthians 3:6] for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom [2 Corinthians 3:17].

We must not fall away and regress into a binding life of mindless religiosity of rules and regulations as did the Jews.

By the time the Lawgiver himself came, the one who gave Moses the law, Jesus who appeared to them in the flesh and walked among them, they had transformed the Law into a punishing yoke of regulations which burdened the people with a
punitive weight of rules which could not be followed by anyone.

The Four Criteria listed have life, real meaning and correct application only when they are infused with the active participation and living power of the Holy Spirit.

Appropriating the Holy Spirit can be achieved only by living the Way of Life which is centred in the Sacraments and Services of the Orthodox Church. Paul the Apostle sternly warns:
A material (secular) minded man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God because it is foolishness to him, and he is not able to come to know them because they can only be discerned spiritually [1 Corinthians 2:14].

1. The Seven Ecumenical Councils & equal Synods of the Church

The canons define doctrine, theology, moral directives, statements and definitions of what is Truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit through the one voice of the fathers sitting in Councils.

2. The entire body of the Orthodox Services

• Quote and explain Scripture and put it into correct context
• Define and explain Christian doctrine and theology (dogma)
• Reveal the apostolic worship and protocols of holy behaviour
• Contain the values and moral directives lived by the saints
• Contain praise, petitions, exaltation (honouring God in worship)
• Define our God as a Trinity; and the two natures in Christ.

3. Scripture

To be read within the context, explanation, an understanding of the Orthodox Church Services, and with the unified agreed statements of the fathers, and not by the single, personal opinion(s) of any individual within the Household of Faith, or those outside the family (the Heterodox).

the Creed

I believe in one God: Father Pantokrator,
Creator of heaven and earth, and of all that is – visible and invisible.

And in one Lord: Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all the ages.
Light from Light. True God from True God. Begotten, not created, of one Essence with the Father.
Through Him, all that is, came into existence.
Who, for the sake of us mortals and our salvation, came down from the heavens and was incarnate¹ of the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mariam, and became a Human Being ².

He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate³, and suffered and was buried; and He arose on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
and He ascended into the heavens,
and is seated at the Right Hand of the Father.
He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His Kingdom there will be no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father, and with the Father and the Son, is equally worshipped and glorified, and spoke through the prophets.

And in One Holy, Catholic⁴, and Apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

I wait expectantly for the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the age to come.

Amen.
…………………………..
1 σαρκωθέντα = [part. sing. aor. pass. masc. acc.] flesh, human frame and its mortal properties; allowed himself to undergo corporal birth but not a partaker of our sins. [See, Saint Leo, Homily 3, On the Lord’s Nativity].
cf. [I Peter 4:1; 1 John 4:2-3; 1 John 1:13-14].
2 ένανθρωπήσαντα = [part. sing. aor. act. masc. acc.] = became a human being, put on human nature,… as in [Genesis 1:26-27; 2:5&7].
3 cf. [Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15; Luke 23:25; John 19:16].
4 katholiki.

HOLY CROSS

eNglish speAKing oRthodoX chUrcH

Holy Cross is an English-speaking Orthodox Church, living and proclaiming the living
Faith of our Fathers, Holy Orthodoxy, the One Holy Catholic (Orthodox), Apostolic Church,
“built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the Corner-stone.”
[cf. Psalm 117:22 LXX; Matthew 21:42]

HOLY CROSS

eNglish speAKing oRthodoX chUrcH

Holy Cross is an English-speaking Orthodox Church, living and proclaiming the living Faith of our Fathers, Holy Orthodoxy, the One Holy Catholic (Orthodox), Apostolic Church, “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the Corner-stone.”
[cf. Psalm 117:22 LXX; Matthew 21:42]

seRvice scHedule

All our services are in reverent contemporary English.
Our services are basically monastic in accordance
with (as far as practically possible) the Typikon of Saint
Savva the Sanctified, printed in 1545, and re-printed
by the Great Church of Christ in Greece, 1917.

Our invitation is open to everyone: come and see.

Monthly Services

ouR living fAith

The only way to know and understand the Faith, is to know and understand in our spoken language the content of our hymnody in the Services, and for us, it is English. Holy Orthodoxy is a living Faith where we experience the supernatural uncreated energy of the Grace of God in the Mysteries and Gifts, in a life of purification, illumination, and deification (theosis).

[Pentekost Kontakion]
“A strange thing contrary to the law of nature is now heard,
for when the One Voice of the disciples,
resounded through the grace of the Spirit,
the various peoples, tribes and nations,
heard separately (in their own language and dialect),
the great things of God, and were instructed
(in their own language and dialect)
in the knowledge of the Trinity”

seRvice scHedule

Our invitation is open to everyone: come and see.

Monthly Services

ouR living fAith

seRvice scHedule

All our services are in reverent contemporary English.
Our services are basically monastic in accordance with (as far as practically possible) the Typikon of Saint Savva the Sanctified, printed in 1545, and re-printed by the Great Church of Christ in Greece, 1917.

Our invitation is open to everyone: come and see.

Monthly Services

ouR living fAith

oRtHodoxy: THE four cRiteRia

The definition and basis of the Orthodox belief is the Creed, amplified and established in the 4 Criteria:

The Seven Ecumenical Councils & equal Synods of the Church

The entire body of the Orthodox Services

Canonical Scripture

Apostolic Tradition of the Church

The Creed

oRthodoXy: tHe oNe tRue Faith

Paul the Apostle proclaimed the unalterable Truth [Ephesians 4:4-6] :
One Body [of Christ, which is the One Church]
One Spirit [the Holy Spirit]
One Lord [Jesus Christ]
One Faith [the Holy Orthodox Church]
One Baptism [in Sanctified Waters for forgiveness of sins]
[in Three distinct Persons – the Holy Trinity]

There cannot be variants, expressions, or branches, or lungs of the
One Truth, for Truth can not live in contradiction. If there is One Church
then there is only one united, infallible mind of the One Church. This is
the historic Church – the Orthodox Church without innovations,
distortions, heresies or doctrinal pollution.

This is the Faith of the prophets, Apostles, Saints and Church Fathers.
Orthodoxy means right belief / Faith and right worship.

oRthodoXy: tHe oNe tRue Faith

This is the Faith of the prophets, Apostles, Saints and Church Fathers.
Orthodoxy means right belief / Faith and right worship.

What does it Mean to be oRthodoX

For over 2,000 years, the Orthodox Church has proclaimed the same message of hope and salvation that Jesus Christ is the Word of God, equal in Divinity with the Father and the Holy Spirit; He came and lived among us mortals, suffered and was crucified, buried and rose from the dead on the third day, giving us Eternal Life, and making possible for all who desire to receive the Gift
of the Holy Spirit, to live a truly transformed and Angelic way of life on earth.

Transformed lives involve the renewal of the mind [cf. Romans 12:2]. Since the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost, the task of the Church has been to go out and teach all people in their own languages, all that Christ had
taught them, and then to baptise them [Matthew 28: 19-20, and Acts of the Apostles 2: 6].

This means that the Services and teaching of the Church must be understood completely by the people, wherever the Church finds itself.

What does it Mean to be oRthodoX

For over 2,000 years, the Orthodox Church has proclaimed the same message of hope and salvation that Jesus Christ is the Word of God, equal in Divinity with the Father and the Holy Spirit; He came and lived among us mortals, suffered and was crucified, buried and rose from the dead on the third day, giving us Eternal Life, and making possible for all who desire to receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit, to live a truly transformed and Angelic way of life on earth.

Transformed lives involve the renewal of the mind [cf. Romans 12:2]. Since the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost, the task of the Church has been to go out and teach all people in their own languages, all that Christ had taught them, and then to baptise them [Matthew 28: 19-20, and Acts of the Apostles 2: 6].

This means that the Services and teaching of the Church must be understood completely by the people, wherever the Church finds itself.

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