At 11:00 p.m. on Holy Friday, April 18, 2025, the Epitaph Service—the Divine Burial of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ—was held at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
For this service, the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, accompanied by Metropolitan Makarios of Ainea of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who was their guest, and led by Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, proceeded to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the bells tolled mournfully.
They passed through the Deposition from the Cross and the Holy Sepulchre and entered the Catholicon.
There, the Canon of Great Saturday was chanted until the Patriarch instructed the priests to vest, and the Hierarchs and Priests put on their liturgical garments.
Once vested, the procession exited the Catholicon, turned right towards the Franciscan Shrine “Touch Me Not”, where a supplication with exclamation was offered. The procession then moved through the Holy Shrines—those of the Nails, Saint Longinus, “They divided My garments among them”, the Crown of Thorns, and Adam’s Chapel—and ascended to the Sacred Golgotha.
There, the Gospel of the Crucifixion of Christ was read, a supplication was offered, and veneration was made by the Patriarch, the Hierarchs, the Consul General of Greece in Jerusalem, Dimitrios Angelosopoulos, and the Consul, Petros Anagnostaras.
Then, four Hierarchs lifted the silk corporal bearing the Body of the Lord, which had been reverently prepared on the Holy Altar of Sacred Golgotha, and descended, placing it on the Stone of the Holy Deposition.
At that moment, His Beatitude read the corresponding Gospel passage concerning the Deposition from the Cross and the Burial of the Lord by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the secret disciple of the Lord.
Following this, the procession continued around the Holy Sepulchre three times, with the chanting of the chief cantor of the Church of the Resurrection, Deacon Eustathios, and those assisting him.
After the procession, the chanting of the Lamentations began, led by His Beatitude, the Hierarchs, the chanters, and the congregation in three Stases. At the end of the three Stases and before the Exaposteilaria, a sermon was delivered in Greek by the Elder Chief Secretary, Archbishop Aristarchos of Constantine, as follows:
“Your Beatitude, Father and Master,
Revered Assembly of Hierarchs,
Your Excellency, Consul General of Greece,
Devout Priests,
Pious Pilgrims,Today, at the close of Holy and Great Friday and on the threshold of Holy and Great Saturday, in this deeply moving and majestic service of the Epitaph, the Church experiences within herself, presents to her members, and proclaims to the whole world the mystery of the Cross and Burial of the Son and Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, looking toward His Resurrection.
Once again, the Church declares that which the Prophets foresaw and foretold through the Holy Spirit, and that which the eyewitnesses, the Disciples, the Apostles, and the Mystics of the Lord beheld with their eyes and handled with their hands.
For out of the utmost love for mankind, God the Father was well pleased, and His Only Begotten Son—”who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18)—took upon Himself, from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, human flesh endowed with reason and soul. “He was born secretly in a cave,” and He dwelt among men. All this came to pass not by a change in place, but by divine condescension, for as the hymnographer of the Akathist declares: “He was wholly among those below, yet in no wise absent from those above, the Uncircumscribable Word.” In His one Divine-Human hypostasis and in His two natures—divine and human—the Son and Word of God, being God Himself, blessed mankind in manifold ways.
He fulfilled the perfect law of love, not only toward one’s neighbour but even toward one’s enemies. He healed the incurable, raised the dead—among them His friend Lazarus of Bethany, whom He raised on the fourth day.
He, as the “Deliverer of our souls,” healing on the Sabbath, often taught the true liberty of man in contrast to the rigid observance of the Sabbath law, saying, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This teaching became the chief false accusation and slander brought against Him, for which He was arrested by the rulers of the Jews and condemned to death—even the death of the Cross—by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
In obedience to the good pleasure and will of the Father, He willingly accepted the Cross on our behalf: “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Of His own will, He shed His blood for the whole of humanity upon this Dread and Holy Place. With His Most Pure Blood, He signed the New Testament for all the peoples of the earth.
While, as the Apostle to the Gentiles declares, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But Christ died for the ungodly, while we were yet without strength” (Romans 5:6–7). This was the divine providence of God for our salvation. For, as it is written, “the Greeks by wisdom knew not God” (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:21), and the Jews, bound by legal ritualism, sought for a sign—“Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe” (Mark 15:32). Therefore, it pleased God by the “foolishness of preaching” to save them that believe—through Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
The Cross of Christ is, indeed, foolishness unto the Greeks, and a stumbling block unto the Jews; but unto us which believe, it is “the power of God unto salvation” (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18, 24). This was the will of God: that through the Blood of His Son’s Cross, “the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6). Into this inheritance were joined all the Churches to which the Apostle Paul sent his epistles. They were joined into one body—the Body of Christ, which is the Church—“where there is neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free” (Colossians 3:11).
This is praised succinctly by Saint Gregory the Theologian, who proclaimed: “I love thee, O Hellas, for thou didst eagerly make way for Christ.”
God, in His condescension to our human race, granted unto us His Son, Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen. Our human nature was made alive through His Incarnation and through the life-giving Blood of the Cross. Christ descended for our sakes by means of the Cross into Hades and preached repentance to those held there from of old. But Hades could not hold Him; it had no power over Him. He rose again, and as the Great High Priest, “Jesus the Son of God… is passed into the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14), and “is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24).
The Risen Christ raised our human nature with Him, lifted our assumed flesh into the heavens, seated it at the right hand of the Father, and deified it.
Grateful for such a great benefaction, and following the words of Saint John of Damascus, we, too, “venerate the instruments and the places of the divine Passion—the Precious Wood, whereon Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice—for it was sanctified by the touch of His holy body and blood. Rightly do we venerate the nails, the spear, His garments, and His sacred dwelling places: the manger, the cave, Golgotha, the life-giving Tomb, holy Sion, the acropolis of all Churches.”
The cornerstone of all the Churches is the Precious Cross of Christ and His glorious Resurrection—Golgotha the Horrendous, and this blessed and life-giving Sepulchre, the All-Holy and Life-giving Tomb. From these sacred dwellings, and by their power, the Church of Sion—she who first received the remission of sins through the Resurrection—continues, under the wise and spiritual leadership of her Primate and the celebrant of our feast, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos, to carry out her pastoral, reconciling, and peace-making ministry for the unity of the Orthodox Churches in Christ Jesus. She welcomes the devout pilgrims and sanctifies them through the Precious and Life-giving Cross, chanting:
“Rejoice, O life-bearing Cross,
Thou beautiful paradise of the Church,
Thou tree of incorruption that hath blossomed forth unto us the enjoyment of eternal glory.
By thee the hosts of devils are driven away,
And the choirs of Angels rejoice together.
The assemblies of the faithful keep festival.
O unconquerable weapon,
O firm foundation of rulers,
O victory of priests,
O glory of the Cross—
Grant us also to attain unto the Passion of Christ,
And unto His holy Resurrection.”
(Stichera of the Vespers for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross)
This was followed by the Evlogetaria, the Praises, and the Doxology, during which His Beatitude and the Hierarchs venerated the Holy Tomb.
After the Doxology concluded, the Patriarchal entourage dismissed the service at the Catholicon and returned to the Patriarchate in anticipation of the Holy Light ceremony.
