Tomorrow is Holy Saturday; its history and spiritual meaning

Great Saturday is a "controversial" and "mysterious" day of Holy Week. "Controversial" because it combines mourning for Jesus Christ who died on the cross and the knowledge of his imminent resurrection - therefore, in the church liturgy on this day, both mournful and festive notes are heard. "Mysterious" because the Gospels say little about it: for example, Christ's descent into hell is known mainly from the non-canonical (but not condemned by the church) Gospel of Nicodemus.

The removal of Jesus from the cross is described in all four Gospels. The most complete is from the Evangelist Mark: "Then Joseph of Arimathea, a famous member of the council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God, came and dared to go in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was amazed that He was already dead. And calling the centurion, he asked him how long ago He had died? And when he learned from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph."

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Pilate's surprise was natural - usually those executed suffered on the cross for several days. Theologians see Divine Providence in the fact that Jesus was on the cross "only" six hours - after all, on Saturday, the Jews were strictly forbidden any activity, including burial. Consequently, the followers of Christ had to have time before the Sabbath to get permission from Pilate, remove the body and perform the burial in accordance with accepted customs.

Let us recall that Jesus did not die like an ordinary person - according to the Gospel of Matthew, darkness fell on the earth for three hours (that is, it was not a solar eclipse) and an earthquake occurred - so that those soldiers who guarded the body of Jesus on the cross so that it would not be taken down, "were greatly afraid and said: truly this was the Son of God." An interesting detail - Matthew does not mention the apostles in this episode, but speaks only of the women who were at the place of execution, among whom he names Mary Magdalene, and also, indirectly, the mother of Jesus. John Chrysostom later wrote that he has no explanation for the absence of the apostles.

Jesus was taken down from the cross - as Matthew says, "Joseph of Arimathea took the body", he "wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock; and, rolling a large stone to the door of the tomb, he departed." (By "coffin" here we must understand the burial cave, the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea carved out of the rock in his domain).

The mentioned shroud became one of the main Christian relics and was first kept in the Constantinople Church of St. Sophia, and then, during the Crusades, it came to Europe and is now in a special ark in Turin in the Church of John the Baptist, which is why it was called the Turin Shroud. In recent years, it has been carefully studied by scientists using modern methods, from which conclusions were made about the appearance of Christ, the wounds inflicted on him during the scourging, etc.

As was already written above, the classical Gospels mention very little about the descent of Christ into hell. There is an opinion that Christ led Adam, Eve and the souls of all the Old Testament righteous people out of hell to the heavenly abodes, where before that only Elijah, Enoch and the "wise thief" (the one of the two thieves who, being crucified next to Christ, believed in him, although at first he scolded him) were. Moreover, from the apocryphal "Gospel of Nicodemus" its commentators conclude that, according to the author, hell has always existed, and paradise originates from the appearance of Christ, who transformed the universe.

Photo: Christ leads the souls of the righteous out of hell