Showing posts with label Viri Galilei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Viri Galilei. Show all posts

Saturday, March 30, 2013

A day of waiting. The Epitaphios

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I always think that for my Christian friends Holy Saturday must be the saddest day of the religious year.
As a Jew I can't even bear to imagine what it must be like, thinking of one's lord and master lying alone in a cold and dark tomb.
All the more so for the original disciples, for they did not know that Easter would come so soon, if at all.


My two photos are from the seldom-visited Greek Orthodox church Viri Galilei, on the Mount of Olives.

Orthodox Wiki explains the epitaphios:

The Epitaphios (Greek: Επιτάφιος, epitaphios, or Επιτάφιον, epitaphion; Slavonic: Плащаница, plashchanitsa; Arabic: نعش, naash)
is an icon, today most often found as a large cloth, embroidered and often richly adorned, which is used during the services of Great Friday and Holy Saturday .
 It also exists in painted or mosaic form, on walls or panels.
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The icon depicts Christ after he has been removed from the cross, lying supine, as his body is being prepared for burial.
The scene is taken from the Gospel of St. John 19:38-42.
Shown around him, and mourning his death, may be his mother (the Theotokos; John the beloved disciple; Joseph of Arimathea; and Mary Magdalene, as well as angels. Nicodemus and others may also be depicted.

Usually, the troparion of the day is embroidered around the edges of the icon:
The Noble Joseph, taking Thy most pure body down from the Tree and having wrapped it in pure linen and spices, laid it in a new tomb.
UPDATE 2018: See more about the epitaphios here:
https://russianicons.wordpress.com/2018/02/25/two-plashchanitsa-inscriptions/
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Saturday, May 26, 2012

A white donkey waiting on the Mt. of Olives

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A white donkey!!
A friend and I were on the Mount of Olives for Ascension Day and we just happened to happen upon a white donkey!

Jewish tradition says that when the messiah comes, he will enter the Old City through the Gate of Mercy (the Golden Gate), mounted on a WHITE DONKEY.
(See some surprising things about that in Wikipedia.)

But getting back to the donkey in the photo . . . he was standing within the big and beautiful olive-tree planted area of Viri Galilei that overlooks new and old Jerusalem.
You can see the Greek Orthodox church in back of the donkey.

The name of the church is taken from Acts1:11 which quotes the two angels who said to the apostles "Men of Galilee [viri galilei in Latin], why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
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(A post for Camera-Critters meme.)
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