UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE USA
CONSISTORY OFFICE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
PRESS RELEASE

Holy and Great Friday at St. Volodymyr Cathedral, Chicago, IL!
By Subdeacon Vasyl Pasakas

Holy Friday! What a solemn day in the life of any Christian.  On this day the Church commemorates the sufferings of Christ: the mockery, the crown of thorns, the scourging, the nails, the thirst, the vinegar and gall, the cry of desolation, and all the Savior endured on the Cross.

The day of Christ's death is the day of sin. The sin which polluted God's creation from the breaking dawn of time reached its frightful climax on the hill of Golgotha. There, sin and evil, destruction and death came into their own. Ungodly men had Him nailed to the Cross, in order to destroy Him. However, His death condemned irrevocably the fallen world by revealing its true and abnormal nature.

The day of Christ's death has become our true birthday. This is the culmination of the observance of His Passion by which our Lord suffered and died for our sins.

St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago, IL was once again a spiritual place, to which hundreds of people came on Friday night to participate in the Vespers service, at which the Holy Shroud is brought out of the sanctuary and placed in the midst of the faithful for veneration.

The ruling hierarch of the Western Eparchy of the UOC of the USA, His Grace Bishop Daniel prayerfully led the evening service. In his short remarks, the bishop directed the attention of the faithful to the profound and awesome event of the death and burial of God in the flesh, as it is marked by a particular kind of silence. Bishop Daniel invited everyone to enter into the mystery of the tomb of Christ, putting our hopes and prayers at His feet, so that we can come out on Pascha morning and proclaim to the world that the Lord has Risen!

Following the services at the cathedral, the bishop traveled to Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bensenville, IL and Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Palos Park, IL to visit with the faithful and to venerate the shroud of Christ in each of the parochial temples.