Radonitsa: Sharing the Joy of Christ’s Resurrection with Our Departed

On 7 May 2019, Tuesday of the second week after Pascha, the day of Radonitsa, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in our church, led by the rector, Priest Igor Babakov.

Immediately after the Divine Liturgy the Paschal commemoration of the departed was served.

After the services a litiya was held at the cemetery of the Samarkand rural district.

“The name Radonitsa comes from the word ‘to rejoice’, for on this day we begin our prayer for the departed after the glorious event of the Resurrection of Christ.

We have celebrated Pascha, and Thomas Sunday has passed, which we call Antipascha, the day celebrated as Pascha by those who could not attend the Paschal service itself.

And now comes the third Pascha, the Pascha for the departed.

The Lord descended into hell, the Lord led out of hell all who wished to follow Christ, and the Lord can lead us out of hell too, if we wish to follow Christ. But do we wish to follow? If we wish to follow Christ, if our life is Christian, then our souls will be saved and we will rise in our bodies on the day when the Lord comes a second time, no longer to preach, but to bring the course of the days of this age to an end. Meanwhile we can rejoice that the mercy of God has touched us, and rejoice even more for our departed relatives. Why can we rejoice for them? Because they have been granted the greatest mercy: our prayers. We are, of course, sinful people, we are, of course, infirm and weak, but God grant that at least people like us will pray for us. Not very many people’s children come to church, not very many people’s children pray to the Lord, and it may turn out that there will be no one left to pray for us, that we will fail to raise the next generation of believers.

Blessed are our relatives: they have at least some people to pray for them, however weak and infirm. God grant that when we stand before God there will be someone to pray for us too. God grant that this prayer helps our souls to be freed from sin. One may wonder: how can a soul be freed from sin after death? Very simply. Sin, passion, is a sickness, and the Apostle Paul says, ‘Pray for one another, that you may be healed.’ What follows? It follows that for the sake of healing, and in order to be healed, we must pray for one another. But the main sickness is in the soul, not in the body, and the cause of bodily sickness is sickness of the soul; therefore, when people pray for us, it is above all our soul that is healed. But we are sinners, and sometimes we do not want to accept this grace of God into our hearts, and so we receive neither spiritual nor bodily healing. But when we die, when we realise our responsibility for all our misdeeds, then we will long for someone, anyone, to pray for us. And of course all the saints, and above all the Most Pure Virgin Theotokos, offer prayers for all the departed.

Through our feeble prayers, through the prayers of the Most Pure Virgin Theotokos and through the prayers of all the saints, may we be granted mercy, together with our departed loved ones and all Orthodox Christians who have fallen asleep from the ages.”