Haevorae Week I Bright Week I White Week

From Feast of Holy Resurrection, the Feast of feasts, when we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord to Pentecost, emphasis is on resurrection and hope of faithful. The Resurrection of our Lord means death is conquered and that Devil and his forces are defeated. The first week of this season has been named as Haevorae Week. Haevorae Week starting from Resurrection Sunday to New Sunday is so named to mean as WHITE WEEK, since the 4th century onwards. It was practice that catechumens, who were taught basic faith during the Great Lent, were baptised, on Resurrection Sunday. They used wear to full white dress all the time, during this week. So during this week all faithful believers also joined with then wearing white. So the entire Church wore white dress. The whiteness of the baptismal robes and the wearing of white vestments contributed to the name “Bright Week,” radiating a bright white inside the Church. For the Resurrection season, white symbolizes the hope of the resurrection, as well as the purity and newness that comes from victory over sin and death. It is the time for the faithful to bear spiritual fruits and generate new virtues for our own illumination as well. Then, the newly baptized were given a white garment, symbolizing their new birth in Christ, symbolising to the spiritual light that Jesus has brought into the world.

This week is also known as BRIGHT WEEK or Renewal Week. The newly baptised catechumens are illumined and bright, a time for renewal and regeneration. They spent the week in prayers, so to receive their first Holy Communion on New Sunday. This is time of renewal for all Orthodox Christians, not just the newly baptised. Our old history ends with the cross; our new history begins with the resurrection. The next Sunday is the New Sunday. Throughout the Bright Week we celebrate, rejoice, and exalt our Lord for His sacrifice and ultimate victory over darkness and death. It is a time of intense rejoicing, reveling in the beauty and glory of Christ’s resurrection.

In the early Church the newly baptized received Holy Qurbana on that Day. As on this day the new Christians received Holy Qurbana for the first time, giving a new beginning in their life and hence is called New Sunday Puthu Nyajar. The name of each day of the week is called “Bright/Haevorae” (Haevorae Monday, Bright Monday and so on ) “from the Resurrection Sunday until New Sunday (St. Thomas Sunday) for a whole week the faithful should continually read psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, rejoicing and celebrating Christ, and attending to the reading of the Divine Scriptures and delighting in the Holy Mysteries. Thus, we be exalted with Christ; raised up together with Him. This also has significance to appearance of our Risen Lord to the disciples and St. Thomas (Jn. 20: 19-21), hence also called St. Thomas Sunday. This celebration is the beginning of our celebrations until Pentecost Day and includes the practice of the faithful joyously greeting each other with the salutation of ‘Christ is Risen‘, and a response ‘Indeed He is Risen or truly He is Risen, as the whole of creation is renewed by Our Lord and Savior.