To-day the sacred Pascha is made manifest to us, the new, the holy Pasch, the Pascha mystical, the Pascha all-rever’d, the Pascha, even Christ the ransomer, the Pascha undefil’d, the Pascha great, the faithful’s Pasch, the Pasch that opes the gates of Paradise to us, the Pasch that halloweth all that faithful be.
Verse. As smoke is driven away....
Come from that spectacle, ye women-gospellers, and unto Sion say, Receive from us the joyful tidings of Christ’s resurrection. Be fervent, dance, and joy, Jerusalem, beholding Christ the King proceed as bridegroom from the grave.
Verse. So let the sinners perish....
The women bearing myrrh at early dawn stood the Life-giver’s grave before, and found an angel sitting on the stone, and he, accosting them, spake thus, Why seek the living mid the dead? why the corruptless wail as though he in corruption were? Go, tell ye his disciples this!
Verse. This is the day which....
Pascha the fervent, Pascha, the Pascha of the Lord, the Pascha all-rever’d hath risen on us. It Pascha is, let us with joy each other greet. O Pascha, ransoming from grief! For, shining from the grave to-day, as bridegroom from a bridal-room, Christ hath with joy the women fill’d, saying, Tell the disciples this!
Glory. Both now.
It is the day of resurrection, and by the triumph be illuminate we, and we each other greet, and Brethren! to them that hate us say, and at the resurrection everything forgive; and on this wise let us exclaim,
Christ is risen from the dead, death by death down doth he tread, and on them that dwell in graves he bestoweth life. Three times.