SUNDAY TROPARION OF THE THIRD TONE - Augustin Sokolovski

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Every Sunday is Little Easter. This is not an allegory or poetic image, but a reality of the spiritual and theological life of the Church. It is the experience of Christ's presence through the celebration of the Lord's Resurrection, the foundations of which lie in the earliest Christian history.

The name Little Easter is not a comparison to Great Easter. Rather, it indicates that everything that characterizes the celebration of Christ's Resurrection is also present every Sunday. This has a special dialectic. To ensure that the service is not completely repetitive, but also not entirely different from other Sundays, the principle of alternating eleven Sunday Gospel readings at Matins and eight liturgical tones is used. The readings and tones begin after the Pentecost and continue throughout the year.

Each festive service has its own troparion and kontakion. These are key hymns. They form a kind of summary and, at the same time, a motto for every celebration. The Little Easter also has eight troparia and eight kontakia, corresponding to the tone of every Sunday. They are all rich in content and represent a masterpiece of biblical and theological thought of the early Church and the time of the Holy Fathers. It is important to know the texts of the Sunday troparia and kontakia by heart.

The troparion of the third tone begins with the words: "Let the heavens rejoice, / let the earth be glad. / For the Lord has shown strength with His arm. / He has trampled down death by death."

"Let the heavens rejoice, / let the earth be glad." Our Creed calls God "the Creator of heaven and earth." Heaven and earth are the world of men and the world of angels. Heaven and earth are further the physical heavens and earth. Finally, heaven and earth are the Church of the saints and the Church of men on the way to eschatological fulfillment

The Church of the saints intercedes for the earthly Church. The Church on earth longs for unity with the Church in Heaven. This will happen at the end of world history.

The troparion of the Lesser Easter of the third tone proclaims the unity of heaven and earth in the joy and gladness achieved through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Many religions proclaim the dualism between heaven and earth. The Russian poet and composer Viktor Tsoi (1962-1990) expressed this in his song with the words: "There is war between heaven and earth." The biblical truth that Christ is risen guarantees that there is no longer any dualism between heaven and earth and that the enmity between them has been overcome.

"For the Lord has shown strength with His arm." The Resurrection of Christ was not a foregone conclusion. Had Jesus' earthly life ended with his death on the cross, it would have been the greatest triumph of evil in history. God the Father could have responded to Jesus' death in many ways. Christ's resurrection from the dead was God's unexpected, inexplicable, omnipotent, and infallible response to the death of his Son.

Christ's resurrection confirms the words of the Creed that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is omnipotent. He is the Almighty. "By his omnipotence," God raised his Son from the dead. He "showed the power of his hand," as the Troparion of the Resurrection proclaims.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (+200), one of the early Church Fathers and one of the first "professional theologians," declared: "The hands of God are the Son of God and the Holy Spirit." Christ's resurrection was not symbolic or figurative, but real and bodily. It is a dogma of faith and the seal of God's omnipotence.

Since the resurrection occurred by God's hand, one can rightly say that God raised Jesus, his Son, from the dead, and at the same time, one can say that Jesus himself rose from the dead. This twofold statement is based on the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and on the truth that Jesus rose from the dead by the omnipotence of the hand of God, that is, by the Holy Spirit.

"He has trampled down death by death." As already mentioned, the expression "Little Easter" is no comparison to the Great Easter of the Lord. Just as the future adult is already present in the body of a baby, and conversely, a child, our little human being, always lives in the adult, especially when he is lonely and frightening, so the Great Easter of the Lord is present every Sunday; it is breathing and giving life.

This is confirmed by the content of the hymns. The words of the Sunday troparion of the third tone, which proclaim that Christ conquered death through his death, literally repeat the troparion of Easter. Christ's Passover is celebrated in the liturgy of every Sunday.

The Book of Revelation is a promise that history is the preparation of the throne. It is realized day by day, visibly yet imperceptibly. It is proclaimed in liturgical texts with astonishing theological precision and spiritual beauty. And the Eucharist gives us the grace to live this Passover of Christ every day and every night of the entire week that begins on Sunday.