At the Aposticha. Resurrection Sticheron. Tone 2.

Then the Paschal Stichera with their verses.

Your Resurrection, O Christ Saviour, has enlightened the whole inhabited world; and you have called back your own creation. All-powerful Lord, glory to you!

Let God arise, and his enemies be scattered: and let those that hate him flee before his face.

A sacred Pascha has been revealed to us today, a new and holy Pascha, a mystic Pascha, an all-venerable Pascha, a Pascha that is Christ the Redeemer, an unblemished Pascha, a great Pascha, a Pascha of the faithful, a Pascha that has opened for us the gates of Paradise, a Pascha that makes all the faithful holy.

As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish, as wax melts before the fire.

Come from that sight, you women, bearers of good tidings, and say to Sion, Receive from us the good tidings of joy, of Christs Resurrection. Exult, dance and be glad, Jerusalem, for you have seen Christ the King like a bridegroom coming from the grave.

So shall the wicked perish at the presence of God; and let the just be glad.

The myrrh-bearing women at deep dawn came to the grave of the giver of life. They found an Angel sitting on the stone, and he addressed them and said, ‘Why do you seek the living with the dead? Why do you mourn the incorruptible as though he were in corruption? Go, proclaim it to his Disciples’.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

A Pascha of delight, Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha, an all-venerable Pascha has dawned for us, Pascha. Let us embrace one another with joy. O Pascha, ransom from sorrow! Today Christ shone forth from a tomb as from a bridal chamber, and filled the women with joy, saying, ‘Proclaim it to the Apostles!’

You, who wrap yourself in light as in a garment, Joseph with Nikodemos took down from the Tree. And when he saw you a naked, unburied corpse, in loving sympathy he raised the lament, and mourning said, ‘Alas! Most sweet Jesu, when the sun saw you but a little while ago hanging on a cross it wrapped itself in darkness and the earth was shaken by fear and the veil of the temple was rent. But see, I now look on you who willingly underwent death for my sake. How shall I bury you, my God? How wrap you in winding sheets? With what hands may I touch your immaculate body? Or what songs, O Merciful One, may I sing for your departure? I magnify your sufferings, and I praise your burial and your Resurrection, as I cry: Lord glory to you!’

**Same Tone.**

The day of Resurrection; let us be radiant for the festival, and let us embrace one another. Let us say, brethren, even to those that hate us, ‘Let us forgive all things on the Resurrection’, and so let us cry, ‘Christ has risen from the dead: by death he has trampled on death, and to those in the graves given life’.

Apolytikia. Tone 2.

When you went down to death, O immortal life, then you slew Hell with the lightning flash of your Godhead; but when from the depths below the earth you raised the dead, all the Powers in the heavens cried out: Giver of life, Christ our God, glory to you!

The noble Joseph, taking down your most pure Body from the Tree, wrapped it in a clean shroud with sweet spices and laid it for burial in a new grave. But on the third day you arose, O Lord, granting the world your great mercy.

The Angel standing by the grave cried to the women bearing myrrh, ‘Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but Christ has shown himself a stranger to corruption. But cry aloud: The Lord has risen, granting the world his great mercy’.

And Dismissal.