Holy Wednesday - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Holy Wednesday - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In Christianity, Holy Wednesday or Spy Wednesday,^[1] also called Holy and Great Wednesday in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, is the Wednesday of Holy Week, the week before Easter. It is followed by Maundy Thursday.

In the New Testament, just after Palm Sunday, the Sanhedrin gathered together and plotted to kill Jesus, even before the feast of Pesach.[2] On the Wednesday before his death, Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the Leper. As they sat at the supper table, a woman named Mary anointed Jesus' head and feet with costly oil of spikenard.[3] The disciples were indignant, asking why the oil was not instead sold and the money given to the poor.[4] But Judas wanted to keep the money for himself.[5][6] Then Judas went to the Sanhedrin and offered to deliver Jesus to them in exchange for money. From this moment on, Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.[7]

In the Orthodox Church, the theme of Holy and Great Wednesday is the commemoration of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus before his Crucifixion and Burial; a second theme is the agreement to betray Jesus made by Judas Iscariot.

The day begins with the celebration of the Presanctified Liturgy on Tuesday afternoon. Later that evening (in parish practice) or early the following morning, the matins follows the special Holy Week format known as the Bridegroom Service. Towards the end of matins, the Hymn of Kassiani is sung. The hymn, (written in the 9th century by Kassia) tells of the woman who washed Christ's feet in the house of Simon the Leper. (Luke 7:36-50) Much of the hymn is written from the perspective of the sinful woman:

O Lord, the woman who had fallen into many sins, sensing Your Divinity, takes upon herself the duty of a myrrh-bearer. With lamentations she brings you myrrh in anticipation of your entombment. "Woe to me!" she cries, "for me night has become a frenzy of licentiousness, a dark and moonless love of sin. Receive the fountain of my tears, O You who gather into clouds the waters of the sea. Incline unto me, unto the sighings of my heart, O You who bowed the heavens by your ineffable condescension. I will wash your immaculate feet with kisses and dry them again with the tresses of my hair; those very feet at whose sound Eve hid herself in fear when she heard You walking in Paradise in the twilight of the day. As for the multitude of my sins and the depths of Your judgments, who can search them out, O Savior of souls, my Savior? Do not disdain me Your handmaiden, O You who are boundless in mercy."

The Byzantine musical composition expresses the poetry so strongly that it often leaves many people in a state of prayerful tears. The Hymn can last upwards of 25 minutes and is liturgically and musically a highpoint of the entire year.

In reference to Judas Iscariot's intent to betray Jesus, formed on Holy Wednesday, the day is sometimes called "Spy Wednesday".