Holy Saturday – April 19, 2025. Last day of Holy Week. Hardoning foods in the churches

Today is a great Saturday. Easter foods, brought by the faithful, are blessed in the churches. This year, Orthodox and faithful to other Eastern rites have Easter at the same time as Catholics.

On Holy Saturday, the church does not celebrate the Holy Mass. However, the liturgy of hours is celebrated, popularly called the breviary. There are also no weddings or other sacraments, except for confession and anointing of the sick.

In Poland, this day is being blessed for the festive table. Catholics come to the temple with baskets filled with eggs, sausages, bread, salt and sometimes also sweets. In baskets you can also find branches of boxwood and a sugar lamb – a symbol of the risen Jesus.

After dusk, the most important liturgy in the year called the Easter Vigil, which belongs to the Sunday of the Resurrection, is celebrated in the church. The liturgy consists of four parts.

It begins with the sacrifice of fire and paschal inflammation. During the Eucharist, baptismal water is sacrificed and the renewal of the promises of the sacrament of baptism.

Easter in the Eastern Church

Also in the Eastern Churches today is Holy Saturday – this year Orthodox and faithful to other Eastern rites have Easter at the same time as Catholics. On Holy Saturday, the faithful visit the symbolic graves of the Lord, clergy celebrate foods, also reaching the town where there is no church.

Due to a slightly different way of calculating its date, Easter in both rites – western and eastern – is celebrated at the same time only once in a while. Mostly Orthodox celebrate Catholics, and the difference can be even five -weekly.