The
Sarantaleiturgo is forty consecutive Divine Liturgies that start from
November 15th and end on December 25th, Christmas Day. Every morning the
priest recites thousands of names of the deceased, or as many have been
submitted to him, during the Divine Liturgy. It is especially for those
Christians who did not live a pious and devoted life close to the
Church, and perhaps encountered death with no time for repentance. Since
the Orthodox Church firmly believes there is no repentance in Hades, it
is up to the persistent appeal of the Church to help those lost souls
find rest and salvation, whether we offer alms in their name or have
their names commemorated by priests during the bloodless sacrifice of
the Divine Liturgy.
Below is a story told by Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou that highlights the importance of this practice of celebrating forty consecutive liturgies during the Nativity season, which is the traditional period to do them:
I told a certain priest who serves in a community with few residents, to start doing the Sarantaleiturgo of Christmas. And the good priest told me:
"But, Your Eminence, our village has few residents, we don't even have regular chanters, how will I do a Sarantaleiturgo?"
"Get a woman to say a 'Lord have mercy,' an 'Amen,' and a 'Grant this, O Lord,'" I told him.
Indeed, this priest began doing the Sarantaleiturgo four years ago. In the third year, during the Christmas season, he comes to me excited and says:
"Thank you for making me do the Sarantaleiturgo, because you became the reason for the Divine Liturgy to be for me not just 'acoustic' (he had found chanters), not just an audible reading of prayers, but it also became visible. I saw it with my own eyes!"
"Lord have mercy! What did you see?" I asked him.
And he said to me:
"In the morning I memorialized 2,000 names in my Prothesis and then I started the Liturgy. At the point when I said, 'Especially for our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary,' and the chanter began to chant outside the 'Axion esti,' the sanctuary, which you know is very small, began to open until it became a huge hole. There I saw standing all those whom I had commemorated in the Prothesis. There were also people whom I buried in recent years, but also people from other villages, which I knew and have in my list. In fact, I could also see everyone's disposition. Sometimes I saw them bright, sometimes sad, sometimes black, sometimes gray. There was also so-and-so, who died of cancer at a young age a few years ago, and he shone so brightly that he radiated light to those around him. Addressing all of them, those I saw, I asked them in a low voice so as not for the chanter to hear me outside:
'What do you want?'
And they all leaned with a slight tilt and said to me:
'We thank you, Father,' and they left.*
Below is a story told by Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou that highlights the importance of this practice of celebrating forty consecutive liturgies during the Nativity season, which is the traditional period to do them:
I told a certain priest who serves in a community with few residents, to start doing the Sarantaleiturgo of Christmas. And the good priest told me:
"But, Your Eminence, our village has few residents, we don't even have regular chanters, how will I do a Sarantaleiturgo?"
"Get a woman to say a 'Lord have mercy,' an 'Amen,' and a 'Grant this, O Lord,'" I told him.
Indeed, this priest began doing the Sarantaleiturgo four years ago. In the third year, during the Christmas season, he comes to me excited and says:
"Thank you for making me do the Sarantaleiturgo, because you became the reason for the Divine Liturgy to be for me not just 'acoustic' (he had found chanters), not just an audible reading of prayers, but it also became visible. I saw it with my own eyes!"
"Lord have mercy! What did you see?" I asked him.
And he said to me:
"In the morning I memorialized 2,000 names in my Prothesis and then I started the Liturgy. At the point when I said, 'Especially for our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary,' and the chanter began to chant outside the 'Axion esti,' the sanctuary, which you know is very small, began to open until it became a huge hole. There I saw standing all those whom I had commemorated in the Prothesis. There were also people whom I buried in recent years, but also people from other villages, which I knew and have in my list. In fact, I could also see everyone's disposition. Sometimes I saw them bright, sometimes sad, sometimes black, sometimes gray. There was also so-and-so, who died of cancer at a young age a few years ago, and he shone so brightly that he radiated light to those around him. Addressing all of them, those I saw, I asked them in a low voice so as not for the chanter to hear me outside:
'What do you want?'
And they all leaned with a slight tilt and said to me:
'We thank you, Father,' and they left.*
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
-----------------------------
* Another time the Metropolitan gave more details about this story:
"One
of our priests a few years ago, when I urged him and said to him: 'Come
on, my Father, now that you are young, that you have health, become a
Sarantaleiturgist.' 'But I don't have a chanter, for us Triada is mountainous...' and it was difficult for him to obey me. I, on the other hand, had understood and remained silent. Well,
one year, his good papadia [wife of a priest] said something to him,
perhaps because one of his own reposed, and he said: 'From this year I will do a
Sarantaleiturgo. Well, I at least owe it to the Bishop.' By
the end of the forty days, all those he commemorated he saw during the
time when the chanter outside was singing 'Axion esti'. 'The sanctuary opened and it became a huge hole and in there were those I commemorated. Some were very, very high in the Light and others were in like the gray area, but all said to me: We thank you, Father!'"
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
