Saint Demetrios

There is a phenomenon known as the “Holy Week of St. Demetrios,” which is where they take the hymnography of Holy Week and adapt it to St. Demetrios, including an epitaphios service with encomia (aka praises, "lamentations") two nights before the Feast. It really felt like Holy Week this year because the Feast fell on Sunday. With Fr. Spyro’s blessing I went to as many things at St. Demetrios Church that week as I could. They do Orthros at 6:30 pm, with a three-ode Canon based on one of the Canons of Holy Week. Then follows the Paraklesis to the Panagia. After a short break, a vigil begins at 9:00 pm, the content of which varied by night. Mostly it was Vespers, Orthros, and Liturgy. One day they threw Paraklesis in there. Another day it was just Orthros and Liturgy. The vigils were generally well attended, some more than others. But there were always people. In the morning they did Orthros and Liturgy again. I never went to any morning Liturgies there because I have class every day.

Each year St. Demetrios is co-celebrated with a wonderworking Icon of the Panagia. In 2012 it was the Axion Estin (It is truly right) Icon from Mt. Athos, and the lines were out the door (I was in Thessaloniki from Oct 26-28 that year). This year they brought an Icon I had never heard of, Panagia Triphotissa from Ainon of eastern Thrace. I don’t know where that is, that’s just what it said in all the literature. In any case it was a great blessing to get to venerate both her and St. Demetrios every day that week.

I was torn where to go to church on October 26, the Feast Day of St. Demetrios. Half of me wanted to avoid the crowds and go to St. Haralambos (where there are always a lot of people on Sundays and Feast days, but not like at St. Demetrios on the Feast!). But what persuaded me to go to St. Demetrios that day was that I knew people would ask me something along the lines of, “Oh, you were in Thessaloniki. Were you there on October 26 for St. Demetrios? You were?! Did you go to his church on his Feast Day?” How anticlimactic it would be for me to say, “No, there were too many people.” How lame would that be! Now I went, I had the experience; and if I’m ever in Thessaloniki again for that Feast day, I will probably go to St. Haralambos, or somewhere else where there might be just a few fewer people. Fourteen bishops concelebrated at St. Demetrios, along with ten priests and four deacons (countless others were in attendance though).

Fourteen bishops. Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki was the main celebrant.

I got there after the Six Psalms, around 6:45 am or so (they started at 6:30). There were already a number of people there but I was able to find a place to stand right behind the roped-off area where the important people were to stand. It gradually filled up around me until I could hardly move.

For those of you liturgical nerds out there who know the set-up of Matins/Orthros, you may know that the practice of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is to switch the Orthros Gospel from its normal place before the Canon, to be read after the eighth ode instead, before More honorable than the cherubim. This so that the bishop can listen to and venerate the Gospel when he comes in at the Katavasies, and also so that the people who come to church late can hear the Gospel as well. The Church of Greece has largely corrected this and put the Gospel back at its proper place. However that day they did the inverted order. The bishop came after the canon and began the Katavasiae, then they read the Gospel, brought it out for him to venerate, and then brought out TWO Gospel books for the people to venerate! I think that was pretty smart. The church was not packed like sardines yet, but there were still a lot of people - definitely way more people than any church in America would have at Communion time on a normal Sunday, but still not nearly full!

Two Gospel books for veneration at Orthros

The veneration of the two Gospel books lasted through the 50^th psalm, through the deacon’s petition O God, Save Thy People, and halfway through More honorable than the Cherubim, at which point one priest took his Gospel to the back of the church to place on a stand for veneration by late-comers (as is the normal Greek parish practice), and the other priest took his Gospel book back into the Altar. I’m also sure that not everyone venerated because there were people upstairs in the balconies, as well as those who were in the line to venerate St. Demetrios. That gives you an idea of how many people were there at that time, and that was when you could still move around in the church. Later on, forget it (see next paragraph).

This gives you some idea of how many people there were.

More people in the balconies

All the important political/military people. I was right behind them.

Communion was interesting, to say the least. There were no chalices on the solea, because that’s where everyone was still in line to venerate the Panagia and St. Demetrios. They had instead multiple chalices at the front of the side aisles of the church, and even one in the courtyard! It was chaos getting up there. Someone accidentally knocked over the icon of the Panagia weeping at the foot of the Cross (there is a free-standing crucifix with the Panagia and St. John the Theologian on the left side of the church). Most of the clergy distributing Communion were not the ones who had concelebrated at the Liturgy, but those who had communed, put on an epitrachili (stole), and had the chalices to commune people. I think that was very smart, because the official “Communion time” during the Liturgy lasted for about a minute, and then they continued the Liturgy while the non-celebrating priests and deacons communed people on the sides of the church. I communed long after the Liturgy had finished.

The daily vigils and morning Liturgies are celebrated each day for two whole weeks – one week before the feast and one week after. This culminates with the Ἀκολουθία τοῦ καθαγιασμοῦ τοῦ μύρου τοῦ Ἁγίου Δημητρίου – the service of the sanctification of the myrrh of Saint Demetrios. This takes place one week after the Feast. The church was packed full of people who all wanted to see what was happening. The Metropolitan of Thessaloniki was there along with a ton of priests. They did a short 30-minute Vespers, and then the metropolitan talked and then began the service where there were basically some prayers, and then the choirs chanted the megalynaria from St. Demetrios’s Paraklesis (the hymns chanted at the end, after It is truly right). They repeated the megalynaria many times because it was during that time that the clergy opened the reliquary and (from the very little that I could see) rubbed cotton on the bones of the Saint to absorb the myrrh that he exhudes. Then they brought out two giant bowls of man-made myrrh which they use to make it go farther – somehow they mix the myrrh of St. Demetrios with the man-made myrrh and put it onto cotton balls to give to the faithful. It’s something to be proud of if you have connections and can get a cotton swab with only the myrrh straight from the Saint’s relics on it. I don’t...

The bishop, priests, and a bunch of people crowding around the relics during the myrrh service.

After the conclusion of this service one of the priests began Orthros immediately, and another priest interrupted the Six Psalms to announce that there were going to be ten priests distributing the myrrh, five on each side of the church (if I remember correctly), and to ask everyone to remain calm and orderly. Orthros lasted about an hour and people were going steadily to receive myrrh from the priests. They stopped distributing when Liturgy started. I didn’t realize that so I didn’t get any myrrh, because I was waiting until the line died down. Right before Communion a random young man stopped me and said (in Greek), “did you get myrrh?” I told him no and he pulled a small plastic pouch with a cotton ball out of his pocket and gave it to me. I asked him how he knew me and I forget what he told me (it was something that made sense – mutual friends. We had met somewhere before), but I did not remember him at all. That was very providential!

Last week I was talking on Google chat with one of my former professors from HC/HC and I was telling him a little bit of the above information about St. Demetrios (whom he loves). He was asking about the lines to venerate the relics. From what I could tell there was a pretty steady line during the early evening hours, during either Vespers or that “Bridegroom Matins-ish” service the week before the feast. During the vigil it was not as long and I could go during Orthros or Liturgy to venerate and not wait in line. I don’t know what the morning services were like, or what it was like during the day, but there were quite a few people venerating St. Demetrios and Panagia Triphotissa for two whole weeks! It’s pretty awesome! And on the Feast day you could wait several hours to venerate (I’m guessing), in a very long line - I got there before 7am and only waited 15 minutes. This professor told me he wanted to co-author a book with one of the other professors, about "cities, liturgies, and St. Demetrios." J