Orthodox Devotional — Great and Holy Thursday
Orthodox Devotional — Great and Holy Thursday
April 9, 2026
🕯️ Commemorations
Great and Holy Thursday — The Mystical Supper, the Washing of the Feet, the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, the Betrayal of our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane.
- Martyr Eupsychius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia (362) — Suffered under Julian the Apostate for his faith in Christ.
- Martyrs Desan (Bishop), Mariabus (Presbyter), Abdiesus, and 270 others in Persia (363–364) — A great company of witnesses who sealed their confession with blood.
- Monastic Martyr Bademus (Vadim) of Persia (376) — Abbot and martyr, who endured imprisonment and suffering for Christ.
📖 Scripture: Isaiah 50:4–11 (The Third Servant Song)
Read at Vespers of Holy Thursday — the Suffering Servant foretold
4 “The Lord gives Me the tongue of the learned, so as to know when to speak a word at a fitting time; and He causes My ear to listen each morning. 5 The Lord’s instruction opens My ears, and I am not disobedient, nor do I contradict Him.
6 I gave My back to whips, and My cheeks to blows; and I turned not away My face from the shame of spitting. 7 The Lord became My helper; therefore, I was not disgraced. But I made My face like a solid rock and knew I would not be ashamed. 8 For He who pronounces Me righteous draws near. Who is he who judges Me? Let him oppose Me at the same time. Who is he who judges Me? Let him come near Me.
9 Behold, the Lord will help Me. Who will harm Me? Behold, all of you will grow old like a garment, and old age will devour you, as a moth does a garment.
10 Who among you fears the Lord? Let him listen to the voice of His Servant. You who walk in darkness and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon God.
11 Behold, all of you kindle a fire and feed a flame. Walk in the light of your fire and the flame you kindled. This happened to you for My sake, and you shall lie down in sorrow.“
(St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint — Orthodox Study Bible)
Orthodox Study Bible Note: This passage is appointed for Holy Thursday and Holy Friday in the Orthodox lectionary. The Church reads it as the prophetic voice of Christ Himself — the willing Servant who opens His ear each morning to the Father, who does not resist suffering, who sets His face “like a solid rock” toward the Cross. Seven centuries before the Passion, Isaiah hears the Servant say: “I gave My back to whips.” The obedience of the Second Adam undoes the disobedience of the first.
📖 Scripture: John 13:1–17 (The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet)
Read at the Divine Liturgy of Holy Thursday
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
2 And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”
10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. 16 Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
(New King James Version — Orthodox Study Bible)
Orthodox Study Bible Note: The phrase “He loved them to the end” (v. 1) is layered with meaning: to the end of His earthly life, yes — but also fully, completely, without reserve. The King of the universe girds Himself with a towel. He who is Master becomes the lowest servant. In Orthodoxy, this act is not only a moral lesson in humility — it is a theophany. The one who washes feet is the one who “from God came and to God was going” (v. 3). Divine love does not remain at a distance; it kneels and touches what is unclean to make it clean.
📖 Scripture: 1 Corinthians 11:23–32 (The Institution of the Holy Eucharist)
The Apostolic Tradition received from the Lord Himself
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. 31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
(New King James Version — Orthodox Study Bible)
Orthodox Study Bible Commentary — THE EUCHARIST:
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks [Gr. eucharistesas], He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’”
With these words St. Paul instructs the Corinthians concerning the Eucharist — the giving of thanks. For the first thousand years of Christian history, when the Church was visibly one and undivided, the holy gifts of the Body and Blood of Christ were received as just that: His Body and Blood. The Church confessed this was a mystery: The bread is truly His Body, that which is in the cup is truly His Blood, but one cannot say how they become so.
Paul says those who receive Christ’s Body and Blood unworthily bring condemnation upon themselves — “many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep” (v. 30). A mere symbol, a quarterly reminder, could hardly have the power to cause sickness and death.
🪔 Reflection
Three images converge on this holy night, and they are one:
The Servant of Isaiah girds His face like stone and walks toward the whips and the spitting — not because He is powerless to stop it, but because the Father’s voice has been in His ear since morning. He has listened. He will not contradict.
The King at table rises, wraps a towel around His waist, and kneels at the feet of men who will scatter. Love does not wait for worthiness. It acts. “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
And then the Bread — broken, given, “This is My body… This cup is the new covenant in My blood.” The Church has kept these words for two thousand years without fully explaining them, and that is precisely the point. Some things are not to be analyzed but received — on one’s knees, with an open hand.
Holy Thursday is the night when God demonstrates what love actually looks like. It is not an idea. It bends low. It bleeds. It feeds.
All scripture from The Orthodox Study Bible (St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint / NKJV). Commentary excerpts © 2008 St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology.
Feast readings confirmed via OCA lectionary (oca.org/readings, April 9, 2026).