Commentary to The Testimony of Egeria

A brief theological reflection serves as an introduction to an ancient description of Paschal liturgy in Jerusalem. There are two extant traces of the Jerusalem Holy Week liturgy: the catechesis of Bishop Cyril and the testimony of Egeria who went on a pilgrimage from Gaul to the Holy Land. The Holy Week in Jerusalem was devoted to tracing the sites of the Passion. 'The road' is a key concept in Christianity. The earthly life of Christ is composed of His exodus and a return from this world to His father. The life of Christians is an emulation of Christ and a path leading to the Home of the Father, while a pilgrimage and a procession are copies of that road, The very essence of Easter is such a recollection of the path traversed by Jesus, which offers participation in all that which is remembered, The Passover of Christ is not a part of the past but an eternal event, and the role of liturgy, including liturgical drama, is to guide towards eternity. This is probably the reason why the Egeria text continuously mentions infinite matters: luminescence, the glimmer of candles, and the voices of singers. If according to Nikolaus Harnoncourt it is worth performing only that sort of music, which proves alive today, then a return to the liturgical drama of yore even more so cannot denote a departure into the past. The description of an ancient (4th C.) Paschal liturgy in Jerusalem - 'Peregrinatio Aetherii' is attached (pp. 8-14)