as well as Sunday. The church also has a special cycle of Bible readings (Epistle and Gospel) for Saturdays and Sundays which is different from the cycle of readings allotted to weekdays. However, Lord's Day, being a celebration of the Resurrection, is clearly given more emphasis. For instance, in the Russian Orthodox Church Sunday is always observed with an All-Night Vigil on Saturday night, and in all of the Orthodox Churches it is amplified with special hymns which are chanted only on Sunday. If a feast day falls on a Sunday it is always combined with the hymns for Sunday (unless it is a Great Feast of the Lord). Saturday is celebrated as a sort of leave-taking for the previous Sunday, on which several of the hymns from the previous Sunday are repeated. In part, the reason Orthodox Christians continue to celebrate Saturday as Sabbath is because of its role in the history of salvation: it was on a Saturday that Jesus "rested" in the tomb after his work on the cross. For this reason also, Saturday is a day for general commemoration of the departed, and special requiem hymns are often chanted on this day. The Ethiopian Orthodox church (part of the Oriental Orthodox communion, having about 40 million members) observes both Saturday and Sunday as holy, but places extra emphasis on Sunday. See also Lord's Day Observance Society Sabbath in Christianity Saint Kyriake Shabbat Friday prayer References Further reading From Sabbath to Lord's Day: A Biblical, Historical and Theological Investigation, D.A. Carson, editor (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1982). The Study of Liturgy, Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, SJ, and Paul Bradshaw, editors (New York, N.Y.:Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 456–458. From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity, Samuele Bacchiocchi, (Rome, Italy,:Pontifical Gregorian University Press 1977) External links Dies Domini, Pope John Paul II, On Keeping the Lord's Day Holy Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity, Part 3: Irenaeus, and "the Lord's Day" Francis Turretin, On the Lord's Day Early Church dot org dot UK list and links to related works Christian Sunday observances Sunday Easter liturgy Christian terminology Biblical phrases