We are days away from entering the most sacred week in the church year. On Saturday with the rememberence of Lazarus' Resurrection, we begin Holy Week, with the glorious entrance of our Lord into the Heavenly City. Holy Week culminates His eternal/earthly work of salvation, by suffering, dying, being buried and rising again from the dead early on the First Easter morning.
On March 22, Holy Saturday, we observe the Holy Sabbath, the Lord Jesus' own Rest from His work which he accomplished on the Cross. In honor of His Rest, in the belly of the Earth, all Christendom pauses and reflects the fullfillment of His Sabbath Rest. Rightly, the faithful are historically required according to Church discipline, to fast and observe the Lord's Rest with great vigilance and austerity--the perfectly reasonable conclusion to our 40 day period of penence.
This ancient practice has been badly neglected by most of Christendom over the passage of the years. Even among our own Armenian Orthodox Churches, odd and heterodox practices have arisen over the years, especially in the American Dioceses. One, with which I take great exception is the Saturday Morning Communion breakfast, where children come to church on Holy Saturday, only hours after the "Burial/Entombment" Service and receive Communion by the priest, after which the children enter the church hall for a glorious breakfast, with pancakes, bacon, sausage, syrup, jelly and many other delicious things! Some churches even distribute easter chocolate and break eggs with prizes being given to the winner of the contest.
The parish expects the priest to participate in this childish fun and fellowship. Any priest who would opt out or even discourage this children's event would be considered, cold, callous, conservative, unreasonable, unwilling to change with the times, stuck in the mud, and many other non-flattering adjectives.
I do not know who started this practice, who allowed it or why it is done, although i have some ideas, but it is in complete contradiction to our holy, and orthodox tradition. I cannot understand why any Armenian, let alone clergy , cannot see why this is wrong and why it must be stopped? How can we be so emphatic about fasting during Lent, Lenten Liturgical practices like "closed" liturgy and restriction from Holy Communion during Lent, when we allow a "party" to go on while we are mourning the "death and burial" of the Lord in anticipation of His promised Resurrection? From experience, I know that very few if any of the participants of the "Saturday Shindig" attend the Easter Eve Liturgy and thus deny their children a "taste" of the pronouncement that "Christ is Risen!" Why should they? They have already consummed "Communion" at the Tomb of the Lord.