About Renewal Sunday (Antipascha): The Eighth Day after Pascha (Saint Thomas Sunday)
Some icons depicting this event are inscribed “The Doubting Thomas.” This is incorrect. In Greek, the inscription reads, “The Touching of Thomas.” The Slavonic inscription is, “The Belief of Thomas.” When St Thomas touched the Life-giving side of the Lord, he no longer had any doubts.
This day is also known as “Antipascha.” This does not mean “opposed to Pascha,” but “in place of Pascha.” Beginning with this first Sunday after Pascha, the Church dedicates every Sunday of the year to the Lord’s Resurrection. Sunday is called “Resurrection” in Russian, and “the Lord’s Day” in Greek.
~Taken from the website of the Orthodox Church in America, Antipascha: St Thomas Sunday, http://oca.org/saints/lives/2013/05/12/34-antipascha-st-thomas-sunday.
The eighth day after Pascha as the ending of the celebration of Bright Week was a special celebration since ancient times, as if it replaced the very same Day of Pascha and was called Antipascha, and means “instead of Pascha”.
From this day the cycle of Sundays and weeks of the entire year begins. On this day the commemoration of the resurrection of Christ is updated for the first time. This Sunday of the Antipascha was called the New Sunday, i.e. the first day of renewal or simply renewal. The more proper name is the real day, the eighth day after Pascha, that on this eighth day the Lord Himself willed the renewal of the joy of His resurrection with a new appearance to the Holy Apostles.
St. Gregory the Theologian says in his Homily on this Sunday: “With the ancient and good purpose, it is to honor the day of renewal as established law, or better to say, to honor the new benefactions with the day of renewal. But was not the day of renewal also the first Resurrection Day, followed by the blessed and radiant night? Why you give this name to the present day? That was the day of salvation, but this day is the commemoration of salvation. That day differentiates the burial and the resurrection in itself, but this day is purely of the new birth. It is the first day among those following it and eighth among those coming before it.”
Commemorating this day of “renewal” the Holy Church inspires in us the necessity for our beneficial spiritual renewal. “The real renewal”, the same Holy Father teaches, “we now celebrate, is the going from death to life. And so we put off ourselves the old man and renewed ourselves; that we too might walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). … The old has passed away, behold, the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17). … Let us bridle all lusts from which death was born, let us become accustomed to the feeling of obedience, let us begin to hate any evil food from prohibited fruit and let us remember the former only and henceforth first be wary of the same. Christian be made new from the old and in this way celebrate the renewal of the soul. … Change yourself with a good change, and in this case do not think highly of yourself, but say with David: ‘This is a change being wrought by the right hand of the Most High’ (Ps. 76:11), from whom is everything successful in people. God the Word wants that you not stand in the place alone, but that you ever move, moving smoothly, be completely newly created and if you sin turn yourself away from the sin, and if you are successful, you will have strained the powers even more.”
By Sergei V. Bulgakov, “Renewal Sunday: The Eighth Day After Pascha,” cited in Mystagogy: The Website of John Sanidopoulos, http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/04/renewal-sunday-eighth-day-after-pascha.html.
