Why don’t we greet one another with a holy kiss from Wednesday to Saturday of Holy Week?

By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10

In the Coptic Orthodox tradition, the practice of the "holy kiss" and the greeting of peace are suspended from the eve of Wednesday of the Holy Pascha until the end of the Liturgy of the Joyous Saturday (Bright Saturday).

We abstain from the holy kiss for the following theological and historical reasons:

1. The Betrayal of Judas

The primary reason for this suspension is to remember and mourn the "kiss of betrayal" given by Judas Iscariot to our Lord. On Wednesday, the Church commemorates Judas’s consultation with the Jewish chief priests to betray Christ for thirty pieces of silver.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas used a kiss—a sign of love, fellowship, and peace—as a tool of treachery to identify the Lord to the soldiers. To show our abhorrence for this hypocritical act and to distance ourselves from the spirit of betrayal, the Coptic Church removes the "Prayer of Reconciliation" and the subsequent kiss of peace from all liturgical services during this period.

2. The Focus on the Passion

During Holy Week, the Church is in deep mourning for the Bridegroom. The liturgy of the Pascha is focused entirely on the sufferings, the cross, and the death of Christ. The holy kiss is an expression of the joy of the Resurrection and the peace that Christ gave to His disciples after He rose. Since we are spiritually walking with Him to Golgotha, we set aside these expressions of joy and social peace to focus on repentance and the gravity of His sacrifice.

3. The Absence of the "Reconciliation"

In the Coptic Liturgy, the holy kiss follows the Prayer of Reconciliation. This prayer signifies that through Christ, we are reconciled to the Father and to one another. During the days of the Crucifixion, that reconciliation was in the process of being fulfilled through the blood of the Cross. Therefore, we wait until the joy of the Resurrection to resume this liturgical sign of completed peace.

Liturgical Timeline:

• Wednesday through Friday: Throughout the Pascha hours and the Liturgy of Covenant Thursday, there is no holy kiss and no "Reconciliation" prayer.
• Bright Saturday (Joyous Saturday): Even though we celebrate the beginning of the light, we still do not greet with the kiss during the Liturgy because the Lord is still in the tomb (the "Sabbath of Rest") and has not yet appeared to the disciples to say "Peace be with you."
• Feast of the Resurrection: The holy kiss returns during the Resurrection Liturgy, symbolizing that the true Peace has been restored to humanity.

By maintaining this tradition, the Coptic Church ensures that every gesture, or lack thereof, serves as a dogmatic and spiritual reminder of the truth of our salvation and the rejection of the treachery of the heretics and those who, like Judas, betrayed the Truth.