This past Sunday started the Coptic Holy Week of Pascha for 2013, making Easter Sunday on May 5th -- which is considerably later than the Catholic Easter. This is because the Coptic calendar is a revised Julian calendar, where Easter is the first full moon following the northern vernal equinox (Spring).

During last night's Nighttime Litanies, two litanies really stood out to me:

O Lord, save Your people and protect them with the life-giving sign of Your cross. Raise the state of the Christians all over the world, and soften the hearts of their rulers towards them. Fill their hearts with compassion towards our bretheren, the poor, and the needy and take away from them all evil. We ask You, O Lord, hear us and have mercy on us.

...

You are the fortification of our salvation, O Theotokos, the invincible fortress, take away the council of the adversaries, and turn the afflictions of Your servants into joy. Defend our cities, fight for the Orthodox kings and rulers, and intercede for the peace of the world and the churches. We ask You, O Lord, hear us and have mercy on us.

- Holy Pascha, Nighttime Litanies

I thought them very fitting given the recent Christian Persecutions happening in Egypt and elsewhere. We pray that God may have mercy upon us and hear the supplications of His people in Egypt and everywhere affected.

And, continuing with tradition, I've come across two great resources for digital editions of the Holy Pascha Book that I hope will be useful and edifying to all. The first is one which I have shared on here previously, but I have updated it to include the Arabic font so that it renders properly on devices that don't have the font installed by default (typically mobile devices). The second is a sectioned series of PDFs that should make navigating during Pascha easier.

Please enjoy the following downloadable resources:

• Holy Pascha Single PDF, embedded Arabic: Download (mobile friendly), Alternate Download
• Holy Pascha PDF Series: Download (mobile friendly), Alternate Download