The Easterners (the Byzantines) call the Friday “Great,” while the Westerners (the Maronites, for example) call it “Sad.” So we chant the blessings of the Resurrection today and wear white, while the Western Church considers these days a period of mourning, and childish annual quarrels occur over who is right, as is our custom in everything.
But going back to the first tradition of the apostles (see Asad Rustum, History of Antioch 1, p. 81):
* For the churches of Asia Minor and Syria, for example, considered the day of the Passion to be a day of liberation from bondage and of salvation, and so they rejoiced on the Lord’s day and combined mourning and fasting together, and they celebrated Easter on whatever day of the week it fell, according to a tradition from the apostle John the Theologian, and we have preserved this theology.
* As for Rome and Egypt, for example: they considered the day of the crucifixion to be a day of mourning, and Sunday to be the day of the Resurrection, and so they combined mourning and fasting in it, and celebrated Easter on Sunday and the Passion on Friday, according to a tradition from the apostles Peter and Paul, and the Westerners have preserved this theology.
The Orthodox does not rejoice on Friday out of ignorance, nor does the Maronite (the Westerners) mourn on Friday out of ignorance. Each of us has preserved an old inherited tradition, and each of us sees from one angle, just as the Gospels are four, and each of them shows Christ from a different angle.
We must always look upon our brethren with a wider eye and with a spacious heart like the heart of Christ, in order to understand how the other churches expressed their faith in Christ, and to see the pearls in the other who differs from us, so that together we may contribute to revealing the face of Jesus to the world. We must look at the differences among us with the eye of Christ, not with our narrow eyes, through His Passion and not through our own denominations, for each possesses truths that bind him to the Lord Jesus.
We must rise to the mind of Christ, the mind of love.