The large candle that was lit at the start of the Great Vigil of Easter burns in a prominent place in the Church at every service during Eastertide.

It was the custom of the synagogue to begin services in the evening with the lighting of candles-originally for the purpose of giving light but almost immediately invested with the symbolic meaning of light:the revelation of God’s love.
Early Christians continued that use of light, seeing the bringing of light into a dark place a symbol of the Ressurection. In the ancient Christian basilicas, some of which still exist in Italy, the stand for the paschal candle was built into the pulpit as a permanent feature of the building’s architecture. In the Middle Ages, Winchester Cathedral had a paschal candle that was sixty feet tall!

After Eastertide, the Paschal Candle is kept near the baptismal font and lit again for baptisms and funerals.

The write-up was taken out of the booklet that ‘ Sue Tibshirany’
gave me from the service she attended on Easter Day 2014
at the All Saints Church in the suburb of Durbanville and the Diocese of Saldanha Bay.