Augustine Sokolovski
On the thirty-ninth day after Easter Sunday, the Church celebrates the Leavetaking of Easter. In the theological, dogmatic, and doctrinal sense, Easter continues. Easter does not end with the Leavetaking of the Feast of Resurrection of Jesus.
Thus, the Ascension is the culmination of the glorification of the resurrected human flesh of Christ. The Ascension is not a sorrowful event. It not only brings Pentecost closer but makes it inevitable.
The Holy Spirit sent down upon the Apostles will make the Risen Lord Jesus the omnipresent property of the entire Universe through the Church. Therefore, Pentecost is also an Easter celebration.
If the Passover of Christ does not end in the dogmatic sense, then in the liturgical sense it ends precisely on the day of the Leavetaking of the Feast.
For forty days, the liturgical Epitaphios of the Lord Jesus was on the altar. On the Day of Leavetaking, it is solemnly transferred. The Liturgy, as before, until the next Easter, will be celebrated on the Antimension, and not on the Epitaphios and Antimension together, as was the case on all Easter days.
Modern liturgical practice in Orthodox Churches knows two possible options for celebrating the Leavetaking of Easter. The first practice is the Easter rite. The second tradition is the usual service prescribed by the charter with the addition of the Easter troparion and a few other Easter hymns.
According to Scripture, after His Resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples for forty days. This is what the liturgical texts of the Leavetaking of Easter say.