WHY THE CELTIC
ORTHODOX CHURCH
DOES NOT USE THE OLD CALENDAR
Those who wish to make an issue of the date for the celebration of
Pascha (Easter)
should read: http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/pascha_date.html
Julian Versus Gregorian Calendars
We must remember the Church adopted the
calendar of the Roman Empire, the civil calendar, as its own. That happened to
be the Julian calendar. It was not a religious or Christian calendar in any
sense, but the system used by the secular (pagan) government to mark the
passing of time. The Roman Empire, even after it was Christianized, did not
change the name of the months - the names of all of them from January to August
remain as reminders of the calendar's pagan ancestry.
It is significant to recognize that the most
modern nations from which our Orthodox ancestors came from, to this land
followed the Julian calendar in every day civil life, as did the Orthodox State
Churches of those countries. In other words, in the Russian Empire, and the
Kingdoms of Greece, Romania, etc., the Church dates coincided with the
government's dates. When there was any discussion of changing the civil
calendar, a corresponding change of the Church's calendar was considered. In
fact, when Greece switched calendars, the Church of Greece followed suit.
Because of the many centuries of following the
Julian calendar, many people in the Orthodox homelands had come to regard this
calendar as a part of the Tradition. So strong was the feeling that a
considerable segment of the Greek Church refused to accept the change and broke
away from the Church. Some of the Orthodox churches "in exile" in the
Western World, that once had a rather liberal attitude toward the new calendar
and even allowed its use in some places, have come to denounce the Churches
that follow the new calendar as modernist and heretical.
Why did the Church need to adopt a calendar in
the first place? Why did it take the calendar of the Empire, when other
possibilities were open to it? If a specifically religious calendar had been
the point why not adopt the Jewish calendar? After all, the latter was the
calendar that the Lord Jesus Christ observed, by which He lived and
accomplished His work.
The mission of the Church in and to the world
was, and still is, the main issue. This is the same as that of the Lord Himself
to redeem the world - to save souls and to sanctify the world and everyone and
everything in it. It constantly blesses things, material objects and thereby
redeems them in the sense of returning them to the purpose for which the whole
physical world was intended to be channels and signs of God s presence in the
world; a world distorted by sin and misuse. When the Church set out to overcome
the world, it undertook the transformation of the things of this world: the
Roman Empire became a holy empire a Christian commonwealth; cities and towns
were holy because of their having been the scene of the events of Christ's
life, of the sacrifice of the martyrs and the lives of the saints.
St. Paul says that we must "redeem the
time because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16). The Church has always
seen the sanctification of the world's time as a part of its overall mission.
Dates came to have, as the Church extended its influence over society, a Christian
significance: January 6 was no longer simply the sixth day of the first month
but a holy day on which the Lord's Baptism and the Manifestation of the Trinity
was solemnly commemorated. Every date was sanctified because on each one some
martyr made the supreme sacrifice or some saint who had given himself wholly to
Christ fell asleep. Days came to be known, for example, not just as February 23
but St. Polycarp's Day and not December 20 but St. Ignatius'; Day.
It is obvious that the Church deliberately kept
the calendar of this world in order to sanctify the time signified by it. The
point was to give Christian meaning to the times and seasons, to the days of
the year.
The Church cannot abandon this aspect of her
mission. It helps little to maintain stubbornly that a certain date is not
September 14, as everyone else thinks, but really September 1. And no matter
what we have to say about September 1, its significance for the life of the
Church and its meaning for the world, we will hardly be heard if we first have
to convince the rest of society that they are wrong about the date. And it does
matter that the voice of the Church be heard by the rest of society.
Part of a larger work reprinted from
the October 1982 issue of the Dawn, published by the OCA Diocese of the South.)
The Orthodox Church, January, 1983.
Comment: Those who believe the Pre Christian Calendar
of the Pagan Julian is somehow holy, try and convince the rest of the church
that the Julian Calendar is the tradition.
The Julian Calendar was the secular calendar in
use at the time. The
tradition of the church then as now is to redeem the time using
whatever secular
calendar is in popular use.
There is no such thing
as an Orthodox Calendar, only Orthodox people, faith and worship.
We do as did the early
Church, we redeem the times by using the secular calendar in popular usage.
We follow the
Gregorian Calendar.
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