Sabbath Day Worship
In
The Celtic Orthodox Church
We learn God's saving truth and Law
from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Biblical truths are
not just Jewish or Christian, they are divine and therefore eternally Orthodox
(right thinking, right worship and right praxis) and eternally Catholic (Cut
from the whole - Having universal application for all times and places.
We must make a distinction between
"Torah-centric Judaism" [Biblical] and "Rabbinic Judaism"
[Talmudic.] A Torah-centric Judaism was the religion out of which the
first century church in Jerusalem was established by St. James, the brother of
the Lord, and from which the Celtic Orthodox Church was established by St.
Joseph of Aramethia, the Great Uncle of the Christ maintaining it's
biblical faith and theology - the faith and Theology of Christ and the
Apostles.
An over Hellenized East and over
Latinized West needs a re-understanding of the mind set that gave us the
Scriptures in both Testaments. To understand Christ we must understand
the mentality from which Christ taught. We must appreciate and
understand our Hebrew roots and by that I mean the Torah Centered Temple and
not the Rabbinic Judaism that lost sight of the Torah Centered (Biblical)
faith. Christ was a Torah observant Jew and it was the Torah that Christ came
to fulfill, but not destroy. The Talmudic or Rabbinical Judaism
crucified Christ, being without the Holy Spirit and the creation of man rather
than God. The Torah centric Temple gave us the Apostles and the early
martyrs and early Christians, being grounded in the Torah and the ways of the
ancients they accepted and recognized the Christ.
The Church has retained some practices
from our Jewish Roots believing these practices are not Jewish in an ethnic
sense, nor even Christian in a religious sense, but they are simply Biblical in
a divine sense, and therefore eternal and catholic in the sense of classic,
having universal application for all times and places.
THE CELTS ARE ISRAELITES UNDER ANOTHER NAME
The word Celt is the Anglicized form of the Greek word Keltoi,
which means "the people who are different." In Scripture, all
nations, except the Twelve Tribes of Israel, are referred to as Gentiles
(Foreigners), so the only people who are different are Israel. The word Celt is
therefore another word for Israelite. The Celts are part of the Ten
"lost" Tribes of Israel; as are the Tuatha de Danaan and Milesians.
The Irish people are a mixture of Celts; Danaans; Milesians; Judah/Zarahites
(of the "Red Hand" - Genesis 38:28-30§); (Dan-ish) Vikings and Norsemen
and are all racially cousins.
THE CELTS, ACCORDING TO GOD, ARE ISRAELITES.
The Irish Celts held three sacred assemblies every year at Tara
during Bealtaine; Lughnasadh and Samhain which assured an abundance of corn and
milk; freedom from conquest; the enjoyment of Righteous Laws; comfort in every
house; fruit in great abundance, and plenty of fish in their lakes, rivers, and
estuaries, exactly as God guaranteed Israel in The Torah/Tara, if they kept The
Covenant. Also, during the Feast of Tara/Torah the kings of Ireland used to
settle the affairs of Ireland for seven years, so that debts, suits and
adjustments used not to be submitted for judgment until the next feast, seven
years later, which the Torah calls the 'Year of the "I AM's" Release'
when all debts were forgiven, every seven years. This proves that Irish Celtic
law was based on The Torah and is further confirmation that the Celts are
Israelites.
Also the word British is not English; it is Hebrew.
Brit (Berit) means Covenant in Hebrew and Welsh
Ish means man or people of, in Hebrew and English
Therefore British means The People of The Covenant,
in other words, the People Israel of The Covenant.
However, the Celtish / Irish people are Israelites descended from
Jacob/Israel's fifth of his twelve sons, who was called Dan and fathered the
Tuatha de Danaan - the Tribe of Dan (the Irish and Danish). Therefore the Irish
people are Celtish / British-Israelites by birth i.e. People of The Covenant in
the Torah in the Bible and in The Ark, which is buried at Tara.
The Celtic Orthodox Church has always placed great
importance on Saturday
worship as the Sabbath and on Sunday worship as the
Lord's Day.
In the Celtic Orthodox Church, all Priests are
obligated
to offer the Mass on the Sabbath and on Sunday
both. The laity are expected to
fully participate on both days in the measure that
may be possible.
CELTIC ORTHODOX SABBATH WORSHIP ENDURED FOR
CENTURIES:
In an Irish work ("Liber ex Lege Moisi")
from ca.800 c.e. It is said that the
Celtic Orthodox Church was closer to Judaism than any
other branch of
Christianity. The shared elements include the keeping
of the Saturday Sabbath
and zealous emphasis on Scripture mandates as the
word of God and the basis of
their Christian conduct.
"The Messianic Legacy",1986, 1987 U.K.
"Members of the Celtic Orthodox Church
were suspected by the Roman Catholics of Judaising
and its members in Scotland
were accused of really being Jews because they kept
both the Sabbath and the
Lord's Day and had all the bows and partial
prostrations and worshipped in bare
feet . (Baigent, Leigh, & Lincoln. "The
Messianic Legacy", 1986, 1987 U.K.).
We
also find that in Britain the Celtic Orthodox Church
kept Saturday as the
Sabbath Day and Sunday as an additional day of
worship. Incidentally, John Brand
("Observations on the Popular Antiquities of
Great Britain", London, 1841)
describes the great lengths the Roman Church went to,
to extinguish all possible
traces of 7th-day Sabbath keeping amongst the
English.
In the 500s CE: 6th CENTURY: SCOTLAND "In this
latter instance they seem to have
followed a custom of which we find traces in the
early monastic church of
Ireland, by which they held Saturday to be the
Sabbath on which they rested from
all their labours" (Life of St. Columba, page
96) Columba specifically referred
to Saturday as the Sabbath and this was the custom of
that early church on Iona,
an island off the coast of Scotland). Sunday was
honored as the "LORD'S DAY", A
DAY OF WORSHIP IN ADDITION TO SATURDAY THE
SABBATH.
7th CENTURY: SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
In the 600s CE: "It seems to have been customary
in the Celtic Churches of early
times in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep
Saturday as a day of rest from
labour. They observed the fourth commandment [that
you should not work on the
seventh day] literally on the seventh day of the
week." (The Church in Scotland,
Moffatt, page 140) "The Celts ...kept Saturday
as a day of rest." (The rise of
the Medieval Church, page 237)
In the 900s CE: 10th CENTURY: SCOTLAND "They
worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner." (A History of
Scotland from the Roman Occupation, vol.1, p.96)
In the 1000s CE: 11th CENTURY: SCOTLAND "They
held that Saturday was properly
the Sabbath on which they abstained from work."
(Celtic Scotland, vol.2, p.350)
During the 11th century the Catholic Queen of
Scotland, Margaret, tried to stamp
out those that kept Saturday as the Sabbath Day and
who refused to honor Sunday
as the Sabbath Day.
THE CELTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH ALWAYS HONORED SATURDAY
(FROM SUNDOWN OF FRIDAY TO SUNDOWN ON SATURDAY) AND SUNDAY (THE LORD'S DAY) AS
PROPERLY DAYS OF WORSHIP. THIS WAS ALSO
THE PRACTICE OF
OF THE LARGER CHURCH INCLUDING CONSTANTINOPLE.
For the first 400 or more years after the Ascension
of Christ, the Christian
Sunday--whenever it did arise--did not at first
generally become a substitute
for the Bible seventh-day Sabbath, Saturday; for both
Saturday and Sunday were
widely kept side by side for several centuries in
early Christian history.
Socrates Scholasticus, a church historian of the
fifth century A.D., wrote, "For
although almost all churches throughout the world
celebrate the sacred mysteries
[the Lord's Supper] on the Sabbath of every week, yet
the Christians of
Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient
tradition, ( Anti-Semitism) have ceased to do this." And Salminius Hermias
Sozomenus (c 400 – c 450), the Orthodox
Christian historian, wrote, "The people of Constantinople, and almost
everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of
the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria." (for
hatred of the Jews) Thus, "almost
everywhere" throughout Christendom, except in Rome and Alexandria, there
were Christian worship services on both Saturday and Sunday as late as the
fifth century. A number of other sources from the third to the fifth centuries
also depict Christian observance of both Saturday and Sunday.
THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION
The Apostolic Constitution compiled in the fourth
century, furnished instruction to "keep the Sabbath [Saturday], and the
Lord's day [Sunday] festival; because the former is the memorial of the
creation, and the latter of the resurrection." "Let the slaves work
five days; but on the Sabbath-day [Saturday] and
the Lord's day [Sunday] let them have leisure to go
to church for
instruction in piety."
Saint Gregory of Nyssa in the late fourth century
referred to the Sabbath and
Sunday as "sisters." And about A.D. 400
Asterius of Amasea declared that it was
beautiful for Christians that the "team of these
two days comes together"--"the
Sabbath and the Lord's day," which each week
gathers together the people with
priests as their instructors.
In the fifth century, St. John Cassian refers to attendance in church on both
Saturday and Sunday, stating that he had even seen a
certain monk who sometimes
fasted five days a week but would go to church on
Saturday and Sunday and bring
home guests for a meal on those two days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpEQOe3hHxE
Release Date: 12/15/10
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fear. We
invite you to join us. You are
loved. You already have friends here.
Fear not for
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embrace. Come and experience the Grace
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