September 1 marks the beginning of the new church year in the Orthodox Church. According to the Jewish tradition, it is now considered that God began the work of creating the world, and at that time the Savior Jesus Christ entered the synagogue, where he read the text of Isaiah’s prophecy, chapter 61, 1-2, sealing the beginning of His work of preaching the gospel. A last significance related to this term derives from the fact that as of 1 September the Romans calculated the years of indignation. From a social point of view, in the old, but also nowadays, the year had other milestones. It was the two celebrations, the spring, the Holy Martyr George, and the autumn of St. Demetrius. These feasts, which overlapped the seasons in which agricultural work began and ended, looked at human activity related to the cultivation of the earth. The holy Fathers ordered that during autumn the evangelical text with the rich ruthlessly be read, with the rich man who gave birth to his land, with the rich young man, to seek to sensitize the wealthy, because the winter and the poor were very difficult.

September 1, when we celebrate the beginning of the church year, is related to the history of salvation. During a church year, the work of salvation from creation to the end of the world is summed up. The Orthodox Church marks these things through the holidays that are celebrated in the beginning and end months of the year. Thus, the church year ends in August, when we have the Feast of the Assumption on the 15th, and the Cutting of the Head of St. John the Baptist on August 29th, the greatest prophet until the coming of the Savior. These two festivals talk about eternal life, with two dead. St. John, as a prophet of repentance, urges in his word: “Repent that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The proclamation of repentance, the condition for entering into the kingdom of heaven, shows us precisely the coming of the kingdom of God, the conclusion of this age, and the beginning of the eschaton.

Symbolism of the New Church Year

We note that the end of the church year, as well as its beginning, is under the protection and blessing of the Holy Virgin Mary through the feast of the Dormition, for the Assumption of the Virgin is nothing more than the passage from here to eternity, as the troparion of the feast says: “You have moved to live being Mother of Life … “. This holiday is practically ending the church year and, symbolically, this age. And the feast of the Cutting of the Head of St. John, the last of the prophets, the greatest of them, who prepares the people for the reception of the Messiah, is connected with the future life, with the eschaton. Analyzing the theological significance of the church year, Father Professor Boitan Florian, from the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Bucharest, says that “every new year is the year of salvation. Time is ordained by God for salvation. Time is sanctified through the Incarnation of Christ and ordained for the acquisition of a happy existence in eternity. Many Holy Fathers emphasize the idea that the time that mankind has gone through since the Ascension of Christ so far is the time of the expectation of the Second Coming of the Savior, is the time of preparation for the great meeting with God. We also confess in the Creed in the last article, “I am waiting for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to be”. The kingdom of God is in the midst of us, and we, through what we work in the interval of our earthly life, prepare our entry into the kingdom of God. The Church, through its prayers, through the Holy Sacraments that it commands to our sanctification and ever closer to God, seeks to integrate us into the atmosphere of the heavenly kingdom. “

Likewise, the beginning of the year has as a first important feast a feast dedicated to the Virgin Mary: the Birth of the Virgin, the one by which the salvation of men is made, and it gives birth to Christ, the Redeemer of our sins. Besides, all the royal feasts of feast are closely related to the history of salvation: the birth of the Mother of God, the entrance of the Church of the Mother of God, the Birth of the Lord, the Gathering of the Mother of God, and all the rest.

The autumn ends an agrarian cycle and another begins

In another context, related to the agrarian cycle, September is the first autumn month, when the fruits are gathered and thank God for the gifts. The end of the old agricultural year ends and a new agricultural year begins, now preparing autumn sowns. So, any end is a beginning, as in the life of every man, the end of earthly life makes the transition to the last stage, eternal life. This is why the days of martyrdom or transition to the eternal eternity of the saints are celebrated, for these are the moments of their spiritual birth, for the life beyond. Their pilgrimages come to strengthen this reality that by death we do not enter into existence, but we pass beyond, in one of those states, heaven or hell. From a social point of view, in old age, but also now, the year had other landmarks. It was the two celebrations, the spring, the Holy Martyr George, and the autumn of St. Demetrius. These feasts, which overlapped the seasons in which agricultural work began and ended, looked at human activity related to the cultivation of the earth. The holy Fathers ordered that during autumn the evangelical text with the rich ruthlessly be read, with the rich man who gave birth to his land, with the rich young man, to seek to sensitize the wealthy, because the winter and the poor were very difficult. The church took care of this period, autumn (around October 16), reading the evangelical text referring to the sower parable. With the sowing of the earth, the word of God was to be put in the good land of the believers’ souls.

The indigence, the numbering of the Roman years

In Sinaxar all the year since the end of Hours, on the first of September we read that it is the commemoration of the new year church and the beginning of the indictment. The Orthodox Church celebrates the indictment, taking the habit from the old; because it was customary for the Romans to make the beginning of the year from this indication; and the indictment in the Romans meant: command and show. The indication (from indictio Latin) is a period of 15 years, the first year of which is called the first indictment and so on, up to the 15th, according to their order. Thus ending the evolution of the 15 years, a new period begins again, and the first year is called the first indictment until the 15th year, after which again a new period begins. That the indictment has its name from extraordinary tributes, destined to pay soldiers (such tributes were called indictiones) there is no doubt. It is harder to answer the question: why is the period of 15 years or when the indictment was first introduced. The practical rule to find the fifth year of the indictment is a year after Christ is the following: add 3 to that year and then divide it all to 15, and if the division is no rest, the year of indiction is 15, and if remains a number, it will be the year of the indictment. The indices are three kinds: the Constantinopolitan Index, which begins on September 1; The Caesar (Constantine) or Constantine indictment from September 24, and the Papal or Roman Index, which began on January 1st. The Church celebrates this day, that is, the beginning of the Indiction, for the following reasons: first, because, according to the old tradition, at this date, God began the creation of the world; secondly, because September is the beginning of the new church year, and therefore the Church, thanks God to the fruits of the year, prays that the new year will be fruitful; and thirdly, because on this day our Savior Jesus Christ entered the synagogue of the Jews, and by giving him the book of Isaiah the prophet, opening it, he found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord upon Me, for whom I have anointed thee to invite the poor, to heal those who are broken in the heart, to preach to those who are slaves of liberation and blind sight, to release those who are broken in relief, to preach the year of the Lord received “(Isaiah 61: 1-2). Then, giving the servant’s book and sitting, he said, “Behold, this Scripture is fulfilled today in your ears.” And the peoples marveled at the words of grace that came out of His mouth “(Luke 4: 16-22).

The church year is not identical to the liturgical year

There is a distinction between the church year and the liturgical year in the cult of the Orthodox Church. If the church year begins on September 1, the liturgical year is beginning on the Easter day. From this date are the Gospels and the Sunday of the Church Year. It has 52 weeks, as opposed to the liturgical year that counts the weeks according to Easter or Pentecost (we read in the calendar: Sunday II after Easter, III after Pentecost …). During the liturgical year, certain Sundays are repeated and, implicitly, the Gospels pronounced at that time, according to the ordinances established by the Church, in its iconomics. The church has three periods reflecting the threefold activity of the Savior Jesus Christ on earth: the teaching, the hierarchical and the royal. The Octoah period, which is the largest of all (its duration varies between 40-46 weeks), corresponds to the Lord’s teaching activity; we see it primarily from the evangelical text ordained in the Sundays of this interval; many of them are the parables of the Savior or the Sermon on the Mount (see Sunday II after Pentecost, III, XI, XIX after Pentecost). Octohe, remembers Father Ene Branishte in “General Liturgy”, commemorates and celebrates forth the events before the coming of the Savior until the eve of His Passions, in other words he renews the prophetic, didactic activity in which He gave to the world the divine teaching of His Gospel. The second period is that of the Triodos, which refers to the holy work of the Lord, having the heart of the Savior’s redeeming sacrifice and sacrifice. It lasts from Sunday to the Passover and the Pharisee until Easter Sunday, for a total of 10 weeks, including Passover Easter, preparation for prayer, repentance and fasting for the feast of the Lord’s Resurrection. The last period of the church year, Pentecostal period, is the time between The Resurrection of the Lord and the Descent of the Holy Spirit and celebrating the Savior Christ as the glorified Emperor, the Overcomer of death and sin.

The New New Church realizes the prolongation of the Incarnation and the life of the Savior

In the structure of the church year, as it was ordained, Father Branişte mentions, that the Person and the memory of the Lord be present in a mysterious, real and continuous manner in each of the days and years of the life of Christians. Thus, in the historical time and human experience, the yearly life renews life with Christ and in Christ, extending an Incarnation and the historical life of the Savior. ” The New Year’s Eve has, as an ordinary feast, its own troparion and contakion. The Church thanks God for all that He has given us in the past year and asks Him to bless the year that is about to begin. God is the Creator of time and of the world, Who blesses the crown of his goodness. Every year, any time is the gift of God to us. From the end of the troparion we realize that both the end of the year and its beginning stand under the protection of the Mother of God: “All the creature, the Creator, the time and years you have put into your power, bless the crown of your goodness, Lord, the people and the land, for the prayers of the God-bearer, and he saves us for us. “The concierge is also telling about the dogmatic and liturgical teaching of the Church:” He that dwelleth in the highest, Christ the Emperor, the Maker of all that are seen, the unseen and the builder, the days and nights, the times and the years you have done, bless the crown of the year now, guard and keep in peace the faithful, this country and your people, the Merciful. “All September 1, following the tradition Jewish news that the creation of the world is celebrated in the new year, the Orthodox Church commands Jesus of Navi, followed Moses to lead the Jewish people and guided the Jewish people of Canaan. Everything that Scripture relates, historic events in the Old Testament have a mysterious connection to the New Testament, they pretend, anticipating realities from the Christian Church. Navi’s Jesus received from the Prophet Moses the exhortation to guide the Jews to the promised land. We have here briefly presented, in a symbolic sense, the history of the whole human race, which goes through trials, as the former Jews went through the wilderness to reach the Promised Land in Heavenly Canaan, as is the case with Christians. Canaan represented a new beginning for the Jews, the fulfillment of a promise, a new life, in freedom, totally opposed to living in Egypt, where they were oppressed by pagans.

The similarities between the Christian year beginning  and the Jewish one

During the Old Testament period, calendar types. The oldest, Canaanite origin was based on the agricultural cycle and began in the autumn. For example, in the presentation of the cultic calendar in Exodus 23, 14-17, the third important feast, that of the gathering of the “fall” fruits, as it appears in the synodal Bible, was at the “end of the year” 16 text). This information is also repeated in the so-called cultic decalogue, in Exodus 34, 22 (Synodal Bible “at the end of the autumn”, the masoretic text “at the passing of the year”). Some biblical texts even use the Canaanite names of the moons (eg ethanim, the seventh month, bullet, eighth month, these are also certified in extrabiblical sources, but also avian, first month, live, second month). they did not at this stage have a fixed date, depending on agricultural works. This is preserved until the period of the Deuteronomic texts (the second half of the 7th century BC), which also does not date precisely the great holidays (cf. Deuteronomy 16, Easter is held in the moon, but not it is precisely what days.) By the year 600, under the Babylonian influence, the Babylonian calendar, which began in the spring, was adopted. In Babylon, the celebration of the new year (akitu) was a very important one, the king being re-enthroned in a ceremony that reminded us of the creation of the world. This change is remarked in the sacerdotal source, written about 550, probably in exile. This source also appears to be the last draft of the Pentateuch. In the sacred texts, the feasts are more clearly defined. Now, the Easter holiday falls in the first month of the year, as it is stated in Exodus 12, 2: “This month shall be the beginning of the moon, and it shall be first among the moons of the year.” The Old Asian Festive Feast, still united in Deuteronomy 16, with Easter, of pastoral origin, is in the priestly text set at the very middle of the month, serving as a counterweight to the other important autumn celebration of the gathering of the Tabernacles, and connected with the wilderness journey of the Israelites after the departure from Egypt. Both the Azilies and the Tent are fixed in the middle of that month, that is on the 15th. Both celebrations last seven days. But each one will receive an extra day, before the seven, the spring, and the seven, the autumn. That is why, in the cultic calendar from the sacerdotal source, Easter-Azaleas are from 14 nisan to 21, and Tentures from 15 thursers to 22 (cf. Leviticus 23, 5-6, 34-36). All this time the Babylonian names are also adopted: nisan, tsar, etc., but they are also used in parallel with the old fashioned numbering of the moons. For example, in Esther 3, 7: “in the first month, that is, in the month of Nisan.” The Christian church kept the old calendar beginning in the autumn, also taking into account the Hebrew traditions after which the creation of the world took place in autumn (for example, in Talmud, the man would have been created on 1 thirs). But the Hebrew calendar was one that took into account the phases of the moon, while the Roman was solar. Tisri, the seventh month of the Babylonian calendar, which, however, was the first in the old calendar, fell in September-October, therefore the Church turned September in the first month of the church calendar.

Lect. Dr. Alex MIHĂILĂ