Happy Christ Birth - Merry Christmas! It's
Christmas Rejoice for the Saviour of the world is born!
our of the world is born! It's again Christmas! One of the
brightest times in the year for all the humanity humanity. Happy
Christ Birth! - Merry Christmas! - Chestito Rozhdetvo Hristovo!
Hristos se Rodi!
It's really sad that least of the people do understand the deep
meaning behind Christmas or at least have any insight on what has
happened on Christmas.
This bright celebration has slowly turned into a tradition that
many families keep, Christmas tree has substituted the burning
light of Christ living in many of the Christian families throughout
the world.
From a time for repentance and realization of the great God's mercy
in his worldly embodiment of himself and begging God for mercy it
has changed into a celebration in which people gather to eat and
drink a lot, listen to ungodly music, watch TV, concentrate on the
Christmas tree, the Christmas gifts or Santa Claus.
Slowly the world has been deceived by the enemy of mankind that
Christmas is a celebration that a man has to please himself instead
of please God.
<
In one of the best cases some people relate Christmas to a time, to
do few good deeds or put some money in Charity.
Oh how much we have fallen from God's eternal grace and mercy! Woe
to us for we think about good deeds and charity mostly in that
period of the year.
Sadly enough most of us are good only on Christmas and few days
after the salt of the Christ's birth and the grace coming with it
disappears even to us the Orthodox Christians and worries does
penetrate our hearts.
Instead of engraving this light celebration in our hearts and keep
the great grace givin to us by God by enabling us to celebrate the
feast for one more year, we focus on garments and the
cold and
meaningless greeting Merry Christmas
In the past when our fathers and mothers were greeting themselves
with Merry Christmas they really knew what Merry Christmas
means.
This is no more, the time of the year associated with Merry
Christmas is by most of us associated with a time of the year
where, we have a holiday without work, a time for fashion, shopping
and entertainment.
Thus I found it necessary here in this post that I dig a bit into
the meaning of Christmas and concentrate on the great importance
this feast has in the
True Christ Church which nowdays is the
Orthodox Church
Let me start with the Etymology of the the word
Christmas
with whic we the modern "Christian" people greet ourselves on the
Nativity of Christ with the known by everybody (even
non-christians)
Merry Christmas! greeting.
Originally the word Christmas has been a shortening word for the
ancient latin word
Christmessa / Christmesse / Christmaesse
which literally translated means Christ's festival / Christmas day.
The definition can be further investigated in
The Barnhart
Concise Dictionary of Etymology: The Origins of American English
Words
Further on let me proceed with the importance of Christmas as they
call it on the west or (Rozhdestvo Hristovo - The Birth of Christ)
or similar words in the Slavonic world).
Christmas is the second feast by importance in the Orthodox Church
year, right after the Orthodox Easter (The feast when we celebrate
the Glorious Resurrection from the death of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ!
In fact today is the third day of Christmas. The biggest part of
the world already celebrates Christmas time starts after 24:00
o'clock on 24th against 25-th of December.
In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church the Nativity of Christ or
(Rojdestvo Hristovo), is currently also celebrated on the the eve
of 25th of December.
The Roman Catholics, Anglicans and most of the Protestant
Denominations, Calvinists and Protestants reformed churches also
celebrate the Christmas even on the night of 24th against 25 of
December.
Originally the Christmas in the Eastern Orthodox World has been
celebrated for many ages on the eve of 6th against 7th of
January.
However for not too much clear reasons (to me) the Christmas date
has been changed also to the 25th of December in many Orthodox
Churches throughout the world.
Generally speaking each of the local Orthodox Churches celebrate
Christmas either on 25th of December or the 7th of January.
The celebration of Christmas feast or (Rojdestvo) is not a problem
actually for the unity of the Orthodox Church, since it was decided
that each of the Orthodox Churches could celebrate Christmas in a
set date either to the New Calendar or the Old one (Nov Stil / Star
Stil).
The Old style of celebrating the feast is historically the more
ancient one and many Orthodox Christians especially monks believe
it's more appropriate, however from a purely rational point of view
it is proven by the Gregorian Roman catholic calendar that the way
calendar dates are being counted in the Orthodox Church creates a
lag of days in for instance 1000 years of time.
I wouldn't get into details about the difference between the Old
Style and the New Style and I'll let you further investigate if
you're interested.
Nevertheless it's an absolute rule in our Orthodox Church that
Eastern is always on the same date for in all the local Orthodox
Churches.
In general the
Churches which celebrate the Christmas eve on
25th of Decemberand therefore follow the New feast date Calendar
are:
most Greek Orthodox Churches, Romanian Orthodox Church,
Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
The orthodox churches which celebrate Christmas eve on the 7th
of January are:
Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Armenian
Orthodox Church (here to be noted that Armenians are considered
close to orthodox but in reality there is no Church Communion
recognized between Armenians and the rest of the Canonical Orthodox
Churches worldwide), many monasteries and recluses also have their
Nativity of Christ feast on 7th of January including the Orthodox
monk's republic Holy Mount Athos
Since nowadays it's quite of a discussion is it really right to
celebrate the feast of Christmas with Roman Catholics and other
Christians, which eventually lead many Orthodox local Churches in
mini-schizms and many sects has been started like the "old style's
zealots orthodox Christian zealots"
Extremes has ruled out the hearts and the minds of particular
Orthodox Christian groups and they consider the acceptance of the
New Style of feast celebration as ungodly etc.
Time and reality has proven that this kind of attitudes are not in
the spiritu of moderation that we orthodox christians should
possess and try to foster and thus many Orthodox Church fathers has
openly criticized the extreme of not accepting the new style of
feast dates if the local Orthodox Church of the layman has
established it already.
I'll try to say few words on that as far as my understanding goes,
as well as I'm gonna put my own personal perspective.
Officially the New Calendar or the New Style of feast dates in the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church has been officially established in the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 18.06.1968 by the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church Holy Synod.
This has come a few years (I believe) after the same kind of new
calendar of some particular church feasts has been introduced by
the Greek Orthodox Church.
Some of the firm supporters of the Old Style (Star Stil), claim
that this kind of change of the calnedar in the Greek Orthodox
Church has happened during the Meletius IV has been a patriarch in
the Orthdox Greek Church as his name is claimed to be found on a
famous Masonry website listing the names of famous members that
belonged to their lodge.
I have no clue if this is a mirror or not and to be honest I don't
really believe it's because of that.
We shouldn't forget that Christ is the navigator of our Orthodox
Church and therefore it's in his power to decide what kind of
direction the Church will, even if the story with the patriarch
Masonry is true.
If it wasn't God's will for the Greek, Bulgarian and consequently
Romanian Orthodox Church to adopt the new style of feast
celebration sooner or later God will put a righteous people at the
Church's headship and by his inspiration will make the dates to be
reversed!
So I believe this kind of thinking concerning the date of Christmas
change to 25th of December and it's relation with a global
conspiracy theories is quite destructive for us as Christians and
my personal spiritual life has shown me that this kind of thinking
could of masonry conspiracies etc. and the constant attempting to
link spiritual and material realm can only bring bipolar disorders,
fears, sleepless nights paranoia etc.
So if some orthodox Christian has been very interested into this
kind of things I warn you to beware and step back from digging into
this kind of information and consult with your spiritual father
immediately for an advise and blessing for what is suitable for
reading and what not!
The Starostilci (Or Old Stylers Orthodox Christians) unfortunately
are one of the Christian sects also in Bulgaria, their supporters
and "Church Leaders" does support the insane idea described below
and are more and more getting out of their minds. Again beware of
this kind of thinking and try to flee away from extremes,
concentrate on your personal spiritual life instead of
concentrating on legends and rumors!
Apart from that I should confess that the New Style or the new
Church calendar adopted in many orthodox churches in practice is
creating a lot of problems.
Let me give you a real life example, as of now I'm in Holland and
the nearest canonical Orthodox Church is located in Nijmegen is a
Russian Orthodox Church. I was not sure just until recently how to
proceed with the lent (the Christmas fasting time), should I follow
the New Calendar Style festival Church Style (Nov Stil) or do
adhere to the (Old One).
As I'm here and attending the Russian Orthodox Church in
Nijmegen and as a Russian Orthodox Chrch they're adhering as
the rest of the Russian Church to the Old Church Calendar, it was
quite strange for me when should I fast.
In our Bulgarian Orthodox Church where I had been a regularly
attending the lent starts a week earlier compared to the Orthodox
Churches which adhere to the Star Stil.
Therefore I started following the fasting according to the
Bulgarian Church feast days calendar, and according to this
calendar the Christmas day or the (Rozhdestvo Hristovo) is on 25th
of December.
I followed completely this kind of Nov Stil and apparently found
out that according to some Church rules I should in reality adhere
to church calendar of the Orthodox Church parish where I'm
currently in this situation (to the Russian Orthodox Church.
It was a bit late and it was completely confusing for me as I've
tried to fast as much as I can to the Bulgarian orthodox Calendar
and now after I've talked with a hieromonk a friend of mine and he
explained me that I should stick to the Russian Church rules and
Celebrate Christmas on 7th of January.
I've never in my life to be honest celebrated Christmas on 7th of
January and actually I tried to celebrate it already on 25th and
this makes it this whole situation even more stranger and
confusing, not to mention that I've already stpoped fasting
(olazhih se) as we say in Bulgarian.
Now after Father Sergii's consultation I've been given the advise
to continue without fasting until Christmas and after Christmas to
fast for a week and Celebrate Christmas on 7th of January so I'll
try my best to follow this advise.
Still I believe this literal example shows up some of the
difficulties and division that this calendar differences within
some Orthodox Churches actually seperates the Orthodox Church local
life and distracts the Church unity.
Anyways enough complatining, back to the topic It's Christmas time!
Our Lord has been born from the Holy Theotokos (Virgin Mary)! We're
blessed to celebrate one more Christmas!
I wish all my readers to rediscover the meaning of the feast
Nativity of Christ to focus on their prayer life and the spiritual
instead of being deceived and look on the material expression and
shiness of Christmas which distracts the soul from being able to
absorb God's abundant grace given on us in this graceful times to
us the Orthodox Christians.
I also wish you have a good health, joy, peace and a moderate
New-Year time!
I hope God will open my heart and mind to understand the real
meaning of this sacred celebration and to really value it and
rejoice!
Sadly enough I haven't been enough vigilant to rejoice in this
Christmas time and allowed personal worries to distract the joy of
our Saviour Birth.
Do not let the same happen to you, rejoice in God and put aware the
worldly worries!
For conclusion I end up by giving glory to the Father, The Son and
The Holy Spirit now and Forever and ever! Amen!