Keep the Faith: 'Happy New Year!'
While the civil new year begins on January 1, in the Orthodox church, we begin our new year in September, as did the Romans and the Israelites before them. And to start the year off right, September features two of the church’s twelve Great Feasts: the celebrations of the Nativity (or Birth) of the Theotokos — literally, the “God-bearer,” the Virgin Mary — and the Elevation of the Holy Cross.
The Nativity of the Theotokos, celebrated on September 8, is not recounted in any of the four canonical Gospels, but rather in a book called the Protoevangelion of James, where we also read about Mary’s conception and her presentation in the Jerusalem Temple at age three.
In brief, her parents — we refer to them in our services as “the Holy and Righteous Ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna” — were old and barren, unable to have children. This brought both of them much shame and grief, as some considered it a sign of God’s displeasure.
St. Joachim, turned away as being unworthy to offer the couple’s gifts to God at the Temple because of their barrenness, was so distraught that instead of returning home, he fled to the desert to weep. St. Anna, learning of this, began to weep, herself. “Now,” she said, “I have become most wretched: now I am rejected by God and suffer the reproaches of the people and am abandoned by my husband! What should I weep over first, over my widowhood or my childlessness, over my being abandoned or my having not been deemed worthy to be called a mother?”
As she cried out in her grief, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Anna, Anna, your prayer has been heard, and your sighing has pierced the clouds! Your tears have come before God, and you will conceive a daughter most blessed. In her, all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed, and through her, salvation shall be granted to the whole world; and her name will be Mary.”
Indeed, Anna soon conceived (a feast we celebrate on December 9) and some nine months later, gave birth to a daughter, who they named Mary and dedicated to the Lord’s service in thanksgiving for His great gift. While we celebrate Mary’s conception on December 9, the Roman Catholic church celebrates the equivalent Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8. The differences in date and theological perspective are topics for another time.
The Elevation of the Holy Cross, celebrated on September 14, commemorates a number of events:
1. The vision of the Cross seen by St. Constantine in the year 312, shortly before his victory over the Roman Emperor, Maxentius, at the at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
2. The finding of the True Cross by St. Constantine’s mother, St. Helen, in the year 326. Once she had recovered it, buried beneath a Roman temple to Venus which had been erected on Golgotha, the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Makarios, returned with it to the Holy City. There were so many people who wanted to see it, they begged him to hold it up – and immediately upon seeing it, even from far away, they all prostrated themselves and cried out, “Lord, have mercy!” That’s why, on this day, we elevate the Cross to the East, North, West, South, and East again, singing “Lord, have mercy!” 100 times in each direction – 500 times in total. (For historical reasons, at St. George Cathedral, we sing it in Old Church Slavonic: “Gospodi Pomilui!”)
3. The second finding of the Cross in the year 629, after it had fallen into the hands of the Persians when they captured the Holy City in 614.
4. And finally, the Dedication of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. This magnificent church, built by St. Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulcher, Jesus’s tomb, was dedicated on September 13 in the year 335. On the following day, September 14, the Great Feast of the Elevation of the Cross was established, and we have celebrated it every year since.
This day, while a feast day, is kept as a day of strict fasting. It’s an important feast with special scriptural readings for the Saturdays and Sundays before and after (just like Christmas and Theophany); and the Feast of the Transfiguration was moved to August 6, 40 days in advance, as one more reminder of the importance and significance of the day.
We wish you a happy, healthy New Year!
The Rev. Seraphim Solof is assistant pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Worcester.