Calendar Celebration

The Orthodox Calendar is much more than a tool to determine the date for Pascha. It is May 5^th this year, by the way. The Calendar is a way for the Church to remember our history and faith. It is a way for us to tell future generations what was important to us and our ancestors. Today is one of those days.

When it comes to saints on the calendar, commemoration normally aligns with one of two events in their life. The feast day, and there can be more than one feast day for a saint, is either the day they died, or the day their relics were discovered and relocated to the Church for proper honor. There are a few rare exceptions to this, but I won’t get into those today.

Today the Church commemorates the bringing of the relics of Saint John Chrysostom to Constantinople in 438AD. He had died in exile some thirty or so years earlier. You can read a more complete description of his life, exiles (more than one) and the return of his relics many years later.

Another event in the history of his relics took place in my lifetime. In 2004, 800 years after his relics were stolen from Constantinople and brought to Rome during the 4^th Crusade, his relics were once again restored to the Church of Constantinople. You can watch a brief video about that event from November 2004.

When something happens of great importance, we don’t want to forget the impact the event had on our life and the life of the Church, so the event is placed on the calendar. If not, we would never know the history of how his relics were stolen and then returned. This is just one example of such historic events.

I remember one time one of my Protestant friends was looking at my calendar. He laughed and said, “Boy! You Greeks will celebrate anything!” He was looking at the calendar for May 25^th, which (in bold type) reads “Third Finding of the Head of John the Baptist.” He said, “How did you keep losing it, as he laughed. It gave me a chance to share the history of our Church with him.

The calendar is much more than a list of dates you can eat meat. It is a history of who and what is important in the life of our Church. It is not just about the past, but it is about today. In our journey to Live A New Life In Christ, I invite you to take time every day to review the Church calendar, to celebrate the calendar. You will be blessed, I promise.