church year
- Also called:
- liturgical year
- Key People:
- Dionysius Exiguus
church year, annual cycle of seasons and days observed in Christian churches in commemoration of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and of Christian virtues as exhibited in the lives of the saints.
Origins of the church year
Religious times and seasons
The church year has deep roots in the primitive human impulse to mark certain times with sacral significance and ritual observance. These are times when conscious attention is given to the mysterious forces that surround and involve all living creatures in the natural and inexorable cycles of light and darkness; labour and rest; birth, growth, decay, and death.
Two interrelated cycles have had primary importance in the shaping of religious calendars. One is cosmic: the phases of the moon and the solar equinoxes and solstices. The other is the periodic succession of the seasons of nature that determines times of sowing and reaping. Both cycles speak to the mystery of birth, death, and rebirth and to human dependence upon the fecundity of life given in the natural creation.
Jewish background
The Jewish religious year, grounded in the divinely revealed Law of the Hebrew Bible, was the foundation for the church year of Christians. It is a lunar-month calendar stemming from the primitive nomadic life of the Hebrews, with its chief festival at the first full moon of spring, known later as the Passover. Grafted onto this calendar after the settlement of the Hebrew tribes in Palestine were the agricultural festivals—dependent upon “the early and later rains”—the firstfruits at Passover, the first harvest at Shavuot, or the Festival of Weeks, and the autumn harvest at Sukkoth, or the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths.
Of uncertain origin, but prior to the monarchical period (11th–6th century bce), the Hebrews observed a seven-day week, of which the last day, or sabbath, was a holiday and day of rest. Whatever its original purpose, it became transformed into a sacral day, consecrated to Yahweh, the one God of the Hebrews, and increasingly surrounded with restrictions upon all activity other than worship. In the time of Jesus (1st century ce), “keeping holy the sabbath day” was a principal hallmark of adherence to Judaism.
The remarkable aspect of the Jewish religious year was its transformation, in successive codifications of the Torah, into a series of historical commemorations associated with God’s deed in creation and in the redemption of God’s people. At first the sabbath was related to the Exodus, the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt in the 13th century bce (Deuteronomy 5:15) and, later, to the repose of God at the completion of the Creation (Exodus 20:8–11; Genesis 2:2–3). The three agricultural feasts became a sequence of remembrances of the Exodus from Egypt and the pilgrimage through the wilderness to the promised land (Exodus 12:1–20; Leviticus 23; Deuteronomy 16:1–17). Through these annual celebrations Jews relived the saving events of the past and anticipated the final deliverance of the people of God in the age to come. Rabban Gamaliel, a contemporary of Jesus, said, “In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he came forth himself out of Egypt…” (from Mishna, Pesaḥim 10:5).
Formation of the church year
In his earthly life, Jesus was subject to the laws of sabbath, feast, and fast prescribed in the Hebrew Bible, but his ministry and teaching pointed to a new age, the coming kingdom of God, when the Law would be fulfilled. He was, therefore, not so much concerned with outward conformity to legal regulations as he was with the spirit in which they were observed. “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). It was in the context of a celebration of the Passover feast with his disciples that he was arrested, tried, and put to death.
Early Christians believed that the new age promised by Jesus had dawned with his Resurrection, on “the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). By this event the Law was fulfilled. Now every day and time were viewed as holy for the celebration and remembrance of Jesus’ triumph over sin and death. Though many of his disciples continued to observe the special times and seasons of the Jewish Law, new converts broke with the custom because they regarded it as no longer needful or necessary. St. Paul, himself a dutiful observant of the Law, considered the keeping of holy days a matter of indifference, provided the devotion be “in honor of the Lord” (Romans 14:5–9). He warned his converts not to judge one another with regard to “festivals, new moons, or sabbaths” (Colossians 2:16).
From the beginning the church took over from Judaism the seven-day week. Before the end of the apostolic age (1st century ce), as the church became predominantly Gentile in membership, the first day of the week, or Sunday, had become the normative time when Christians assembled for their distinctive acts of worship, in commemoration of the Lord’s Resurrection (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). During the first two centuries, the Greco-Roman world in general adopted the planetary seven-day week of the astrologers.
Christian writers of the 2nd century came to view Sunday, “the Lord’s day,” as a symbol of Christianity in distinction from Judaism. Most of the churches decided to observe the Lord’s Passover (Easter) always on a Sunday, after the Jewish feast was over. In addition, local churches began to celebrate the anniversaries of the deaths of their martyrs, called “birthdays in eternity,” for these also were regarded as witnesses to the resurrection triumph of Christ in his followers. The weekly Sunday and the annual Paschal (Passover) observance of 50 days from Easter to Pentecost (the Jewish harvest festival that also commemorated the revelation of the Law to Moses) were thus the principal framework of the church year until the 4th century—reminders of the new age to be brought by Christ at his coming again in glory at the end of time, when the true believers would enter their inheritance of perpetual joy and feasting with their Redeemer and Lord.
The establishment of Christianity as a state religion, following the conversion of the emperor Constantine (312 ce), brought new developments. The Paschal season was matched by a longer season of preparation (Lent) for the many new candidates for baptism at the Easter ceremonies and for the discipline and penance of those who for grievous sins had been cut off from the communion of the church.
A new focus of celebration, to commemorate the birth of Christ, the world Redeemer, was instituted at ancient winter solstices (December 25 and January 6 in the Northern Hemisphere) to rival the pagan feasts in honour of the birth of a new age brought by the “Unconquered Sun.” Later the Western churches created a preparatory season for the Christmas festival, known as Advent. Many new days were gradually added to the roster of martyr anniversaries to commemorate distinguished leaders, the dedication of buildings and shrines in honour of the saints, and the transferral of their relics.