The New Ecclesiastical Year in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church (1)

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Today, September 1, our Church celebrates the Beginning of the Indiction, that is, the beginning of the new ecclesiastical year. For this day, Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite writes in his Synaxarion:

“We must know, brethren, that the holy Church of God celebrates the Indiction today for three reasons. First, because this too is the beginning of the year. For this reason, among the ancient Romans it was also greatly honored from ancient times. Indiction, in the Roman, that is, Latin language, means ‘decree’ or ‘proclamation.’ And secondly, the Church celebrates it because on this day our Lord Jesus Christ went into the synagogue of the Jews, and the Book of the Prophet Isaiah was given to Him, as the Evangelist Luke writes (Luke 4). And when the Lord opened the Book - O the wonder! - He immediately found that passage, namely the beginning of the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, in which these words are written concerning Him:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me; He has sent Me to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’

And after the Lord had read these words concerning Himself, He closed the Book and gave it to the attendant. Then, having sat down, He said to the people: ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ Therefore, when the people heard these things, they marveled at the gracious words that came from His mouth, as the same Evangelist Luke writes (ibid.).

There is also a third reason for which the Church of Christ commemorates the Indiction today and celebrates the beginning of the new year: namely, that through the hymns and supplications which we offer to God on this feast, God may be merciful to us, and may bless the new year and grant it to us prosperous and filled with all bodily goods. And that He may enlighten our minds, so that we may pass through the whole year purely and with a good conscience, and so that we may please God by keeping His commandments. And thus may we attain the eternal goods in Heaven.”

Homily on the Beginning of the Indiction, or the Ecclesiastical New Year (St. Sergius Mechev)

 

Homily on the Beginning of the Indiction, or the Ecclesiastical New Year

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

By the mercy of God, today we enter with you into a new ecclesiastical year. Each year, going from feast to feast, the Holy Church, together with all of nature, passes from beginning to end through the annual cycle of divine services.

For people living in the world, the arrival of a new year is usually associated with a burdensome feeling of regret over what one could have done and what has remained undone. Looking back upon the time that has been lived, a person inevitably thinks about what has been irretrievably lost in the past, what can no longer be returned or changed in the future.

For people who live a spiritual life, this feeling of the irretrievability of what has passed is foreign to them, because they live in a world where there are no temporal limitations, where the boundaries of the past, present, and future are overcome.