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.”
The beginning of the new ecclesiastical year is September 1, and therefore the entire Church service, apart of course from that which refers to the other saints whom we celebrate today, such as Saint Symeon the Stylite and the Holy Forty Women Martyrs, is in reality a prayer: that the Lord may bless this year — “Bless the crown of the year with Your goodness, O Lord” — which means that He may grant His grace, so that we human beings may live in peace and harmony, following His holy commandments.
It is very important that our Church considers this to be the only way in which there is blessing in the world: not simply if people prosper economically, not if everything comes easily to them, as we say, but if we are “in harmony and peace,” and above all, if we keep the holy commandments of God.
The priority of bringing ourselves into harmony with the will of God, the fulfillment, as the hymns today point out, of the petitions of the “Our Father,” in order that we may have the blessing of God, certainly does not mean belittling or downgrading economic realities as well: without them, a person cannot survive in this world. It means that economic matters do not have priority. The first thing in our life is “Thy kingdom come,” just as the Lord Himself taught the proper ordering of things: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things” — all material and earthly things — “shall be added to you.”
Unfortunately, in our time, this ordering of priorities has, to a great extent, been overturned. God and His holy will have been pushed to the margins, if not erased altogether, and the economic element has become the almost exclusive goal of man.
For many, the foolish rich man of the well-known parable appears to be an idol: yes, he rejoiced splendidly every day, but death came mercilessly and without warning into his life and… overturned his plans, plunging him into unspeakable anguish.
From this point of view, our age is an age of foolishness, one that includes not only many rich people, but also a very large part of the poor. For the poor as well, if they desire money and material possessions as the priority of their lives, even if they do not possess them, are regarded by the word of God as foolish rich men. It is the content of our heart that God always has before His eyes, according to the revelation of God Himself.
Our Church today, with the New Year that it celebrates, also reminding us of the beginning of the Lord’s public ministry, with His preaching in the synagogue of His own homeland, Nazareth, where among other things He reveals concerning Himself that He came “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” that is, to proclaim the beginning of a new age, acceptable and pleasing to God — our Church, then, brings us back into balance, because it proposes to us what constitutes the eternal will of God: to place precisely Him and His word above all.
Once again She opens our eyes, in an age of confusion and clouding of the mind, so that we may realize that we are in this life by the grace of God, that He prolongs the time of our dwelling here, as the Apostle says, having “appointed the times and seasons by His own authority,” so that we may live according to His will.
In other words, the Church reminds us that time is a gift from God, not so that we may squander it on foolishness and sins, but so that we may make use of it in an ever-upward journey toward Him, that is, in a journey of love toward our fellow man.
And then, She tells us, we shall see what the Lord promised: at the very moment when we establish His will as the foundation of our life, at that very moment His powers will also become active, on the one hand for overcoming whatever problems we may have, and on the other for restoring all of creation.
It is no coincidence that for quite a number of years now our Ecumenical Patriarchate has promoted the beginning of the ecclesiastical year as a day dedicated to the protection of the environment. And rightly so: the will of God, as we have said, when it is lived by the “king” of creation, man, has a direct reflection upon all of nature and upon all creation.
We have said it before: the solution to today’s economic crisis, which those in power and the mass media continually hold up before us as a “bogeyman,” will come as soon as we begin to live as real human beings, on the basis of the law of God.
In simple terms, the crisis is essentially spiritual.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
