of the Apostles begins on the day after the first Sunday after Pentecost (which is their All Saints' Day) and lasts till June 28th, and the fast of the Mother of God lasts from August 1st to August 14th. They have, then, four great fasts in the year, all of which they call "forty days" (τεσσαρακοσταί), although they do not all really last so long. Nor are they kept so severely. The Easter fast (Lent) is the only one during which they fast every day (except Saturday and Sunday).[1]
Throughout this year, then, fall a great number of feasts. They distinguish them into three classes—feasts of our Lord (ἑορταὶ δεσποτικαί), of the Mother of God (Θεομητρικαί), and of the Saints (τῶν ἁγιῶν). The feasts of our Lord are Christmas, the Circumcision, Epiphany (on which they chiefly remember his baptism),[2] the Holy Meeting—ὑπαπάντη (of our Lord and St. Simeon, the Presentation, February 2nd), the Annunciation, the awakening of Lazarus (Saturday before Palm Sunday), Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, the Transfiguration (August 6th), and Holy Rood (September 14th). The feasts of our Lady[3] are the same as our older ones, except that they count Candlemas and Lady Day as feasts of Christ. The chief ones are her birthday (September 8th), Presentation (November 21st), Conception (the child-bearing of the mother of the Mother of God, Anne, December 9th) and her falling asleep (κοίμησις, August 15th). On July 2nd they keep, not the Visitation, but the Preservation of the robe of the Mother of God at the Blachernæ (the old Imperial Palace at Constantinople),[4] and December 26th is the Memory of the Mother of God. They have, then, one and often several Saints for every day in the year.[5] They divide feasts according to their solemnity into three classes—great, middle, and lesser days.
- ↑ See Kattenbusch: Confessionskunde, i. pp. 475-478, die Fasten.
- ↑ They call the Epiphany the feast of the Holy Lights (τὰ ἅγια φῶτα).
- ↑ Ἡ παναγία Θεοτόκος is what they regularly call our Lady—the all-holy Mother of God. In ordinary conversation one generally says ἡ παναγία (the all-holy Lady) only.
- ↑ A relic brought to the Church of the Blachernæ in the 5th century (Nilles, i. pp. 200-202).
- ↑ Many of these are Saints whom we should certainly not consider to be so (p. 103, seq.). St. Photius's feast is on February 6th (p. 165).
