Shroro

The Syriac Orthodox Christian Digest - June, 2005

Observance of the Feasts and Fast Days in the Syriac Orthodox Church

Dr. Thomas Joseph

For the past several decades, Syriac Orthodox Christians in different parts of the world have differed in the observance of the feasts and fast days due to differences in the calendars observed. The Church in the Middle East and its diaspora observes fixed feasts according to the Gregorian calendar, whereas Easter (Qyomto) and other movable feasts related to Easter are observed according to the Julian calendar. However, in the Holy Land, where the Church has rights in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem shared with other denominations through long observed traditions, all feast days are observed according to the Julian calendar. The Church in Malankara and its diaspora switched entirely to the Gregorian calendar in 1952 with permission from the then Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum. Hence we have a situation that alarmed the fathers in the ages past—a situation where different parts of the Church celebrates the feasts of the Lord and other feasts on different dates. 

Recently, I have seen emails in internet forums suggesting that the Church in Malankara should return to the Julian calendar advancing reasons such as the need to be in solidarity with the church in the Middle East, the apparent proximity of the Jewish Passover date with that of the Christian Passover in the Julian calendar, and the impulse to reject a calendar advanced by a Roman Pope, among others. 

A return to the Julian calendar is impractical since much of the world we live has adopted the Gregorian calendar for obvious reasons—the Gregorian calendar is based on sound science and is more accurate than the Julian calendar in its conformance to a true solar year. It is irrational to reject the Gregorian calendar merely because it was advanced by a Roman Pope. 

It is very tempting to infer that the date of the Jewish Passover should guide the celebration of the Christian Holy Week of Hasho. However, if we delve into the history of evolution of Jewish and Christian calendars, we can see why date of the observance of Jewish Passover has little relevance to Christians. 

The Easter tables were a matter of controversy in the ancient Church, with several different easter cycles, but eventually a single one (of 532 years: referred to as TaQLaB in Syriac sources, representing the number 532 as pronounced in Syriac) was adopted as the norm. A variable behind this was the way the date of the Jewish Passover was fixed (a) within Judaism itself - it was not fixed astronomically until quite late in 1st millennium AD. (b) by Christians, in order to fix the date of Easter. The Nicene Synod as we all know specified the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon—the first full moon following the vernal equinox—of the year based on the calendar of the times, the Julian calendar. 

(a) and (b) did not necessarily coincide, especially early on. It seems, from a small number of ancient Syriac examples, that periodically tables for Qyomto and related movable feasts were issued. The earliest example seems to be a 6th-cent. text, the underwriting of Sinai New Finds Syriac manuscript 46, which Prof. Sebastian Brock tried to reconstruct in his Catalogue of the New Finds, pp. 119-21. He mentions there another related example in a manuscript of 882. 

The Jewish calendar is essentially a lunar calendar. Moon was a false temptress in man's historic struggle to define a calendar misleading many early civilizations such as the Greeks, Babylonians, Sumerians, and other ancient societies. The problem lies in the time it takes for the moon to pass through its phases as it orbits the earth. A true lunar month is 29.5306 days long and a precise 12 month year would equal 354.3672 days as opposed to the true solar year of 365.242199 days. Different lunar calendar systems compensate for this by "intercalating" extra days or months periodically. The Jewish calendar intercalates a month every three years, inserted just before the month of Nisan, though this system still leads to a gradual shift that requires a second extra month to be added now and then by Jewish elders. 

The earliest society known to have adopted the solar calendar was that of Egypt which developed such a calendar almost six thousand years ago. Initially based on a 365 day, about 1000 years before Julius Ceasar, Egyptian astronomers realized that a year was a 1/4 of a day longer than 365 days but Egypt did not add the correction. and implemented a correction only in 30 BC when Augustus conquered Egypt and forced a change. According to Lucan, Julius Caesar learnt of the Egyptian's solar calendar through a scholar at the court of Cleopatra. In the first half of 46 BC he reordered the Roman lunar calendar with the help of the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes and introduced the Julian calendar on January 1, 45 BC. This is the calendar that continues to be used by many Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches in the Middle East. 

In 1267, Roger Bacon, an English friar, wrote to Pope Clement IV that the Julian calendar fell into error by a day about every 125 years, since calendar year was longer than the actual solar year by about 11 minutes. He argued that as a result Christians were celebrating Easter and other holy days on the wrong days. But he was ignored by the Roman Church. It was only in 1582 that the issue was addressed by Pope Gregory XIII when he introduced the Gregorian calendar on Oct 4, 1582; in countries that obeyed the Pope's bull, the calendar skipped 10 days forward. 

Of the nine people on Pope Gregory's commission who signed the final report, was a Syriac Orthodox Patriarch—Mor Ignatius Ni`mat Allah (1535-87) who became a Maphryono in 1555 and Patriarch in 1557. After being forced to abdicate his throne in March 1576 and flee from Islamists who demanded his conversion to Islam, the Patriarch found refuge in Rome in October 1576. Proficient in mathematics, medicine, and astronomy, the Patriarch is recorded to have brought an Eastern perspective to the Pope's commission. His comments on the proposed reforms were in Arabic and translated into Latin. He signed the 1581 report of the commission in Syriac and Arabic. The Patriarch himself wrote to his community requesting adoption of the calendar; however, in the situation of the day, no change would happen. 

Protestants in Europe rejected the reform and it was only in the 1700s that they were adopted. England adopted the calendar in 1752. Greece did not reform the calendar until 1924. The Eastern Orthodox also rejected the reform inspite of an attempt by Rome to reach out to them. It was only in the 1923 congress of Orthodox Churches in 1923 at Constantinople that the issue was considered, but not accepted. Individual churches have adopted portions of the calendar. 

The Syriac Orthodox Church in the Middle East continues to use Julian calendar to fix the date of Easter and related movable feasts. This is not due to any opposition to the Gregorian calendar, but to be in conformance to the observances in other Christian communities in the Middle East. In fact, the Church had actively sponsored a symposium held in Aleppo under the auspices of the World Council of Churches on fixing the date of Easter on the Gregorian calendar a few years back. 

Given that the Gregorian calendar is more accurate than the Julian calendar or the Jewish lunar calendar against the true solar year, we should not hesitate in using this calendar. One would hope instead that the Churches in the Middle East would adopt the calendar that has been adopted by most countries across the globe. That it was a Roman Pope who initiated the calendar or that there are differences with the Jewish observances should be of no consequence to us. 

Sources: 

J. Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (2nd ed.), 1998. 
Duncan, David, Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year, 1998. 
Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community in Judaism, 2001. 
Personal correspondence with Prof. Sebastian Brock, July 2003.