How Our Liturgical Year Developed

In the Old Testament we read about the mysterious tree of life, which God had planted in the garden of Eden. Although this tree no longer exists, the Lord has planted a new tree of life in the supernatural garden of the Church. This tree flourishes before our eyes, blossoming every year with new freshness and vigor; ever renewing itself, and bringing forth abundant fruit for eternal life, – and that mystical tree is the Liturgical Year.

The development and growth of the Ecclesiastical Year can be aptly compared to the growth of a tree. Just as the growth of a tree begins with a small kernel, which grows imperceptibly into maturity as the years go by, so too, the development of the Ecclesiastical Year began with a mystical divine kernel – the Holy Eucharist. The upper room where the Last Supper took place was the cradle of the Ecclesiastical Year. It has grown and developed over a thousand years until it assumed its present day form.

Let us examine closely the growth of this New Testament tree – the Ecclesiastical Year which was planted by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Like in every tree, the principal parts of this tree include its root, trunk, crown and fruit.

The Root of the Tree of the Liturgical Year

The root which nourishes this giant tree with its life-giving sap is our Lord’s bloody sacrifice on the Cross which is renewed in an unbloody manner in every Divine Liturgy. The Eucharistic Sacrifice which is offered up at each Divine Liturgy is the soul of our Liturgical Year. “The Most Blessed Eucharist,” says the Second Vatican Council, “contains the entire spiritual boon of the Church, that is, Christ Himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, by the action of the Holy Spirit…giving life to men…No Christian community is built up, however, unless it has as its basis and center in the celebration of the most Holy Eucharist.” (Ministry and Life of Priests, 5, 6) The decree on the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” states: “Nevertheless, the Liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.” (10).

The Trunk of the Tree of the Liturgical Year

The root nourishes the whole tree, but it is the trunk that bears its entire weight. The trunk of the tree of the Liturgical Year are the events from the life of Jesus Christ made present in the various feasts. Christ is the author and the center of the Liturgical Year. It is not surprising, therefore, that the cult of the person of Jesus Christ from the earliest apostolic times gave rise to the dediction of days and seasons to His special glory and veneration.

In the Old Testament, the Lord’s day – that is, the day consecrated to god – was Saturday. In the New Testament the Lord’s day became Sunday to commemorate the resurrection of Christ; for this reason, Sunday is the oldest Christian feast, and this feast with its Eucharist Sacrifice is the kernel around which the feasts of our Lord began to form.

Speaking of the meaning of Sunday in the Liturgical Year, the Second Vatican Council in the decree on the “Constitution on the Liturgy” says: “Hence the Lord’s Day is the original feast day, and it should be proposed to the piety of the faithful and taught to them so that it may become  in fact a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations, unless they be truly of greatest importance, shall not have precedence over the Sunday which is the foundation and kernel of the whole Liturgical Year.” (106)

The apostles and the first Christians at first observed the Jewish feasts. But gradually these were supplanted by the feasts of the New testament, the first of which, besides Sunday, was the glorious festival of the Pasch (or the Resurrection or Easter). This feast, the first in the cycle of the Liturgical Year, became the core of all the feasts and Sundays connected with the paschal season. The Feast of the Pentecost or the descent of the Holy Spirit is closely linked with the feast of the Pasch. In the third century, the feast of the Theophany became a universal celebration. Later on other feasts of the Lord came into being – the Nativity, Circumcision and Presentation (4c), Ascension (5c), Transfiguration (6c), and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (7c). In the eleventh century, the sum of our Lord’s feasts reached the symbolic number of twelve. It is interesting to note that at first the feasts of the Mother of God were not included among the twelve great feasts.

The Crown of the Tree of the Liturgical Year

The natural completion of every tree is its crown, that is, the branches, leaves and blossoms. Similarly, the tree of the Liturgical Year did not limit itself only to the feasts of our Lord, but found its completion in the feasts of the Blessed Mother of God and the saints which constitute its crown.

By proclaiming the dogma of the Divine Maternity of the most Pure Virgin Mary, the Council of Ephesus (431) opened wide the door to the liturgical cult of Mary. From that time on various feasts of the Mother of God began to appear one after another. Truly noteworthy is the fact that the principal ancient Marian feasts originated in the eastern Church. The very first Marian feasts which appeared after the Council of Ephesus were the feasts of the Dormition or Assumption and the Annunciation. In the centuries immediately following, appeared the feasts of the Nativity of the Mother of God, the Conception of Anna, the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, the Patronage, and other minor feasts.

The other important element crowning the tree of the Liturgical Year is the cult of the saints. The veneration of saints began in the first centuries with the veneration of the tombs and relics of the holy martyrs. Their names began more and more to fill the days of the Church Calendar. Along with the cult of the Martyrs, the cult of the Apostles developed, and later still the cult of the Bishops, Patriarchs, Old Testament Saints, Ascetics, that is, holy Monks and Nuns, and the Angels. Between the fourth and fifth centuries, the veneration of the Saints became a general practice in the Church. Between the sixth and eighth centuries our Ecclesiastical Year assumed its present form. Since then all that was left to do was to add other new saints to the Church Calendar.

At the time our prince Wolodymyr the Great received the Christian faith from Byzantium a completely developed Church Calendar already existed. In the course of time, our Church added her own Ukrainian saints to this Calendar, such as: St. Olga, prince Wolodymyr the Great, the princes Borys and Hlib, the venerable Anthony and Theodosius Pechersky and others.

Because, for various reasons, holy Church wished to pay special veneration to certain saints, their feasts became holydays on which all the faithful were obliged to be present at the Divine Liturgy and to refrain from strenuous physical work. Such holy days of obligation became quite numerous in our Church. The Synod of Zamost (1720) lists seventeen holydays of obligation in honor of the saints, in addition to the feasts of our Lord and the Blessed Mother of God. The Synod of Lviv (1891) diminished the number of these obligatory feasts of the saints. Some it reduced to the rank of an ordinary church holyday, while others were transferred to Sunday.,

In 1969 our Bishops’ Synod held in Rome reduced the many holydays of obligation not only of the saints, but also those of our Lord and the Mother of God. The Synod decreed: “In regard to the celebration of holydays in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Synod, taking into consideration the new social and economic conditions of the life and work of our faithful, and the dispensations which other local Churches have granted, decrees in the spirit of the canons of the Second Vatican Council that beginning with the first of January, 1970, the following holydays shall be obligatory for all the faithful: All the Sundays in the Calendar, the Nativity (Christmas), Theophany (Epiphany), the Resurrection (Pasch, Easter), the Pentecost – one day only (the first day), The Naming (Circumcision) of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Annunciation of the most Pure Virgin Mary, the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Dormition (Assumption) of the most Holy Mother of God.” (18)

The Synod obliges all the faithful in conscience to observe these feastdays, and there is no strict obligation to observe other traditional holydays.

The Fruit of the Tree of the Liturgical Year

The evangelist John in the book of Revelation speaks of the “tree of life which brings forth twelve crops of fruit in a year, one in each month, and the leaves of which are the cure for the nations” (Revelation 22,2). So it is with our Liturgical-Ecclesiastical Year – it is the grace-giving tree of life, which generously imparts to us its spiritual fruits every day, week, month and year. Whoever takes active part in the celebration of feasts of the Liturgical Year will bring forth abundant fruit – the fruit of faith, hope, love of God and neighbor, the fruits of the spirit of prayer and sacrifice and the various virtues without which one cannot become a true Christian.

Our Liturgical year, therefore, should bring us closer to and transform us into Christ. Just as Christ is the center of the Liturgical Year, so too He should be the center of our life.