Fun Fact - September 2015

The month of August brought the church year to an exciting close, with two great feasts – the Transfiguration of the Lord on August 6 and the Dormition of the Theotokos on the 15th – plus a major fast for the Dormition from August 1-14 and a strict fast day for the Beheading of St. John the Baptist on the 29th. September starts the new church year off with a bang: two more great feasts – the Nativity of the Theotokos on September 8 and the Elevation of the Holy Cross on the 14th – and a strict fast day for the Cross.

A few words on the Nativity of the Theotokos… Like the devoted, God-fearing couples we meet in the Old Testament, Saints Joachim and Anna were elderly and barren, unable to have children. Their offering at the temple in Jerusalem rejected on this account (the priests assumed their barrenness was due to some hidden sin), Joachim was grief-stricken, as was Anna. But God attended to their prayers, and the Archangel Gabriel brought them the news that Anna, even in her deep old age, would bear a child – Mary, who would become the Theotokos (“the Bearer of God”). It is for this reason that we commemorate Joachim and Anna as “the holy and righteous Ancestors of God.” We celebrate Mary’s conception from St. Anna on December 9, and her birth (or nativity) on September 8, almost exactly 9 months later.

And regarding the Elevation of the Holy Cross… After the Romans overran Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Roman Emperors sought to bury (literally) all evidence of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. The sites of Golgotha, where He was crucified, and the Holy Sepulcher, where He was buried, were covered over, and a pagan temple erected in their place. Some 250 years later, after St. Constantine had become Emperor, achieving his great victories under the banner of the Cross, he sent his mother, St. Helena, to work with St. Macarius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to find the Lord’s Cross. They were successful, and in the year 326, the Patriarch elevated the Holy Cross for all to see and venerate as they cried out “Lord, have mercy!” We celebrate this feast – which is also a strict day of fasting – each year on September 14. From this comes our custom of elevating the Cross to all the points of the compass while singing “Gospodi Pomilui” a total of 500 times. Why we sing “Gospodi Pomilui,” which is “Lord, have mercy!” in Old Church Slavonic… is a story for another time!