Comparing Catholicism with Orthodoxy – The Liturgical Year

[SSTeacher]

For Catholics in the west, the liturgical year commences with Advent. However, in Orthodoxy the liturgical year commences on September 1. Can anyone shed any light upon how this state of affairs came about?

Curiously,
Mick

 

[TheosisM]

For Catholics in the west, the liturgical year commences with Advent. However, in Orthodoxy the liturgical year commences on September 1. Can anyone shed any light upon how this state of affairs came about?

Curiously,
Mick

Which calendar (New or Old) are you referring to?

Also (Orthodox please correct me if I’m wrong) Orthodoxy doesn’t have the concept of “ordinary time”.

 

[SSTeacher]

SSTeacher;6251770:

For Catholics in the west, the liturgical year commences with Advent. However, in Orthodoxy the liturgical year commences on September 1. Can anyone shed any light upon how this state of affairs came about?

Curiously,
Mick

Which calendar (New or Old) are you referring to?

Also (Orthodox please correct me if I’m wrong) Orthodoxy doesn’t have the concept of “ordinary time”.

Many thanks for your contribution. I haven’t encountered the notion of ordinary time inside Orthodoxy. I would guess it’s more of a western concept. But if it is I guess one might wonder how it fits with the Eastern Catholic approach.

I confess that I hadn’t given thought to the different calendars. I was following on from an entry in OrthodoxWiki, which states the following:

***In the eastern Roman Empire, in the Greek or Constantinopolitan Indictions the first day (of the new year) of the indiction year was established initially as September 23, which was the birthday of Augustus. This date also became the start of the Eastern Orthodox Church year. By late in the fifth century the start of the new year, however, shifted to September 1, which is the present day beginning of the Church year.

In the west, the Imperial or Western Indictions September was adopted as the beginning of the year, apparently based upon calculations under the authority of the Venerable Bede.

Later, in the ninth century Roman or Pontifical Indictions were introduced in the west that began the year on either December 25 or January 1.***

This is all pre–schism so my curiosity is directed toward the thinking behind what appears to be a diversion from what went before that was apparently legislated at some point by the bishop of Rome. I’m proceeding, of course, with the assumption that the OrthodxWiki is correct. I’m just looking for a few more details so that I can develop a better understanding of how the present position was reached.

Cordially,
Mick