The Beginning of the Church Year

Life

The First Ecumenical Council determined that the church year should begin on September 1. The month of September was among the Jews the beginning of the new civil year (Exodus 23:16), the month of the gathering of fruits and the offering of sacrifices of thanksgiving to God. At the time of this celebration, the Lord Jesus entered the synagogue in Nazareth, opened the book of the Prophet Isaiah, and read the words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance (Isaiah 61:1-2). Furthermore, this month of September is notable in the history of Christianity, for in it Emperor Constantine the Great achieved victory over Maxentius, an enemy of the faith of Christ, and that victory was followed by the freedom of the Christian confession throughout the entire Roman Empire. For a long time the civil year in the Christian world was also reckoned, as the church year, from September 1; but it was later moved to January 1, first in Western Europe, and afterward in Russia in the time of Peter the Great.

From the Hymn of Praise

Simeon the Stylite, first of the pillar-dwellers,An illumined elder radiant with the light of the immortals,Bound to the pillar, a willing sacrifice,Heaven beholds him living, earth sees him dead.