Christophoros
06-02-2009, 01:50 AM
In Dr. Alexandre Kalomiros' Old Calendarist polemic, The Touchstone, the following mention is made concerning the liturgical calendar in Japan. Note that this passage has been edited out of Holy Transfiguration Monastery's current translation available online.
"In the last century, when the newly-established Church of Japan asked permission from its Mother Russian Church to change the festal calendar, permission was granted without any autocephalous Church making protest because there was a missionary need for this change. Certain great Christian Feasts had to be made to coincide with the important idolatrous holidays of the Japanese, just as in the first centuries of Christianity the Church fixed great Christian Feasts to coincide with great feasts of the idolators. This action was of great missionary significance and was like a counter-attack of the Church which persecuted the demons, at the very moment they were wreaking the most havoc. In this way, for example the feast of the Nativity was arranged to be celebrated on the days of the idolatrous feast of the birth of the sun. So then, we have two Churches that changed the festal calendar: the Church of Japan and the Church of Greece. How great, however, is the difference between these two changes! The first took place in order to facilitate the spread of Orthodoxy in an idolatrous land, and the other in order to facilitate the introduction of the West's heresies into an Orthodox land for the glory of Ecumenism. The same act was on one occassion constructive, and on another occassion destructive."
Is anyone familiar with the current liturgical calendar used in Japan? Do they continue to use a calendar specific to the culture in Japan, or have they now adopted the common Julian or "Revised Julian" reckoning?
In Christ,
Chris
"In the last century, when the newly-established Church of Japan asked permission from its Mother Russian Church to change the festal calendar, permission was granted without any autocephalous Church making protest because there was a missionary need for this change. Certain great Christian Feasts had to be made to coincide with the important idolatrous holidays of the Japanese, just as in the first centuries of Christianity the Church fixed great Christian Feasts to coincide with great feasts of the idolators. This action was of great missionary significance and was like a counter-attack of the Church which persecuted the demons, at the very moment they were wreaking the most havoc. In this way, for example the feast of the Nativity was arranged to be celebrated on the days of the idolatrous feast of the birth of the sun. So then, we have two Churches that changed the festal calendar: the Church of Japan and the Church of Greece. How great, however, is the difference between these two changes! The first took place in order to facilitate the spread of Orthodoxy in an idolatrous land, and the other in order to facilitate the introduction of the West's heresies into an Orthodox land for the glory of Ecumenism. The same act was on one occassion constructive, and on another occassion destructive."
Is anyone familiar with the current liturgical calendar used in Japan? Do they continue to use a calendar specific to the culture in Japan, or have they now adopted the common Julian or "Revised Julian" reckoning?
In Christ,
Chris