A New Liturgical Calendar for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church

We are happy to share this information from the London-based Society of St John Chrysostom, about its newly published liturgical calendar. The calendar is free to access as a pdf at this link: https://ssjc.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Calendar-AM-7533.pdf 

On September 1st, the Byzantine rite began its liturgical year with the Indiction, entering the year 7533 according to the Anno Mundi calendar system, which was the official method of recording the civil year in the Byzantine Empire until 1453, and in the Tsardom of Russia until 1699. To mark this, the Society of Saint John Chrysostom in the United Kingdom — a Catholic society founded in 1926 to support the Eastern Catholic Churches and East-West reunion — has published a Byzantine liturgical calendar for the coming year, based on that used by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC).

The first thing to note is that this calendar is fully Gregorian, including the dates of Pascha (Easter) and its dependent feasts and fasts, as is now the practice in the UK and most of the UGCC diaspora. Currently the UGCC in Ukraine itself, along with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, follows the ‘revised’ Julian calendar, meaning that the dates of fixed feasts are synchronous with those of the Gregorian calendar, while the Paschalion remains that of the old, now inaccurate, Julian calendar. This makes little difference once the Paschal cycle begins on 2nd February, since the Julian and Gregorian calculations for Pascha coincide in 2025, whereas the numbering of the weeks after Pentecost differ before this date. As the Byzantine lectionary recites almost the entire New Testament throughout the year, beginning at Pascha, the readings for these days will differ, too.

In the calendar, edited for convenient use in English in the UK, these readings are included for each day, as well as festal readings for feasts ranked Class III and greater. In some traditions, both the moveable and fixed sets of readings are chanted each day at the Divine Liturgy. However, as the latter are mostly readings common to categories of saints, these are usually omitted in UGCC usage for lower-class feasts. The reader will, nonetheless, find a rich tapestry of feasts and commemorations in these pages. The UGCC liturgical calendar is ecumenical, being mostly composed of feasts inherited from Kyiv’s mother see, Constantinople, many of which commemorate ancient Western saints. But continuity is established with the second millennium, following the restoration of communion with the Roman see since 1595/96, as can be seen from the commemorations of Saint Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), Blessed Dominic Barberi (d. 1849), Mother Teresa of Kolkata (d. 1997), and Pope Saint John Paul II (d. 2005).

This works both ways, as the Metropolis of Kyiv was permitted to continue commemorating Saints canonized between the period of the so-called Great Schism and the 1596 Union of Brest. This includes many local saints, such as those of the Kyiv Caves Monastery (founded 1051) and the late-Byzantine theologian Saint Gregory Palamas (d. 1359), whose once-controversial theology led to the suppression of his feast on the Second Sunday of Lent between 1720 and 1974. Of great importance also are those local post-Union Ukrainian saints, many of whom, like Josaphat Kuntseyvich, the Thirteen Martyrs of Pratulin and Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytsky, were martyred for their Catholic faith by mobs, tsars and Soviet commissars for refusing to break communion with Rome. Sadly, this oppression has returned in the latest Muscovite brutalization of Ukraine. Another local commemoration of note is that of the Consecration of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv on August 18, which marks the return to Kyiv of the primatial see in 2005, after being in ‘exile’ in Lviv since the first liquidation of the UGCC by Moscow in 1805.

Divine Liturgy commemorating the Consecration of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection in Kyiv, 18 August 2024.

The Society has gone further in providing for the commemoration of British and Irish saints observed in the local Latin Catholic dioceses, from oft-forgotten Anglo-Saxon hierarchs, kings and religious, to the many martyrs of the penal era, and those more recently canonized, such as St John Henry Newman. Of particular note on September 19th is the feast of St Theodore of Tarsus who, although a Greek hailing from the same city as St Paul, served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690. St Theodore stands as a witness to the universality of the Church, not only because he was a Greek monk serving as primate of the English Church, but also because he was patron of the first Ukrainian Greek Catholic parish in the United Kingdom — and continues to be so for an Anglophone mission point of the UGCC Cathedral of the Holy Family in London. As the introduction to the calendar says, ‘The Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is at once universal, particular and local’, and these characteristics frequently overlap.

An icon of Saint John Henry Newman by Br. Richard Maidwell, CSsR

Another interesting feature of this calendar is its comprehensive fasting guide, which demonstrates just how austere the traditional Byzantine fasting rule is, to the point that it is almost never fully observed even by the Orthodox. The introduction makes it clear that this is not the point:

In Latin Christianity the obligation to fast has been penitential in nature and enforced ‘on pain of sin’. In recent times it has relaxed or adapted to different circumstances across the world and society. In Byzantine Christianity fasting is more extensive and frequent, but understood as an ideal towards which to strive. […] The rule is austere and rarely observed in its entirety, but is included here as a ‘gold standard’ from which we can adapt our practice to account for personal circumstances, health, and spiritual development.

The rule itself is from the fifth-century typikon (service book) of Venerable Sabbas the Sanctified which, while developed in Jerusalem, remains the primary point of reference for liturgical life in the East Slavic churches. It prescribes abstinence from meat, eggs, dairy, fish, oil and wine (alcohol) on most Wednesdays and Fridays of the year, as well as throughout Lent and the other fasting periods, subject to relaxation on certain feasts and days of the week. A detail which is often overlooked in some Orthodox fasting guides, however, is fasting itself, rather than abstinence only. The Sabbaite rule, according to the calendar’s introduction, prescribes a total fast until the Ninth Hour (about 3pm), which accords with Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (Question 147). However, as the introduction makes clear, the canonical minimum for the UGCC is not substantially different from modern Latin observance.

It is hoped that this calendar will be of great assistance to English-language Byzantine rite Catholics in their daily prayer life, but also of interest to Latin Catholics who wish to learn more about the East and the many commonalities and differences between the Roman and Byzantine calendars.

Celebration of the Divine Liturgy on the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God at St Theodore of Tarsus Greek Catholic Mission, London, 8 September 2024. This is an Anglophone mission point of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family of London, delivered with the aid of the Society, and established in November 2022.

The Society’s monthly Divine Liturgy in English at Holy Family Cathedral, London. Since 2013 the Society has served the Divine Liturgy in English at the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family on the second Saturday of each month. This was at the invitation of then-eparch Bishop Hlib.