On Wednesday, September 1st, we commemorate the Feast of Indiction, the beginning of the Ecclesiastical (Church) New Year, and the Day for Protection of our Natural Environment: Divine Liturgy Wednesday at 8am.
The first day of the Church New Year is also called the Beginning of the Indiction. The term Indiction comes from a Latin word meaning, “to impose.” It was originally applied to the imposition of taxes in Egypt. The first worldwide Indiction was in 312 when the Emperor Constantine (May 21) saw a miraculous vision of the Cross in the sky.
This Indiction begins on the 1st of September and is observed with special ceremony in the Church. Since the completion of each year takes place, as it were, with the harvest and gathering of the crops into storehouses, and we begin anew from henceforth the sowing of seed in the earth for the production of future crops, September is considered the beginning of the New Year. The Church also keeps festival this day, beseeching God for fair weather, seasonable rains, and an abundance of the fruits of the earth. The Holy Scriptures (Lev. 23:24-5 and Num. 29:1-2) also testify that the people of Israel celebrated the feast of the Blowing of the Trumpets on this day, offering hymns of thanksgiving.
On this feast we also commemorate our Saviour's entry into the synagogue in Nazareth, where He was given the book of the Prophet Esaias to read, and He opened it and found the place where it is written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for which cause He hath anointed Me..." (Luke 4:16-30). On this feast we also commemorate Symeon the Stylite.
Additionally, on this feast we observe the Day for the Protection of our Natural Environment. The relationship of this observance and our commemoration of the Feast was established in 1989 in an encyclical of Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I, in which he urged “all faithful in the world to admonish themselves and their children to respect and protect the natural environment,” and “all those who are entrusted with the responsibility of governing nations to act without delay in taking all necessary measures for the protection and preservation of natural creation” (Protocol No. 629).
This Feast and those that will follow in the months to come are a witness of our relationship with the created order through our relationship with Christ. We acknowledge before all of the world that our Lord “created all things by bringing them into being out of nothing.” We proclaim that He is our Creator, expressing our petitions and hope for peace and protection, for renewal and salvation. In our respect for all that He has made, in seeing the created order as the work of God and not merely natural resources, in affirming that each and every person bears His image and likeness, we are called to be wise and faithful stewards. Every time we gather in worship and for the Divine Liturgy we affirm this calling in the offering of the Holy Eucharist through the created elements of bread and wine. In his inaugural encyclical for this observance, Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios stated, “In this way the Church continuously declares that man is destined not to exercise power over creation as if he were the owner of it, but to act as its steward, cultivating it in love and referring it in thankfulness with respect and reverence to its Creator.” The celebration of the Holy Eucharist embodies our witness of caring for our natural environment. We care for the created order in reverence and love, cultivating it for our physical needs and for those of others; and we offer the elements as gifts to God in thankfulness so that He may consecrate them as a means of His grace.
As we enter upon a new season, a time of beginnings as the land is cultivated and our children and youth return to school, a time of renewal as we seek to strengthen our faith and follow the ways of the Lord, may we also strengthen our relationship with the created order. May we reconnect with the beauty, diversity, sustenance and life that comes from the world that God has made.
It should be noted that to the present day, the Church has always celebrated the beginning of the New Year on September 1. This was the custom in Constantinople until its fall in 1453 and in Russia until the reign of Peter I. September 1 is still festively celebrated as the New Year at the Patriarchate of Constantinople; among the Jews also the New Year, although reckoned according to a moveable calendar, usually falls in September. The service of the Menaion for January 1 is for our Lord's Circumcision and for the memorial of Saint Basil the Great, without any mention of its being the beginning of a new year.
Apolytikion for The Beginning of Indiction, Mode 2
O Maker of all creation, Who hast established the times and the seasons in Thine own power: Bless the crown of this year with Thy goodness, O Lord, and keep our rulers and Thy flock in peace, by the intercessions of the Theotokos, and save us.
Apolytikion for St. Symeon the Stylite, Mode 1
Thou becamest a pillar of patience and didst emulate the Forefathers, O righteous one: Job in his sufferings, Joseph in temptations, and the life of the bodiless while in the body. O Symeon, our righteous Father, intercede with Christ God that our souls be saved.
Kontakion for the Beginning of Indiction, Mode 4
O God of all, Thou Who hast made all the ages, O Sov'reign Lord, truly transcendent in essence, bestow Thy grace and blessing on the year to come; and, O Most Compassionate, in Thine infinite mercy save all them that worship Thee, Who alone art our Master, and that with fear, O Saviour, cry to Thee: Grant unto all men a fruitful and godly year.