AT THE SECOND European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz, 1997, one of the resolutions adopted was the following: "We recommend that the churches consider and promote the preservation of creation as part of church life at all levels. One way would be to observe a common Creation Day, such as the Ecumenical Patriarchate celebrates each year. Rationale: The seriousness of the ecological dilemma for the future of the human race means that the churches' consciousness of it must be raised. Commitment to preservation of the creation is not an issue among many others, but an essential dimension of all church life."¹ 

This recommendation is a delayed response to a suggestion which was made by the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I as much as ten years ago. In a message released on 1 September 1989, we read: "Therefore we invite, through this our Patriarchal Message, the entire Christian world to offer together with the Mother Church of Christ, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, every year on this day prayers and supplications to the Maker of all, both as thanksgiving for the great gift of creation and as petitions for its protection and salvation. At the same time we paternally urge on the one hand the faithful in the world to admonish themselves and their children to respect and protect the natural environment, and on the other hand all those who are entrusted with the responsibility of governing the nations to act without delay, taking all necessary measures for the protection and preservation of natural creation."² 

How can the recommendation from Graz be implemented in the life of the churches? How can the responsibility for God's creation find a place in worship, and especially in the church year? What room is there for the Ecumenical Patriarch's proposal?

1. God as Creator in the church year 

It is obvious that God the Creator does not occupy any central place in the church year as we have it. The great festivals of the Christian calendar are about God's "mighty acts" in Jesus Christ: the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and Christ's birth as a human being. In the course of the year Christendom celebrates the foundational events of the revelation of God in Christ. However, there is no day and time when we remember God as the Creator. The church year is concentrated almost entirely on the second and third sections of the Christian creed. 

Is this state of affairs acceptable in view of the ecological crisis? Is it not time to reconsider the sequence of the church year? Certainly belief in "God the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth" is presupposed in any church celebration. How could we celebrate Epiphany or Trinity Sunday without also thinking of God as Creator? But is this information sufficient? In view of the criticism that the Judeo-Christian tradition has substantially contributed to present-day destructive ways of treating nature, there are more and more calls for a reform of the church year. For, even though it can be demonstrated that this criticism is based on a biased interpretation of the biblical texts, the absence of God the Creator in the succession of Christian festivals is something to be considered. If it is true that worship rather than the church's teaching has the most influence on the consciousness of believers, then our belief in the Creator of heaven and earth must be given expression as such. The whole of the creed must be expressed in worship.

2. The revelation of God in history

The succession of Christian festivals is embedded in the changing seasons of the year. Every year the cycle ends and begins anew. To this extent the rhythm of nature provides the framework for the church year. However, the content of the festivals is not the rhythm of nature; instead they commemorate the events connected with God's revelation in Christ. The circling year recalls the turning point in history brought about by Jesus.

This tendency can already been seen in Israel's traditions. The great festivals celebrated in Israel were originally rooted in the cycle of nature. The Passover originated in the nomadic period, as a spring festival at which the firstborn lambs were sacrificed. Three other feasts have their origins in the Canaanite context and had to do with the cultivation of the land: a) the festival of Mazzoth, the Unleavened Bread, was celebrated at the time of the barley harvest; b) the festival of the wheat harvest, Shabuoth, celebrated seven weeks after the Feast of Mazzoth, was also called the festival of Weeks; and c) the festival of Booths or Tabernacles, Sukkoth, was the feast of the wine and fruit harvest, and could also be called simply the Festival. The original meaning of these festivals is especially recognisable in the customs which were observed. At the Feast of Mazzoth a first sheaf of grain was offered, and at the Feast of Weeks the first loaves of bread. The use of branches at the Feast of Tabernacles goes back to a grape-harvest festival celebrated in vineyards and orchards.

All these festivals were given new meanings in Israel. At Passover the Exodus from Egypt was remembered. The Feasts of Mazzoth and Tabernacles also served to recall this history. The use of unleavened bread was now explained as a recollection that the Israelites, forced by the Egyptians to leave in a hurry, had no time to let that morning's bread dough rise and thus had to bake it as unleavened cakes the first time they camped (Exodus 12:34,39). The Feast of Tabernacles was to be celebrated according to Yahweh's commandment "so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 23:39-43). The Feast of Weeks was seen in later years as the festival recalling the revelation of the Law on Sinai.

This does not means that Israel was thereby forgetting its relation to the creation. The Sabbath, which was observed every seven days, was fundamental to the consciousness of Israel. Whatever was the origin of this day of rest, in the course of Israel's history it was brought into relation to God's work of creation. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and consecrated it." (Exodus 20:11) The Sabbath was a day of rest not only for people and cattle, but also for the earth. The extension of the Sabbath rhythm to sabbatical and jubilee years makes this especially clear. In the seventh year there was to be a sabbath of complete rest for the land; neither sowing nor harvesting was allowed (Leviticus 25:4). But even as festivals were given new meaning in the light of historical experience, their roots in the cycle of nature was not entirely lost. How could gifts of first fruits be offered without thinking of the Creator?

The giving of historical meaning to festivals continued in the Christian church. From now on, the decisive event for all others was the resurrection of Christ. In the Christian communities it became the custom to gather on the evening of the first day of the week, that is, on the day of Christ's resurrection, to celebrate the breaking of the bread. Gradually, this Day of Resurrection, the Lord's Day or Day of the Sun, absorbed the Sabbath tradition. The Sabbath, for Christians, was moved from Saturday to Sunday. But this also changed its meaning. The central content of this day was now the celebration of Jesus' victory over death. The congregation gathered to celebrate the Lord's presence in the Word, prayer and supper and to await his second coming. The reference to the creation was pushed into the background. Certainly there was a reference to the creation in the Lord's Supper, since the bread and wine can be seen as God's gifts. However, the primary meaning of sharing the supper was the communion with the crucified and risen Christ.

The Jewish festivals were to some extent no longer observed, or were replaced by Christian festivals. The reference to the creation which was still present in them was thereby lost.

3. The gradual development of the church year

The church year as we know it today is the result of a long and complicated development. It was not put together all at one time. Thus it is not a construction which is consistent in every way, but rather reflects the ideas and viewpoints of various historical periods. "Differing orders and spheres of time, tied to rival calendars and their cycles which overlap, have resulted overall in a highly complex construct of dates, observances, feasts and festival periods - a bewildering, artfully layered architectonic structure."³ The divisions among the churches have led to differing ways of shaping the church year. Each confessional tradition has its own peculiarities. First it was East and West which went separate ways, but the divisions which appeared with the Reformation in the 16th century also had particular consequences in this regard. Thus it cannot be taken for granted that the various confessions will be able to agree on the ordering of the church year.

Various cycles determine the basic pattern of the construct. The first cycle is the sequence of Sundays. As it was for Israel, for the church too the unit of seven days is decisive, and forms the basis of the church year.

Second in importance is the Easter cycle. Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, was the first Christian festival to be celebrated annually. Around Easter, other festivals developed at various points in time: before Easter, Lent, Palm Sunday and Holy Week, especially Good Friday; after Easter, the Easter season with Ascension and Whit Sunday (Pentecost); around the year 1000, Trinity Sunday was added as a festival which sums them all up. Since Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, its date varies, and with it all the dates of the Easter cycle.

The third cycle, that of Christmas, is distinguished by two feast days, those of the birth of Christ and of Epiphany on 6th January. In contrast to Easter, Christmas is fixed on a particular date in the solar calendar, and therefore is not a movable feast and does not fall on a Sunday in every year. Since the Christmas and Easter cycles are based on different systems of reckoning, the length of the period between them varies from year to year. The number of Sundays between Epiphany and the beginning of Lent, and also the number of Sundays between Pentecost and the beginning of Advent, are different from one year to the next. Other festivals are scattered throughout the year, some loosely connected with the great cycles, others, such as the Feast of the Transfiguration (6th August), having no immediately visible connection with them. A few festivals such as Reformation Sunday are memorials, others, like New Year, are fixed in the civil calendar.

The fourth cycle is that of the saints' days. Early in the history of the church the custom was already being established of remembering our "cloud of witnesses" on certain days of the year. The lists of the saints are not the same for all churches; they are different in East and West. In the churches of the Reformation, the calendar of saints lost much of its meaning when the veneration of the saints was condemned. The saints' days became merely memorials or were forgotten altogether.

4. A changing order

Solidly as these fundamental cycles are rooted in the life of the church, the church year is not an order which has been concluded for all time. Construction is still going on, with each century making its contribution. Festivals whose position at one time seemed unshakeable have ended up in the background, and new ones have been added. Excesses which have developed are swept away by radical reforms, most radically at the time of the Reformation. Gentler reforms, such as those of the Second Vatican Council, seek to eliminate inconsistencies and to make the ordering more understandable.

Thus the endeavour to include a time in the church year especially to honour the creation and its Creator is legitimate.⁴ Why should the church not see to it that, in the face of the ecological crisis, its confession of God as Creator finds a clearer expression in its liturgical life? Individual churches have already taken steps in this direction. In numerous churches, especially in rural areas, there are harvest festival traditions: today one finds here and there attempts being made to revive these traditions. In the Roman Catholic Church the day of Saint Francis of Assisi on 4th October is being given an increasing role. In ever-widening circles the need is being felt for God's creation and its preservation to be an explicit theme in worship.

5. The Ecumenical Patriarch's proposal

There is particular significance in the Ecumenical Patriarch's proposal to celebrate

1 September as a day of "thanksgiving for the great gift of creation and petitions for its protection and salvation". What is behind the choice of this date?

 For the Orthodox churches, 1 September begins the church year. This regulation has a long tradition, going back to the way time was reckoned in the Byzantine Empire. It was based on indictions, which are periods of a certain number of years. Official documents always gave the indiction and the year within the indiction. This system of dating was introduced under the Emperor Diocletian in the years 297-98, and was declared obligatory under the Emperor Justinian I in 462-63.⁵ The year began on 23 September, which was changed to 1 September in the second half of the 5th century. An indiction was at first five years long, later changed to 15 years. At the end of each indiction the next began. The church also used this system of reckoning time. The beginning of each year, and especially of a new indiction, was ceremoniously observed. In Constantinople, the Patriarch announced the new year of the indiction. After celebrating the liturgy in the basilica of Hagia Sophia, the Patriarch and the members of the Holy Synod gathered in a great hall. Following prayers and liturgical hymn-singing, the Patriarch named the new year and granted absolution to all. He then confirmed, by signing the official document, the beginning of the new year.⁶

With the end of the Byzantine Empire this tradition lost its practical significance. However, the church preserved the date, and the Orthodox churches today still celebrate 1 September as the beginning of the new year, even though it does not carry any weight in the life of the church. The year is not structured according to its beginning on 1 September.⁷ This festival is one of the relics left over from calendars used in the past. The Ecumenical Patriarch in his Message scarcely goes into the traditional meaning of this day at all; he merely mentions it, without further explanation.

Thus the Patriarch's proposal is to be seen as an endeavour to give a new content to a festival which has largely lost its ancient meaning. The church year is to begin with reflection on God the Creator, the gift of creation and our responsibility before God and towards our fellow- creatures.

6. What new points of departure are possible?

How can we increase our praise of God as Creator in worship? What new points of departure are possible within the framework of the church year?

Sunday is without doubt the most important element. It was not right to allow the relation of the Sabbath, or Sunday, to the creation to be pushed into the background. There is no doubt that the central meaning of Sunday is Christ's resurrection and victory over death; Sunday is a sort of "little Easter". But this newer content need not be understood as irreconcilable with the Old Testament meaning of the Sabbath as day of rest, analogous to God's rest on the seventh day of creation. God's new world is the fulfilment of the creation. As God's creatures, we praise the Creator who called this world into being and preserves it, is concerned for all creatures and gives them their food in due season, and puts an end to death with the in-breaking of the promised reign of God. Sunday reminds us of our responsibility towards other persons and all other creatures. It puts limits to our blind busyness, and makes us take a step back and realise again who we are, before God and the entire creation. Sunday is a criticism of human self-realization which shuts off the access to God's new world.

But is there not also room in the church year for certain "days of creation" or, perhaps even more appropriately, a special time to remember God as Creator? Would it not be meaningful to celebrate 1 September, or Harvest Festival, or 4 October as this time? A certain uneasiness appears almost instinctively. In recent decades a great many new Sundays have been introduced into the churches to remind us of particular ethical obligations - days for refugees, for persons with disabilities, Human Rights Day and so on in this vein. One could almost say that a second, ethically-oriented church year has developed. Should this series of days have Ecological Responsibility Sunday added to it?

 But this is not a matter of adding another Sunday. It is a matter of giving clearer expression to a fundamental part of the Christian confession of faith. What we need to do is to show, as the Second European Ecumenical Assembly said, that "Commitment to preservation of the creation is not an issue among many others, but an essential dimension of all church life."

This might be reason enough to have, instead of one day, a season of creation. It could begin on 1 September, or the first Sunday after 1 September, and last until 4 October, or the first Sunday after 4 October. This would be a way of bringing together the days belonging to different traditions. This is also the season of harvest celebrations in many parts of the world. Such a season of creation would fit without strain into the existing church year. Before the observances of the great events in the history of salvation begin, from the birth of Christ to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we would be reminded of God as the source of all life. And after following through the succession of God's mighty deeds, we would be led back again to the God whose hands encircle all times.

A possible difficulty might be that this season comes at different times of the year in the northern and southern hemispheres. When Europe is harvesting, spring is coming to Argentina, South Africa and Australia. But is a day for the Creator dependent upon the seasons? It could be connected with the springing to life of nature just as well as with its fading. Just as Christmas is

not necessarily tied to winter, nor Easter to spring, praise for the Creator does not have to be connected with a particular season. It will only mean that meditations in different places will bring out different aspects.

7. Alpha and Omega

A time for creation in the church year! It would have the advantage of bringing faith in God as Creator into relation with the whole creed. The talk of ecological responsibility today easily gives the impression that this is a new task, a political one. It is still not clear to many Christians that we are talking about an imperative of the Christian faith. The way the gifts of the creation are treated today amounts to a denial of God. Whenever this responsibility is isolated from the entirety of the faith, it is faith which is being played down.

A time for creation prepares the ground for a deeper understanding of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. The structure of the creed is replicated in the church year. God as Creator of heaven and earth is the pre-condition and the background for everything that follows. In becoming a human being God enters into the creation, and through the resurrection makes new life break forth, and pours out the gift of the Spirit upon humankind and the whole creation. The time for creation would make possible a deeper understanding of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The time for creation is both the beginning and the end of the church year. In reflecting upon the Creator, our attention is directed to God's new creation. God's creation cannot ultimately be fully understood without its fulfilment in Christ. Over the horizon of this creation, from the beginning, shines the light of God's reign. In the time for creation we celebrate both the origin and the fulfilment - Alpha and Omega.

Above all, the time for creation reminds us that we too are creatures, among many others. It gives us an occasion to think about the way we have used God's gifts, and how we will do so in future. It gives the church an occasion to put a new, more responsible lifestyle into practice. The Ecumenical Patriarch's message says with great urgency: "We must attempt to return to a proper relationship with the Creator and the creation. This may well mean that just as a shepherd will, in times of greatest hazard, lay down his life for his flock, so human beings may need to forego a part of their wants and needs in order that the survival of the natural world can be assured. This is a new situation - a new challenge. It calls for humanity to bear some of the pain of creation as well as to enjoy and celebrate it. It calls first and foremost for repentance - but of an order not previously understood by many." If a time for creation contributes to this conversion, it has fulfilled its task.

Notes

¹ . Reconciliation, Gift of God and Source of New Life, Documents of the Second European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz, 1997. CEC and CCEE, Graz, 1998, p. 57

² . Message of His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios on the Day of the Protection of the Environment, in: Orthodoxy and the Ecological Crisis, 1990.

³ . Karl-Heinz Bieritz, in Handbuch der Liturgik, Hans-Christoph Lauber and Karl-Heinz Bieritz, eds., Leipzig und Göttingen 1995, p. 453

⁴ . Ibid., p. 487

⁵ . Corpus Iuris civilis, Nov. 47,2

⁶ . V. Grumel, Indiction, in New Catholic Encyclopedia, New York 1967, vol. 7, pp. 466-468.

⁷ . "The idea of the year as a unit and as a real time within which the church dwells for the purpose of its fulfilment is so weak that the Byzantine list of months begins with September, a month which in our present calendar has no special liturgical 'significance' whatever." Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, London 1966, p. 136 

By Pastor Klaus Hoof

Crisis of understanding the human self and the world

Today’s environmental crisis is not a crisis of the creation but of humanity! Creation is not endangered – it is marvelously adaptable – the future of humanity is at stake. Ultimately, this human crisis is a crisis of the understanding of the human self and the world, and the „surrender of God“ (Gottvergessenheit).

Assuming this analyses is correct, then more is required – particularly from the churches – apart from a dedicated and active engagement for the integrity of creation: Based on their very beliefs the churches have the task to articulate the crisis of understanding the human self and the world and to contribute to the healing of this crisis.

An indispensable part of this contribution consists in regularly celebrating and bringing into our present life circumstances the salvation of the cosmos and of humanity as is being contained in the profession of faith to God the creator and sustainer of the world.  Salvation wants to be celebrated. It wants to be experienced, appropriated and validated anew. Its celebration needs cultic-ritual forms and patterns. This way it assumes a place in the life of the individual and the community and can effect the understanding of the human self and the world. 

Trinitarian challenges for a new human self-understanding that can be celebrated

Biblical creation theology cannot get far without re-discovering the Trinitarian God. Thus the ecological guidelines of the Evangelische Landeskirche in Württemberg emphasize: „The responsibility for the created world is a consequence of the profession of faith to the Trinitarian God.” But what does this mean?

A fundamental aspect of the traditional teaching on the Trinity in the early church states: Father, Son and Holy Spirit live with one another, for one another, and in one another. They live a vivid relationship in the highest degree of perfect  communion and love among and between themselves. This Trinitarian vision of God reveals an image of the human being apart from the concept of the human being as image and likeness of God. Humans live their being a images of God when they live vital and life supporting relationships, when they live community: in community with God and fellow humans, in community with all creation. 

This cannot simply be approached and discussed theologically. Relationships must be shaped and lived. Where in the church is this understood to be a task for the liturgy?

It will not remain without consequences for the church and Christians whether they deal with these questions regularly or not. Will not a church that does not in ever new ways reassure herself of these tenets of faith lose her sensitivity and competence for these issues and her authority to give a credible witness? 

The NT is very clear: God, the Father creates through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit: on this basis Paul can say: “For everything comes from him, has been made by him and has to return to him.“ (Rom 11:36). All things and all life forms are created by God, given form by God and exist in God. God can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and experienced in the world. This is the real mystery of the incarnation of God.

This mystery of a healing presence of God in creation cannot ultimately not be understood, it wants to e experienced, felt, and celebrated. Only by the experience that in all that is and exists and lives, God’s life giving Spirit and will is present allows to develop a respect of all that is and lives. That this can be experienced ritually is one of the basic spiritual and liturgical tasks of Christianity.

A Critical Look at the Liturgical Year

„I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth“ – when in the liturgical year do we regularly celebrate and bring back into our presence this experience of our faith? Theologically it is clear: Professing God as the creator must be assumed and inclusively reflected when we celebrate our salvation in Christ and the coming and working of the Holy Spirit. But it is striking that this profession of faith to God as creator has not been made the direct objective of celebration and reflection of any feast in the course of the liturgical year.

Traditionally, this first article of the creed plays an important role in harvest feasts and thanksgiving celebrations. But the harvest feast has its own particular purpose:  the core of the harvest feast is the gratitude for the life giving gifts of God. The profession of faith to God the creator of heaven and earth, however, includes more than the importance of such gratitude for the fruits, and food, daily bread, clothing, work and livelihood.

The question remains: When in the church year do we commemorate and celebrate the fundamental themes of us humans being creatures and the cosmos as creation?  The questions of human relationship to heaven and earth, to light and water, to sun and moon and stars, to plants and animals; questions regarding the human body and human identity as male or female, the human beings’ trust or forlorness in this cosmos; the questions of a wise and prudent living within the given order of creation or necessary transgressions of such orders, questions of shaping the future of the world and the standards to follow in doing so – where and when do we commemorate, celebrate and reflect these central themes? Also the questions and issues that deal with understanding the world in the widest sense need such a place, like for example the question of the origin of life and the cosmos, questions regarding the direction of history and life, or whether they move in eternal cycles

Ecumenical Reflections

In the Orthodox churches there has been an increase in theological works dealing with a theology of creation and the integrity of creation over the last several years. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1989 has declared 1 September as the „Day of Creation“ and invites us every year anew to celebrate this day accordingly. Since in the Orthodox Tradition the church year starts on 1 September, there is a very clear sign of appreciation and valuation of the Christian creation faith and the first article of the creed in the Orthodox churches.

 The Second European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz in 1997 calls on the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Council of European Catholic Bishops Conferences (CCEE) to: „die Bewahrung der Schöpfung als Teil des kirchlichen Lebens (auf allen Stufen) zu betrachten und zu fördern....Ein Beispiel: KEK und CCEE fordern ihre Mitgliedskirchen und Bischofskonferenzen auf, einen Tag der Schöpfung einzuführen, wie er vom ökumenischen Patriarchat gefeiert wird“ (Handlungsempfehlungen 5.1).

In Germany the Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche (EmK) celebrates a ’Day of God’s Good Creation’ since 1986. The EmK has a working group to prepare aid materials for the celebration of that day in the communities.

In Switzerland, the 4 weeks before the harvest thanksgiving feast are observed as creation time according to a proposal of the Ecumenical Working Group Church and Environment (OeKU). The observation of this creation time should help the communities to prevent the harvest thanksgiving feast to regress into a purely folkloristic commemoration of times past

 To Celebrate Salvation! – We need a „Day of Creation“ in the Church Year

Christianity can make an important contribution to a human self-understanding that is crucial to the future of humanity. Based on its faith in God the creator and sustainer of the cosmos and of all life, Christianity knows of the human participation in all creation events. In the course of the church year, the churches should create a fixed space in which they can live this faith and listen to the biblical traditions dealing with it. It is a rewarding challenge to the communities and the theologians, to create rituals and liturgical elements that can help people experience and celebrate their interrelatedness with all of God’s good creation.

A Feast,

1.      that lets people experience community with God and fellow human beings and with the whole created order,

2.      that lets people celebrate God as creator and themselves as creatures,

3.      that makes them open their eyes, ears and all senses for God’s creation,

4.      that allows them to discover anew the mysteries of life,

that gives shape to salvation that is grounded in the creative and sustaining work of God an allows the faithful to appropriate it in a constantly new way,

that is what is missing in the course of the liturgical year!

Many church groups and circles create liturgies and action days with Integrity of Creation as their theme. To canonically introduce a ‚Day of Creation’ into the liturgical calendar of the ecclesiastical year would give a better theological grounding, new focus, and broader basis to such activities. That would have consequences in two directions: Internally, within the churches themselves, in which competence and common understanding would grow in relation to such issues, and externally, in society in which Christian convictions about responsibility for creation would be present more strongly and professionally! Both would be desirable for the sake of a clear Christian witness to its creation faith.

back to the list