The Old New Year

1. “Today there is foul weather, for the sky is red. Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times,” says our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to Matthew (16:3).

Discerning the signs of the times is precisely what the Lord Himself calls His followers to do. In fulfillment of this virtue, the Church, as the Community of the Faithful, offers a special prayer to God on the New Year.

2. We remember all those who left us during the past year. We remember all those who remained forever in the year that has passed, upon whose graves the number of the departing year will stand until the General Resurrection of the Dead.

The Church, as the Community of the Faithful, asks God to forgive everyone for all the evil and every mistake committed during the past year.

3. Our Church, together with Jerusalem, the Holy Mountain of Athos, and the Serbian, Georgian, and Polish Orthodox Churches, continues to follow the ancient Julian Calendar.

Although January 1 is not prescribed by the Church’s liturgical Typikon as the New Year, we remain attentive to the times and celebrate the beginning of the new year together with everyone else, while adding something of our own.

This thirteen-day difference in the calendar means that now, on January 14, the New Year has truly, finally, and irrevocably arrived.

Its arrival coincides with the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord and the commemoration of Saint Basil the Great.

O God, bless the time that lies before us, and keep us every day of our lives.