The day of September 1 represents the beginning of the church year for the Orthodox Church on which occasion the hierarchs and priests celebrate the Te Deum service. At the Patriarchal Cathedral the religious service was celebrated by His Grace Ieronim Sinaitul, Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch, assisted by a group of priests and deacons. The group also included archimandrite Teofil Anastasoaie, Great Eclesiarch of the Patriarchal Cathedral.
Thanksgivings prayers were said for everything God gave us in our life so far and prayers were raised so that the new church year or the new spiritual year should be a year in which the Christians be as diligent to follow the way of good things, to fill themselves of the grace of God and be joy to the Church and to one another when doing good deeds.
The new church year is an opportunity in which we reaffirm the blessing of the time done in the Church through all the moments of prayers, as well as the blessing of our days, weeks and of the whole year”, His Grace Ieronim Sinaitul said, according to Trinitas Radio station.
The beginning of the new Church year was instituted by the Holy Fathers of Synod I of Nicene, when the day of 1 September was established as the beginning of the salvation of the Christians, in the memory of Christ’s entrance in the middle of the Jews announcing the “year good pleasant to God”. The day was established by the Holy Fathers (318) participating in the Ecumenical Synod I of Nicene in 325, because Jesus Christ, our Saviour, began to preach the Gospel at the beginning of September as according to the Jewish calendar, after coming back from the desert of Carantania the Lord entered the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4:14-19) on the seventh month, named Tisti (September according to our calendar).
The Orthodox Church year is divided into three great phases or periods: Period of the Triode (pre-Pascal period); period of the Penticostar (Pascal period), period of the octoich (post Pascal period).
