Liturgical Jetlag

So my last blog was about Christmas 2014. This blog is about Christmas 2014, round two! As many of you know, Mt. Athos (aka the Holy Mountain, Ἅγιον Ὄρος, the third finger of Chalkidike, etc) follows the old (Julian) calendar. Well I went and did Christmas a second time there. It was really nice, but as far as my experience goes, without specific questions I can’t really describe how things were there… it was a nice experience that I’m glad to have had, and I’m going to keep it in my heart forever. If you want to email and ask me specific questions, that’s fine, but I don’t think I can write a blog about it.

What I do want to blog about, though, related to my trip to the Holy Mountain for second Christmas, is a phenomenon that I have termed “liturgical jetlag.” Just as I coined “ecclesiastical nightlife” last semester, so I am coining this phrase (unless it’s been used already). It refers to the feeling that someone gets when they are to a greater or lesser extent a liturgical nerd. The extreme is when one (e.g. yours truly) identifies each day of his life by the various liturgical lineups – for example, I wrote this blog entry on Sunday, January 25, which is the first day of the week of plagal fourth mode, when we read the eleventh Matins Gospel and celebrated St. Gregory the Theologian. It’s also the Sunday of Zacchaeus (we heard this Gospel at Liturgy) – This all means that we are a month past Christmas, and next week the Triodion begins. *gasp!*

ANYWAY, getting back to my story…

It doesn’t need to be stated that I am kind of the epitome of a liturgical nerd. And while I like celebrating things on both calendars (going to canonical churches that follow the old calendar and celebrating a certain feast or saint a second time), my “liturgical time travel,” if you will, usually lasts a few hours and then I leave that particular church building and am back on the new calendar. And it’s so short a period that you really don’t feel the difference because your whole life is on the new calendar.

Mt. Athos is different, though. The entire Mountain is on the old calendar. So unless you work in the monastery’s office and need to have contact with the outside world, it doesn’t matter to you what day it is there, you live and breathe with your reference being the Julian date. For example, today (Sunday) that I am writing this, it is 100% January 25 for us in the world, while it is 100% January 12 on the Holy Mountain (Russia has a little bit of calendrical schizophrenia from what I can tell, in that they use both calendars, one for religious dates and the other for secular).

Therefore… it was kind of a shock for me when I had chanted Vespers for the prefeast of Theophany on January 3 (the evening before) – “Be thou ready, Zaboulon; prepare thyself O Nephthalim…” … and then when I went into the Mountain it became December 21 and I heard at Vespers the following day, “Be thou ready, Bethlehem…, Ephratha prepare thyself…”

WAIT A MINUTE! HOLD ON! PAUSE THE PROGRAM!

I just celebrated Christmas! I went to a vigil (you can read about that in my entry from January 2). Then I celebrated St. Stephen two days later, and then St. Joseph the Betrothed on Sunday the 28^th, along with St. Simon the Myrrh-Gusher. Then I “gave up” the Feast on the 31^st and rang in the New Year that night! Now I traveled back to 2014?! Wait… has Christ been born yet? What in the world?! AAAH!!

Believe it or not this was actually a rather large problem for me until I talked to the abbot of the monastery about it. He helped me by telling me that it doesn’t matter if Christ was born thirteen days before or later, but that the services happen (whenever they happen), and the most important thing is that Christ is born in our hearts. All the other stuff is extra (Christmas trees, etc… by the way, I didn’t see a single Christmas tree on the Mountain).

I eventually got over the liturgical jetlag and had a wonderful second Christmas – I even forgot (for all intents and purposes) that Christmas Eve for us was Theophany for the new calendar world (December 24/January 6). I then celebrated the Synaxis of the Theotokos (December 26), St. Stephen (27), St. Simon the Myrrh-gusher and founder of Simonopetra (28), and St. Joseph the Betrothed on the Sunday after Christmas (December 29). I had adjusted to the new liturgical time zone, if you will, and everything was going great.

Then it struck again, but this time in the opposite direction… I had a great time on December 29! I actually saw a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen since he was tonsured a monk last summer, and I was at peace. I was really enjoying myself, but a little bummed that I would be returning to the world. Then suddenly, when the boat landed in Ouranoupolis, it wasn’t December 29 anymore…I had traveled forward again into 2015 and it was January 11, the Sunday after Theophany.

WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!

For me Theophany was a sort of event that was going to happen sometime in the indefinite future…not sure when; but Theophany always follows Christmas, so now that Christmas is past, New Years’/St. Basil is next, and then Theophany a few days later, right? NOPE! It was like I had fallen asleep for a week, and meanwhile Mrs. Theophany had come and gone without bothering to wake me up and let me know she was there (“Feast” in Greek (γιορτή) is feminine). Using another analogy that I thought of then, it was like I had gotten stuck in the wardrobe talking to Fr. Tumnus, but instead of picking up right where I left off when I came out, the world had moved ahead eight more days and I was left wondering where I was (a play on the names and events in C.S. Lewis’s spectacular novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Also, before I went to the Mountain I was talking to a friend in America about doing “second Christmas,” and my friend said I sounded like a hobbit talking about second breakfast – haha! (Reference to The Lord of the Rings)

That episode of liturgical jetlag eventually passed as well, and I continued going to church on the new calendar in Thessaloniki. I returned to the Mountain on January 4/17 in order to celebrate Theophany on the 6^th/19^th. I was only there for less than three full days so that time wasn’t as much of a shock to my system, plus I had just time traveled the week before so I was kind of anticipating it.

Anyway… I do have photos from the blessing of waters on Theophany Eve outside the church, and Theophany Day at the sea, as well as some from Christmas, but I’m not sure that I have a blessing to post them online since they were taken at a monastery. I can email them to friends, though. If you would like to see some pictures, please email me and ask! I’ll be happy to send them to you.

Now that both calendars are finally in 2015, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!