diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 3e2eaa2..3db3c0c 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -174,28 +174,9 @@ See [the law and the fast](#the-law-and-the-fast-are-not-the-same-question) for what `--typikon` does with this, which is the flag most Byzantine Catholics will want. -### The other ten - -There are fourteen Byzantine-rite Eastern Catholic churches. The Slovak, -Hungarian, Krizevci, Italo-Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian, -Russian and Albanian ones are **not** here, and the reason is worth stating: -their calendars could not be verified against anything published. General -references do not record them, and the churches' own sites render their -liturgical calendars in JavaScript. Guessing from geography would put an -unsourced claim in the one place this program is actually for. - -You do not need an entry to get a correct calendar. Ask your parish one -question, and the answer picks a reckoning: - -| is Pascha kept with… | and the fixed feasts… | | -|---|---|---| -| Rome | on the civil calendar | `--calendar western` | -| the local Orthodox | on the civil calendar | `--calendar new` | -| the local Orthodox | thirteen days behind | `--calendar old` | - -Add `--tradition slavic` or `--tradition greek` for the usage your books -follow. A patch adding your church, with a source for its calendar, is -welcome. +Ten of the fourteen Byzantine-rite Eastern Catholic churches have no entry of +their own. Each keeps one of the three reckonings, and +[docs/calendars.md](docs/calendars.md) sets out which questions decide it. ## The fast @@ -442,6 +423,11 @@ $ typikon --update-menaion ruthenian It lands in `~/.local/share/typikon/` and is overlaid automatically. +## Further reading + +[docs/calendars.md](docs/calendars.md) sets out which churches keep which +reckoning, how the split came about, what is modelled here and what is not. + ## Accuracy `typikon` is pinned against published calendars: the paschalion for six years diff --git a/docs/calendars.md b/docs/calendars.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1eb6ae7 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/calendars.md @@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ +# The state of the calendars + +Which churches keep which reckoning, and what this program models of each. + +## Three independent questions + +Almost every disagreement about the date of a feast comes from conflating +these. They vary separately. + +**The paschalion** decides Pascha and everything counted from it: the Triodion, +Great Week, the Pentecostarion, the Apostles' Fast. Two tables are in use. The +**Julian Paschalion** is the old computus, worked in the Julian calendar and +read onto a civil date. The **Gregorian Paschalion** is the Western one. They +agree in some years and can diverge by five weeks. + +**The menologion** decides the fixed feasts: the Nativity, Theophany, the +Dormition, and every saint's day. Two calendars are in use. The **Julian** +menologion runs thirteen days behind the civil calendar until 2100 and fourteen +after it. The **Revised Julian** menologion agrees with the Gregorian for every +date until 2800, so in practice it is the civil calendar. + +**The usage** decides rank and some of the fast: Greek books and Slavic books +read the same Typikon a little differently. + +The three combinations in use have short names: + +| | paschalion | menologion | kept by | +|---|---|---|---| +| **old** | Julian | Julian | Moscow, ROCOR, Serbia, Georgia, Jerusalem, the Holy Mountain, Poland, Macedonia, ACROD | +| **new** | Julian | Revised Julian | Constantinople, Greece, Antioch, the OCA, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Albania, Ukraine | +| **western** | Gregorian | Revised Julian | the Finnish Orthodox Church; most Byzantine Catholic churches | + +A new-calendar church therefore keeps the Nativity with the West and Pascha +with the East. That is not a compromise but what the 1923 congress at +Constantinople decided: adopt the Revised Julian menologion, leave the +paschalion alone. + +## How it came about + +The Pan-Orthodox Congress of May 1923 proposed the Revised Julian calendar. +Constantinople, Greece, Romania, Poland and others adopted it over the +following years; Alexandria, Antioch, Bulgaria and Cyprus followed later. +Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Georgia and the Holy Mountain did not, and have +not. + +Three changes since are worth knowing because they are recent enough to catch +out a printed reference: + +- **1923.** The Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad rejected the + new calendar outright, which is why ROCOR is Julian throughout and why that + became part of its identity rather than a regional custom. +- **2014.** The Polish Orthodox Church returned to the Julian menologion after + decades on the Revised Julian. Some parishes kept the new calendar. +- **1 September 2023.** The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Orthodox + Church of Ukraine moved their fixed feasts to the Revised Julian calendar, + keeping the Julian Paschalion. + +One Orthodox church keeps the Gregorian Paschalion: the Finnish Orthodox +Church, which has done so since the 1920s. + +## The Orthodox churches + +All twenty are modelled, with the Typikon's own discipline. The Orthodox Church +legislates fasting as tradition rather than as precept, so nothing is reported +as binding for any of them. + +| jurisdiction | reckoning | usage | +|---|---|---| +| `moscow` `rocor` `serbian` `georgian` `jerusalem` `athos` `polish` `macedonian` `acrod` | old | Slavic, except `georgian` `jerusalem` `athos` | +| `constantinople` `goarch` `greece` `antiochian` `cyprus` `albanian` `romanian` | new | Greek | +| `oca` `bulgarian` `ukrainian` | new | Slavic | +| `finnish` | western | Greek | + +Where a church is not uniform, the jurisdiction's note says so: most OCA +parishes keep the new calendar and a minority of Carpatho-Russian and Alaskan +background keep the old; ACROD publishes both cycles and its parishes keep one +or the other; Polish parishes vary since 2014. + +## The Byzantine Catholic churches + +Fourteen Eastern Catholic churches use the Byzantine rite. Four have entries. + +| church | reckoning | particular law on fasting | +|---|---|---| +| `ruthenian`, the Metropolia of Pittsburgh | western | modelled, from the Metropolia's own published rule | +| `ugcc`, Ukrainian Greek Catholic | new since 2023 | its own; not modelled | +| `melkite`, Melkite Greek Catholic | western | its own; not modelled | +| `romanian-catholic`, Romanian Greek Catholic | western | its own; not modelled | + +The other ten are the Slovak, Hungarian, Križevci (Croatia and Serbia), +Italo-Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian, Russian and Albanian +Greek Catholic churches. They have no entry because their reckonings are not +uniform and are not recorded in general reference: several vary by eparchy, and +the churches that sit beside a local Orthodox majority often keep that +majority's paschalion for the sake of a common Pascha, as Melkite parishes in +the Middle East do. + +Any of them keeps one of the three reckonings above, and two questions decide +which: + +1. Is Pascha kept with Rome, or with the local Orthodox? +2. Are the fixed feasts on the civil calendar, or thirteen days behind it? + +| | | | +|---|---|---| +| with Rome | civil calendar | `--calendar western` | +| with the local Orthodox | civil calendar | `--calendar new` | +| with the local Orthodox | thirteen days behind | `--calendar old` | + +Add `--tradition slavic` or `--tradition greek` for the usage the books follow. +A patch adding a church, with a source for its calendar, is welcome. + +### Why the law is never borrowed + +Every Eastern Catholic church legislates its own fasting discipline, and they +differ. Ruthenian particular law binds on four kinds of day in the year: +strict abstinence on the first day of the Great Fast and on Great and Holy +Friday, and abstinence from meat on the Wednesdays and Fridays of the Great +Fast. That is the Metropolia of Pittsburgh's law and is reported for that +church alone. + +The others are shown at the Typikon's discipline with nothing reported as +binding. Telling a Melkite that fourteen days a year oblige him under a law +written for Pittsburgh would be a false statement about his obligations, which +is a worse failure than saying nothing. When a church's law is sourced, its +entry will carry it. + +`--typikon` shows any of these churches at the full Byzantine discipline while +still reporting whatever its own law obliges. For a Byzantine Catholic that is +usually the flag you want: the law is the floor, not the fast. + +## Not in scope + +Nine Eastern Catholic churches do not use the Byzantine rite: the Maronite, +Chaldean, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian and +Eritrean churches. They have their own rites, their own sanctorals and their own +fasting structures, and none of the machinery here applies to them: there is no +Triodion, no Pentecostarion, no Byzantine menologion. The Latin Church likewise. + +Supporting any of them would be a different program sharing nothing but the +word "calendar". diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs index 2606c58..8d53f73 100644 --- a/src/main.rs +++ b/src/main.rs @@ -149,17 +149,10 @@ fn list_jurisdictions() { } println!(); } - println!(" Not listed? There are fourteen Byzantine-rite Eastern Catholic"); - println!(" churches and ten of them are not here, because their calendars"); - println!(" could not be verified against anything published. Ask your parish"); - println!(" one question: is Pascha kept with Rome or with the local"); - println!(" Orthodox? The answer picks a reckoning above:\n"); - println!(" with Rome, fixed feasts on the civil calendar --calendar western"); - println!(" with the Orthodox, fixed feasts on the civil --calendar new"); - println!(" with the Orthodox, fixed feasts thirteen days --calendar old"); - println!(" behind\n"); - println!(" A patch adding your church, with a source for its calendar, is"); - println!(" welcome.\n"); + println!(" A church not listed here keeps one of the three reckonings above."); + println!(" Which one follows from two questions: is Pascha kept with Rome or"); + println!(" with the local Orthodox, and are the fixed feasts on the civil"); + println!(" calendar or thirteen days behind it?\n"); } fn elide(text: &str, width: usize) -> String {