Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum: Christmas Eve – Christmas dilemmas
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Every year around the Christmas holidays, certain dilemmas about the proper celebration of the holy days, come to the surface. So as to minimise confusion about this issue, I decided to prepare a guideline according to which even the most uninformed believers can direct themselves. The point of orientation (control point, essential point to bear in mind) is the communion with the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Liturgy of the Church. Every feast day in the Orthodox Church has one and only purpose – communion with the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Without achieving this goal, we can talk about anything and everything except the religious and godly worship of God. Because, if there is no Communion, there is no Christianity. In order to use this point of orientation, there is no need for the profound knowledge of dogmas, canons or church rules, nor for an urgent consultation with a spiritual father.
For example: we have dilemmas about the preparation of the so-called Christmas Eve family dinner; If we know that the main purpose of the celebration of the Nativity of Christ is our communion with the Holy Mysteries of Christ, then the fish is immediately left off the menu as is everything else that is prepared in oil. Not to mention other meaty (greasy) foods. Everyone knows that they need to fast before Holy Communion. In another example, the same applies to the lighting of bonfires. Here there is drinking alcohol and listening to and playing music – we have already talked about meaty foods, it is known that it is contrary to fasting, and therefore impermissible before Holy Communion. Thus, if communion with Christ is the main point of orientation, that is the essence of the act of awaiting a church feast, then we will never err in resolving the dilemmas that have arise.
Another question is, for example, whether certain customs of church celebrations are pagan remnants or foreign, or both. For example, lighting bonfires and collecting and handing out of Christmas twigs.
We all have enough intelligence about lighting of bonfires, to know that it is a pagan custom, even though it can be given Christian symbolism. But if we add alcohol, food, music and worldly songs and games to the bonfire, then no matter how much we would like to but, we will not be able to add Christian symbolism – If there is no Communion, there is no Christianity.
Collecting and handing out Christmas twigs is but a Serbian folk-church custom and it is not custom of any other local Orthodox Church or people. This includes the festivities and the festive-cake – (by which were suppressed the “Name-days” and the five-loaves of bread (pettolebie)), the breaking of the bread with the coin inside for Christmas Eve, as well as the singing according to Mokranjac. None of this occurs in other parts of Macedonia, except for the Christmas coin in Pirin Macedonia. As an anecdote, many of these did not exist 40 years ago in Skopje; there was almost none of this when I came to be a Bishop in the Diocese of Strumica and, thanks be to God, to this day it is the same (a loaf of bread with a coin in my presence was broken in the former “Jugopromet” in the presence of many prominent citizens on January 14 according to the new calendar, i.e. on the 1st according to our calendar, when we celebrate Saint Basil the Great); and none of this, existed anywhere, before 1918.
The nurturing or otherwise, of foreign church customs is a very important issue, because it is an issue regarding identity. And yet, if we recall that such customs have been introduced in recent times, we can classify them with a clear conscience as a planned intelligence-subversive activity of a foreign factor. We need to realise that nothing is accidental on the Balkan Peninsula.
The interpretation that Christmas is a family feast, as well as such a celebration, is also a foreign teaching and a foreign custom – non-Orthodox. What has the impeccable and seedless conception and the painless and virgin birth got to do with the founding of the earthly human family? Nothing at all! So, we have a foreign teaching – non-Orthodox, which is complemented by non-Orthodox iconography: where Joseph and Mary stand together leaning in front of (above?) the cradle of Jesus, as opposed to Orthodox iconography where the Most-Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary together with the God-Child Christ take the center place of the icon and the righteous Joseph, if one does not know, can hardly be noticed on the icon – painted somewhere on the side. If we add to this the deliberate organization of a family dinner on Christmas Eve, together with the violation of the specified church fast, and as a consequence the impossibility of Holy Communion – the picture is now complete, just how wrong all of this is. Christmas is celebrated, after the Church, in the family, but it is not a family feast!
What, in this case, does every dedicated pastor of the Church of God face? How can he use every opportunity wisely and with differentiation (prudently) to win people over for God and save them?
In other words, we should explain to the one who is already coming to the bonfire that it is good to at least, not break the fast, and to look at the gathering around the fire as the gathering of the Shepherds to whom the coming of Christ was announced (and so the word Christmas Eve comes from the word awake – prayer vigil). To those who therefore gather around the fire he should explain that the true worship of God, however, is completed by going to church and partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. It should also be explained that the family Christmas Eve table is meaningless – we have not sat together for dinner all year and right now we find ourselves sitting, if we place greasy food (non-lenten fare) upon it and therefore remain without Holy Communion on the Nativity of Christ, as well as putting a coin in the bread on Christmas Eve when it is known that the Church has prearranged this for the feast of Saint Basil the Great (14 Jan – according to a new calendar, for those who are unaware) and instead of the good fortune of obedience, to reap the fruits of disobedience – which will certainly happen, as some kind of misfortune; etc., etc.
Just be careful that this pastoral-pedagogical approach does not serve as a justification for participating in worldly parties and for earning (making) money. A priest should not appear where a bonfire is lit and where the holy fast is violated. Pastoral work with people is not for financial gain, but for the spiritual growth of the entrusted spiritual children. So, in short: we need to guide people spiritually, so they can grow spiritually, and not just having the same people every year picking up twigs in the woods, lighting bonfires and jumping around being drunk and remain a laughing stock, both for the unbelievers and for the demons – temporary and eternal, and to the great sorrow of our Mother, our Most-Holy Sovereign Lady and Ever-Virgin Mary.
What is obviously a sin – both ethical and ecological, and which we need to change immediately, is leaving many of our families without firewood (here in Macedonia) and food over the winter, and we could have helped them. Instead of lighting ritual bonfires and polluting the environment, and instead of breaking the fast with fatty foods and worldly music and songs, it is better to help the poor with firewood and food, and we will see what joy that act of mercy will bring us, and what a blessing of God in life.
And let me not forget, the Church calendar will not change. Because that is one of the dilemmas. But, someone will say, that it has nothing to do with Holy Communion. It is a true statement, but still, we will not change it. Pure, information, for the doubters.
Lord Jesus Christ, through the Theotokos, enlighten us and have mercy on us!
Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
(05.01.2022 17:23)
