Orthodox priest regards celebration of St. Patrick incorrect

[尼古拉前执事]

20 March 2006, 16:53
An Orthodox priest regards recent celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in Moscow inappropriate

Moscow, March 20, Interfax - Deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for external church relations Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin thinks celebration of St. Patrick’s Day to be ‘rather strange’ for the Orthodox during Lent.

‘Certainly, we can congratulate our Catholic friends on this feast, the Irishmen in particular. However, the Orthodox should remember that any entertainment, including a festive march, are completely out of place during Lent,’ Rev. Vsevolod told Interfax on Monday.

He also remarked that ‘though St. Patrick who had brought Christianity to Ireland is a saint of the undivided Church, our church calendar does not mark him for liturgical veneration and commemoration.’

[CGW]

Well, there's a mural icon of St. Patrick in St. Nicholas OCA Cathedral in DC. Presumably it would be appropriate for them to commemorate him.

[尼古拉前执事]

Yes and I know that Saint Patrick/Padraig of Ireland is commemorated in the ROCOR and ROAC on his Old Calendar feast day too.

[Brigid]

20 March 2006, 16:53

He also remarked that ‘though St. Patrick who had brought Christianity to Ireland is a saint of the undivided Church, our church calendar does not mark him for liturgical veneration and commemoration.’

I hope he tells the MP parish in Dublin that. Whilst I would agree that the spiritual dimension of our national saint's commemoration is being lost in the increasingly secularized revelries, St Patrick is hardly the only saint whose feast occurs within a fast period. The great St Nicholas himself is commemorated throughout the Orthodox world during the Nativity Fast. It is the Irish (Catholic) tradition that St Patrick's Day is seen as being outside Lent. When I was a child and we had given up eating chocolate for Lent, we were always allowed to have some on this day. I think that it is also recorded in one of the annals of the Celtic church (can't remember exactly which one offhand) that the monks were allowed a small amount of milk on this feast.

What surprised me about this priest's attitude was that he is described as being involved at a senior level in 'external church affairs' and thus one might have thought that he would know that the Orthodox diaspora also includes Ireland. The way his remarks were reported made it sound as if there was no real Orthodox dimension to St Patrick at all. Ironically, one of the things which attracted me to Orthodoxy was precisely that it gave the proper honour and recognition to our native saints whom the western church has very much neglected. There is a revival of interest in this country in our Celtic saints, but alas, much of what is being written is based on a New Age view. It is therefore, more important than ever for Orthodoxy to invite us to rediscover our own traditions in their Christian context.

Brigid

[Brigid]

Yes and I know that Saint Patrick/Padraig of Ireland is commemorated in the ROCOR and ROAC on his Old Calendar feast day too.

Yes, Father Deacon, Hieromonk Ambrose of New Zealand reports that ROCOR commissioned a Slavonic All-night Vigil service to St Patrick in the 1970s.

[AndyHolland]

http://www.roca.org/OA/1/1c.htm
http://www.comeandseeicons.com/phm17.htm

[Jean-Serge]

Orthodox 6 is right. To make things easier, we could say there are local saints and universal saints. The former are essentially known in a region, in a country. The other local churches of course recognize them as saints but since they are not very known, they do not celebrate them necessarily. It would not be uncorrect to do this of course...

The later are universal because their testimony was so bright they are known and celebrated everywhere...

As regards Saint Patrick, if the feast falls during Lent, I would suggest to celebrate the Presanctified liturgy this day. Indeed, thsi liturgy is performed of Wednesday and Friday but can also be performed for the feast of the 40 martyrs of Sebaste (March 9th), for the Thursday of the Great Canon or February 24th (discovering of Saint John Baptist's head). Such celebration would only be justified in Ireland...

The mention of the Celtic church is very important because the celtic church remained Orthodox until the English invasion... Maybe it was a local habit to moderately break fast for this feast...