St Thomas a Becket Church in Lewes where Fr Ian Wallis leads the Orthodox Parish of the Nativity of Christ (more information at the parish website).
Fr Ian Wallis (Faith and Spirituality Advisor: Orthodox Church), provides an overview of festival or feast days celebrated by Orthodox Christians.
The festivals (feast days) of the Orthodox Church are basically the same as those of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches: in particular those festivals that celebrate an event in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Mother of God or Theotokos) can be seen as replicating those of the Roman church, but there is not an exact equivalence. It should be remembered that the term ‘Orthodox’ with reference to the Church is really an abbreviation of ‘Orthodox-Catholic’. The Orthodox Church believes itself to be the ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ of antiquity: the formal break in communion with the Roman church was in the year 1054 CE.
When it comes to attending church festivals, as with Anglicans and Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians would not expect any particular difficulties to do with their work obligations. The phrase ‘holy days of obligation’ (a usage taken from Catholic tradition) designates those days when the faithful are expected to attend church, but in practice it is left up to individuals as to whether or not they attend any of the relevant festivities.
However, there is an issue that can arise concerning the two major festivals (in particular) of Christmas (Nativity of Christ) and Easter (Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ) because the dates of these festivals in the Orthodox Church do not necessarily coincide with those of – for example – the Anglican and Roman churches.
The Nativity of Christ will be celebrated on the 7th January in some of the large local churches e.g. Russian, Ukrainian, Coptic etc., because these churches use the Old Style (Julian) Calendar, which is currently thirteen days behind our civil calendar (7th January is 25th December OS). However, not all the local churches keep the Old Style Calendar, and so most Orthodox Christians in the UK (whose church has adopted the New Style [Revised Julian] Calendar) will celebrate the birth of Christ on the 25th December (civil calendar) as do – for example – the Anglican and Roman churches.
The date for Pascha (Easter) in the Orthodox Church rarely coincides with what is the accepted date in most – if not all – of the other churches: it can be as much as two or three weeks after that date; and this also has implications for the start of Lent, which begins on a Monday in the Orthodox Church (cf. Ash Wednesday in Anglican and Roman churches). Although local churches differ as to what calendar they follow – Old or New Style – the Orthodox Church as a whole keeps Pascha on the same date. The Orthodox Church computes the date of Pascha using a date of the Spring Equinox that is not determined astronomically – but by other means!