What is the Lord's Day?

[Adventist Heretic]

There are many people who have varying views on the Lord's Day. This poll is designed to clarify the varying views on the issue.

 

[Aaron112]

None of the above.

And I'm too tired to look up the "needed" reference for clarity.

 

[Adventist Heretic]

None of the above.

And I'm too tired to look up the "needed" reference for clarity.

thanks for nothing.

 

[The Liturgist]

There are many people who have varying views on the Lord's Day. This poll is designed to clarify the varying views on the issue.

I can’t vote for any of the options you provided, but I can explain to you what I believe to be the correct understanding.

The Sabbath is the day on which we commemorate the repose of Christ our True God in the tomb. The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is when we commemorate His resurrection on the First Day, and also the descent of the Holy Spirit on the third hour of the First Day, which is 9 AM, the most common time for church services to begin on Sunday.

Likewise, on the fast days of Wednesday and Friday, we commemorate the betrayal of Christ and HIs crucifixion, respectively. Thursday is both a commemoration of His trial, but also of His institution of the Lord’s Supper, the sacrament of Holy Communion, which is the holy, unspotted, bloodless and rational sacrifice of the Eucharist, in which we recapitulate the sacrifice Christ made on the Cross which he confers to us through the reception of His Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper.

In the Syriac Orthodox Church, liturgies are only held on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, unless a feast day falls on Monday or Tuesday or Thursday, the exception being Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, at which time the institution of the Eucharist and the trial of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ is commemorated.

Likewise, in Lent, the Eastern Orthodox primarily celebrate the Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesdays and Fridays, but in Holy Week it is used on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and then Maundy Thursday, Great and Holy Friday, the supreme Sabbath of Holy Saturday, when God rested in a tomb after restoring mankind to the image in which He had created us, and Pascha, or Easter Sunday, are commemorated in the same manner as in the Syriac Orthodox and the other traditional churches.

Some Christians do believe that Sunday has displaced Saturday as the Sabbath, but I disagree to a large extent; functionally they are somewhat correct, but theologically, the Sabbath remains for us to commemorate the rest of God following His creation of us in Genesis and His re-creation of us on the Cross, in which God the Son, the Incarnate Logos, Jesus Christ (John 1:1-18, John 3:16) sacrificed Himself so that he could trample down death by death, because death could not contain the uncreated Son of God, who is eternal, and as a result in rising from the dead, He glorified and transformed our human nature, allowing us to be resurrected in the Eschaton.

The error of the Seventh Day Adventists is not in worshipping on Saturday but in neglecting to also worship on Sunday, because it was on Sunday morning Christ our True God rose from the dead and it was on Sunday morning that God the Holy Spirit descended on the Twelve Apostles. That is why Sunday morning is so important for most Christians.

If you want to form a real reform movement among the SEA, I believe it must start by moving away from attacking other Christians who worship on Sunday, which is the Lord’s Day, and instead promoting increased worship on Saturday in memory of the fact that God died for our sins, showing us what it means to be human, and affected our salvation, and after He had died, the human body of the Word of God by whom all things came into being (John 1:3) who is everywhere present and is uncircumscribed and uncontained, was nontheless contained, in a tomb, while he rested following his resurrection. But in his repose, the Father did not permit his holy one to see corruption, and Christ the Only Begotten Son and Word of God did rise in glory on the First Day, which also points to the future, the mystical Eighth Day of Creation, which is to say, the World to Come, the focus of our salvation.

I hope that clears it up for you.

 

[Adventist Heretic]

thanks for nothing.

if you have an additional selection, i will add it, but none of the above is not an option.

 

[Adventist Heretic]

I can’t vote for any of the options you provided.

The Sabbath is the day on which we commemorate the repose of Christ our True God in the tomb. The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is when we commemorate His resurrection on the First Day, and also the descent of the Holy Spirit on the third hour of the First Day, which is 9 AM, the most common time for church services to begin on Sunday.

ok there are options for that

 

[Adventist Heretic]

I can’t vote for any of the options you provided.

The Sabbath is the day on which we commemorate the repose of Christ our True God in the tomb. The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is when we commemorate His resurrection on the First Day, and also the descent of the Holy Spirit on the third hour of the First Day, which is 9 AM, the most common time for church services to begin on Sunday.

that is #4

 

[The Liturgist]

that is #4

The problem is I do not believe Sunday usurped the Sabbath. Usurped means to have displaced. Rather, it commemorates something else, that being the creation and recreation of humanity in Genesis and on the Cross, and the time at which the indwelling of the Holy Spirit on the Holy Apostles began a few weeks after the Ascension of Christ into Heaven, on Thursday.

Also the Syriac Orthodox do have the Eucharist on Ascension Thursday. They also worship on other Thursdays than Maundy Thursday and Ascension Thursday, and feast days that coincide with Thursdays, and likewise on Mondays and Tuesdays, but if such a day is not a feast day they do not celebrate Holy Communion on those days, just the Divine Office. However, in practice, there is usually a holy day that coincides with most Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so in theory a Syriac Orthodox cathedral or monastery could have a Eucharist almost every day of the year.

Likewise in Lent, the Eastern Orthodox will commemorate holy days that fall in the Lent in some years but not on others with the Presanactified Liturgy, with the exception of the Feast of the Annunciation, on March 25th, which is always celebrated with the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which is otherwise not used from the start of Lent until Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, which mark the end of the fast and the start of Holy Week.

 

[The Liturgist]

ok there are options for that

If you could change the word “Usurped” to “Complimented” I could vote for no. 4

 

[Adventist Heretic]

If you could change the word “Usurped” to “Complimented” I could vote for no. 4

It is already in the statement, that it was an "addition", but the historical facts are that it did usurp the sabbath day. both of those things are true. the church banned the practice telling people they are "anathema" if they observed the sabbath

 

[The Liturgist]

It is already in the statement, that it was an "addition", but the historical facts are that it did usurp the sabbath day. both of those things are true. the church banned the practice telling people they are "anathema" if they observed the sabbath

That’s not true. Show me the canon law or other Patristic document that anathematizes praying on the Sabbath, because I believe you are misinterpreting something.

And furthermore I can show you the ancient liturgical texts that are specifically for use on Saturday, for example, the Octoechos and the services in the Triodion for the Soul Sabbaths in the Sundays of and immediately preceding Lent, which are set aside for prayer for those who are resting as Christ rested, and for Lazarus Saturday where the resurrection of St. Lazarus is commemorated before Palm Sunday, and for Holy Saturday itself, from Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and for Holy Saturday, from Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran sources.

My friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @PsaltiChrysostom can in fact quote from the Lutheran Service Book and the Greek Orthodox hymnal for use in Lent and Holy Week called the Triodion the services I just mentioned that are specific for their churches (Lutherans do not observe the Soul Saturdays as far as I am aware, I think that is mainly an Eastern Orthodox thing and not a Roman Catholic or Western Christian perspective.)

Forgive me, bur you tell me you want my opinion on what the status of the Lord’s Day is, but respectfully, you have not provided an option which reflects my faith, which I believe is that of the Early Church, which is that the Lord’s Day complements and fulfills the Sabbath but in no sense usurps it.

I will not answer using a multiple choice question, that does not contain an answer that I believe to be true. So this explanation will have to suffice.

I am disappointed because I have hoped there was interest in genuine reform of the Adventist movement, but we seem to be lapsing back into the same anti-Roman Catholic mold of theology in which whatever the Roman Catholic Church believes is assumed to be unscriptural even when it has clear scriptural backing.

 

[Adventist Heretic]

The council of Leidocia

Council of Laodicea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

The council of Leidocia

Council of Laodicea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That said I pray that full communion is as a matter of urgency re-established between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, at least those who are doctrinally orthodox, the Evangelical Catholic Lutherans, the Anglo Catholic and related conservative High Church Anglicans, especially the Continuing Anglicans in the US who are not a part of the Anglican Communion and which in some cases have gone so far as to enumerate seven sacraments rather than two, and the Assyrian Church of the East, and certain other traditional churches such as some of the traditional liturgical Methodists and the Old Orthodox of the Union of Scranton (but not of Utrecht, due to their extreme liberalism). I would also note that the continuing need for a separation between Lutherans and Roman Catholics seems diminished given that the majority of Martin Luther’s complains, including nearly all of the 95 Theses, have been addressed by Rome; indeed some of his complaints, including the one which prompted the schism, that being the sale of indulgences, which was an appalling abuse, were corrected at the Council of Trent.

That said I am not calling for a union of polity but rather merely the restoration of communion, so the LCMS and LCC and the continuing Anglican jurisdictions would, for example, have the status of autocephalous churches, as would Rome and each autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church (indeed the autocephaly of the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem is guaranteed by Canons VI and VII of Nicaea).*

* On this point I feel we should also stress the importance of following the canons of the ecumenical councils. For example Canon I of Nicaea, which prohibits any man who has castrated himself from receiving Holy Orders, and deposes anyone in Holy Orders who castrates themselves, couples with other ancient canons in such a way so that the grievous sin committed by transexuals when they mutilate themselves would disqualify them from ordination to even the role of Doorkeeper or Exorcist**

**These were the two lowest ranking of the Minor Orders during the Early Church I find it interesting that at present, Exorcists are an elite, mysterious group of priests who have a certain cachet, whereas in the early church, exorcism was so routine that it was being done, in effect, by acolytes. It is also frightening to consider that apparently our faith has declined to the point where only elite and highly trained priests are entrusted with doing exorcisms; this reminds me of a dream reported by one of the early monastic figures of the Church, one of the Desert Fathers, wherein they and one of their brethren were soaring with ease at great speed and altitude, whereas another monk was seen struggling to keep aloft and moving very slowly; it was explained that as time passed it would be harder and harder for Christians to remain pious, and signs of this were abundant in the 19th century when St. Ignatius Brianchaninov quoted that incident in his text on monasticism and mystical theology, The Arena, and are even more evident today. So I am by no means suggesting that we send our young altar boys to do exorcisms; God forbid! That would be an unthinkable act of cruelty. Rather the fact that their fourth century counterparts were part of a faith community that existed with purity, strengthened by the Roman persecutions and contending against an Adversary still reeling from his unexpected defeat by Christ on the Cross, but also still possessing a very large number of people owing to the relatively small size of the Christian community, was in a position where the demand for exorcisms was such, and the devils weak enough, so that the most inexperienced and youthful persons in Holy Orders, who were not yet trusted to guard the doors of the church, were nonetheless consecrated to perform exorcisms, and did so in extremely large numbers.

Now we face a frightening scenario where the Christian faith, thanks to the decline of the liberal mainline churches and the superficial nature of the evangelical and fundamentalist megachurches, is shrinking relative to the population of the planet, and therefore possessions will increase, and at the same time it apparently requires only very trusted and professional clergy holding at least the rank of presbyter to effectively perform exorcisms. And in the case of the Roman Church, it also worries me that there were some people who even the celebrated Fr. Gabriel Amorth had to continually exorcise, and these were Christians who had become possessed despite having in most cases the seal of the Holy Spirit.

I am also, on the basis of some disturbing experiences, nearing a point where prudence will require us to view apostates and infidels as potentially possessed, in particular, those who are atheists or who adhere to Paganism or some heretical offshoots of Christianity. Based on how people react to our wearing of a cross or the concealing of a cross on our person, it might reach a point where anyone not known to be Christian must be regarded as probably demoniac. As it is, the Church already takes this approach with baptisms, which contain a simple prayer of exorcism (what the Roman Catholics call a "minor exorcism"); I cannot recall if Chrismations in the Orthodox Church contain this or not.

That’s not true. Show me the canon law or other Patristic document that anathematizes praying on the Sabbath, because I believe you are misinterpreting something.

And furthermore I can show you the ancient liturgical texts that are specifically for use on Saturday, for example, the Octoechos and the services in the Triodion for the Soul Sabbaths in the Sundays of and immediately preceding Lent, which are set aside for prayer for those who are resting as Christ rested, and for Lazarus Saturday where the resurrection of St. Lazarus is commemorated before Palm Sunday, and for Holy Saturday itself, from Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and for Holy Saturday, from Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran sources.

My friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @PsaltiChrysostom can in fact quote from the Lutheran Service Book and the Greek Orthodox hymnal for use in Lent and Holy Week called the Triodion the services I just mentioned that are specific for their churches (Lutherans do not observe the Soul Saturdays as far as I am aware, I think that is mainly an Eastern Orthodox thing and not a Roman Catholic or Western Christian perspective.)

Forgive me, bur you tell me you want my opinion on what the status of the Lord’s Day is, but respectfully, you have not provided an option which reflects my faith, which I believe is that of the Early Church, which is that the Lord’s Day complements and fulfills the Sabbath but in no sense usurps it.

I will not answer using a multiple choice question, that does not contain an answer that I believe to be true. So this explanation will have to suffice.

I am disappointed because I have hoped there was interest in genuine reform of the Adventist movement, but we seem to be lapsing back into the same anti-Roman Catholic mold of theology in which whatever the Roman Catholic Church believes is assumed to be unscriptural even when it has clear scriptural backing.

That was then, this is now. The problem is not having services on the Sabbath, it is in despising the Lord's day. My Parish is vacant; we are sharing a Pastor until we successfully call a Pastor. As a result, our Bible Study, Sunday School, and Divine services are conducted on.... wait for it......... Saturday.

We are always to remember the Sabbath day; but we also observe the Lord's day.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

The council of Leidocia

Council of Laodicea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That was only a local synod and was not a full Church Council.

 

[chevyontheriver]

None of the above. Sorry.

 

[The Liturgist]

The council of Leidocia

Council of Laodicea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I have canon 29 right here and it does not anathematize people who worship on Saturday or even people who, contrary to its preference, rest on Saturday.

The anathema is only directed at persons of factions of the now-extinct group referred to in Galatians 2:14 such as the Ebionites , a group who insisted on observing the entirety of the Torah. There are no modern day Christians who can be considered members of the groups anathematized via Galatians 2:14 and Canon 29 of Laodicea because those groups, such as the Ebionites, eventually discontinued in their belief in Christ or their insistence on the Torah and either became members of the post-Second Temple forms of Judaism, namely the Karaites, Rabinnical Jews or the Beta Israel.

Also as @Yeshua HaDerekh pointed out the canons of Laodicea are the canons of a local synod and would be enforceable only in the Church of Laodicea, which no longer exists, since the first Turkish genocide against the Christians such as the Armenians, the Syriacs and the Pontic Greeks, which is now being repeated as the fate of the Armenians unable to escape Artsakh is unknown and at any rate by driving Armenians from their historic land, and killing many in the process, the Azeris, backed by Turkey, just committed a third genocide against the Armenians, and the second one in the past decade, because ISIS and Al Qaeda destroyed the Armenian churches in their territory and killed as many Armenians as refused to submit to their intolerable demand for males to be circumcised, even if they were already circumcised, without anaesthetic.

Also Canons are literally “guidelines” in the Eastern churches, since in Greek that is what the word means; it is only in the Roman Catholic Church and the Western churches where they are interpreted as “ecclesiastical law”, a phrase which I as an Orthodox Christian feel opposed to. For example, it bothers me that the Roman Church has specialized clergy known as “Canon Lawyers.” In the Eastern churches, canons are only enforced insofar as the bishop deems it is necessary to do so for the salvation of the faithful, and only bishops can pronounce someone anathema.

So if you think Canon 29 is anathematizing you, you are wrong. You would have to be a member of the Church of Laodicea, or another church whose bishop follows the canons of Laodicea as guidance, since canon means guideline or guidance (thus the Eastern Orthodox collection of ancient canons is called the Pedalion, or Rudder, as opposed to something like “The Book of Canon Law” because it guides rather than coerces), and then have to be warned you were at risk of being excommunicated it anathematized and then told you had been anathematized in order for it to be binding.

It is not like the anathemas of the Council of Nicaea against people who refuse to accept the Nicene Creed which apply automatically because the Council was Ecumenical.

In fact, here is the funny part: the synod of Laodicea was convened after Julian the Apostate was deposed and an Arian Emperor regained control. The council was probably composed at least in part of Arian bishops who are themselves subject to automatic anathema for refusing to accept the doctrine of the Trinity.

 

[The Liturgist]

That was then, this is now. The problem is not having services on the Sabbath, it is in despising the Lord's day. My Parish is vacant; we are sharing a Pastor until we successfully call a Pastor. As a result, our Bible Study, Sunday School, and Divine services are conducted on.... wait for it......... Saturday.

We are always to remember the Sabbath day; but we also observe the Lord's day.

Exactly. And that is what Canon 29 was addressing also. It is extremely problematic, and contrary to the consensus patrum, to despise the Lord’s Day. But the canon was only in effect in Laodicea and a few other churches in Asia Minor, although if someone insisted the Eastern or Oriental Church or the Assyrian Church of the East should not worship on Sunday but on Saturday only, and I once came across an Adventist post on this forum suggesting that the Ethiopian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Assyrians are Sabbatarian, Canon 29 of Laodicea could be invoked to rebuke such a person, but they would not become anathema unless a bishop determined they were preaching another Gospel according to Galatians 1:8-2:14.

Considering Dr. David Bentley Hart is trying to argue the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches universalism and while no bishop agrees, none have anathematized him, even though he could be anathematized with much greater ease since Universalism was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, no one has bothered to enforce it because DBH and his followers are not regarded at present as a threat. However when Matthew Heimbach joined the Antiochian Orthodox Church and began claiming that Eastern Orthodoxy teaches racial segregation, he was immediately excommunicated for teaching the heresy of Ethnophyletism (it is heretical in the Eastern Orthodox Church to say that people of a certain ethnicity should only worship with others in that ethnicity; this was agreed after a controversy because the Bulgarians in Constantinople insisted on building their own church because they did not want to worship with the Phanariot and Pontic Greeks and other Orthodox ethnicities, at the Cathedral of St. George in Phanar. The Bulgarians got to keep their church but were banned from ever doing that again, or preventing the Phanariots or Pontics from worshipping in their Church.

By the way the private message I sent you was originally to be appended to the post of mine you replied to.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I have canon 29 right here and it does not anathematize people who worship on Saturday or even people who, contrary to its preference, rest on Saturday.

The anathema is only directed at persons of factions of the now-extinct group referred to in Galatians 2:14 such as the Ebionites , a group who insisted on observing the entirety of the Torah. There are no modern day Christians who can be considered members of the groups anathematized via Galatians 2:14 and Canon 29 of Laodicea because those groups, such as the Ebionites, eventually discontinued in their belief in Christ or their insistence on the Torah and either became members of the post-Second Temple forms of Judaism, namely the Karaites, Rabinnical Jews or the Beta Israel.

Also as @Yeshua HaDerekh pointed out the canons of Laodicea are the canons of a local synod and would be enforceable only in the Church of Laodicea, which no longer exists

A necessary point. It is local. Period.

Also Canons are literally “guidelines” in the Eastern churches, since in Greek that is what the word means; it is only in the Roman Catholic Church and the Western churches where they are interpreted as “ecclesiastical law”, a phrase which I as an Orthodox Christian feel opposed to. For example, it bothers me that the Roman Church has specialized clergy known as “Canon Lawyers.” In the Eastern churches, canons are only enforced insofar as the bishop deems it is necessary to do so for the salvation of the faithful, and only bishops can pronounce someone anathema.

Catholic canon law needs to be understood in the framework of Roman Law and not English Law. Which essentially means that canon law is less dictatorial and more like guidelines than if understood in an English Law mentality.

So if you think Canon 29 is anathematizing you, you are wrong. You would have to be a member of the Church of Laodicea, or another church whose bishop follows the canons of Laodicea as guidance, since canon means guideline or guidance (thus the Eastern Orthodox collection of ancient canons is called the Pedalion, or Rudder ....

Agreed that this regional canon has no effect today, and is moot. If a person feels like they want to be excluded, that's one thing. But the reality is that the canon was for a specific extinct problem by a specific extinct local community and has no judicial or moral effect today.

 

[The Liturgist]

A necessary point. It is local. Period.

Catholic canon law needs to be understood in the framework of Roman Law and not English Law. Which essentially means that canon law is less dictatorial and more like guidelines than if understood in an English Law mentality.

Agreed that this regional canon has no effect today, and is moot. If a person feels like they want to be excluded, that's one thing. But the reality is that the canon was for a specific extinct problem by a specific extinct local community and has no judicial or moral effect today.

Indeed, this is correct. Although since it is in the Pedalion, an Eastern Orthodox bishop could use it in the unlikely event there were ever confusion about this issue, but just as we don’t need a canon to tell us the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ, we don’t need a canon to tell us the First Day is particularly holy, since it is in the Bible.

 

[The Liturgist]

Catholic canon law needs to be understood in the framework of Roman Law and not English Law. Which essentially means that canon law is less dictatorial and more like guidelines than if understood in an English Law mentality.

I did not know that, so thank you for correcting me. That’s really good, actually, because it means reunion between the Orthodox and Catholics can be more readily accomplished.