Beginning of the Indiction

The Beginning of the Indiction, that is, the New Year

The Beginning of the Indiction, kept on September 1, is the Orthodox Church's new year: the first day of the annual cycle of feasts and fasts. Inherited from the fiscal calendar of the Roman and Byzantine empires, the day was consecrated by the Church as a feast of the blessing of time itself, commemorating Christ's reading of Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth — "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" — and asking God's blessing on the year begun.

The indiction was originally a fifteen-year cycle of tax assessment in the Roman empire, regularised in the era of Constantine, with each year of the cycle beginning on September 1; in Byzantine usage "the indiction" came to mean the civil new year's day itself. The Church, whose life in the empire was woven into this calendar, adopted September 1 as the head of the liturgical year, and the Menaion opens with this day.

The tradition attaches to the day the memory of Christ's entry into the synagogue at Nazareth at the opening of his ministry (Luke 4), where he stood to read from the prophet Isaiah — "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me... to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" — and declared the scripture fulfilled. The Gospel of the day is that scene; the feast thus sets the whole coming year under the announcement of the "acceptable year," and its hymns ask blessing on "the crown of the year," echoing the psalm.

September 1 retains this character across the Orthodox world on both calendars. In 1989 the Ecumenical Patriarchate additionally designated the day as one of prayer for the protection of the natural creation, an observance since adopted widely — a modern extension of the feast's ancient theme of the sanctification of time and the world.

Feast and commemoration

September 1 (church date; Old Calendar civil September 14). The service of the Indiction is joined in the Menaion with that of Symeon the Stylite and the synaxis of the Theotokos of Miasena; where fully observed, the Indiction's readings precede the saint's.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 2

O Maker of all creation, who hast set times and seasons in thine own power: bless the crown of the year with thy goodness, O Lord, keeping in peace thy people and thy city, by the intercessions of the Theotokos, and save us.

Original translation from the Greek

Appointed readings

Epistle — 1 Timothy 2:1–7

¹I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; ²For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. ³For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; ⁴Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. ⁵For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; ⁶Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. ⁷Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.

Gospel — Luke 4:16–22

¹⁶And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. ¹⁷And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, ¹⁸The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, ¹⁹To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. ²⁰And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. ²²And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?

Iconography

The feast is represented by the scene of Christ reading in the synagogue of Nazareth, the scroll of Isaiah open in his hands; composite new-year icons sometimes surround this scene with the cycle of the year's feasts or the labours of the months. No image is stored yet for this entry.