September 14/1, 2025marks the beginning of the Church Year 7534. January 14/1, 2026 (January 1 Old Style)marks the civil New Year 2026 from the birth of Christ
Since many of the faithful are sending messages and greetings with their best wishes for the New Serbian Year 7534, it is fitting to clarify, in the spirit of peace and good order, how the Church understands and reckons time.
In order to dispel confusion concerning the reckoning of time in the Church, it is necessary to recall the mind of Holy Tradition, which the Church has received from the Apostles and the God-bearing Fathers.
The New Year of the Church has already begun. According to the sanctified and ancient reckoning, the Church Year 7534 from the creation of the world commenced on the first day of September, 2025, with the feast of the Indiction, as it has been observed by the Orthodox Church from the earliest centuries.
This is not an arbitrary custom, nor a civil convention, but a sanctified order of time. The Lord Himself, who “has placed times and seasons in His own authority” (Acts 1:7), revealed sacred rhythms for the life of His people. In the Old Covenant, He consecrated the seventh month as a time of rest, purification, and thanksgiving (Lev. 23), filling it with saving events and establishing from it the cycles of sabbatical years and the Jubilee—the year of release, mercy, and restoration (Lev. 25).
In the fullness of time, divine providence joined this consecrated season with the civil Indiction, beginning on September 14/1, which the Church received not for worldly reasons, but because in this very season our Lord Jesus Christ entered the synagogue and proclaimed: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me… to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Isa. 61; Luke 4). Thus, Christ Himself revealed the true New Year—not of taxation or earthly dominion, but of grace, salvation, and renewal.
For this reason, the holy Fathers, and the Church guided by the Holy Spirit, established September 1 as the beginning of the Ecclesiastical year, a feast of thanksgiving, repentance, and spiritual renewal. From this day we already live and labor within the Church Year 7534.
At the same time, we must distinguish this sacred reckoning from the civil New Year counted from the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos who became flesh for our salvation. According to the traditional Orthodox calendar, we celebrate this New Year on January 1, which corresponds to January 14 on the civil (Gregorian) calendar. On that day, we greet the year 2026 from the Nativity of God the Logos, giving thanks for the mystery of the Incarnation, by which time itself has been renewed and sanctified.
Thus, there is no contradiction and no confusion:
- September 14/1, 2025marks the beginning of the Church Year 7534.
- January 14/1, 2026 (January 1 Old Style)marks the civil New Year 2026 from the birth of Christ.
In popular practice, both observances should be kept in proper order, each in its true meaning, so that neither sense nor order is confused, and so that one does not nullify the other.
Thе reckoning of time, often called the Romeic calendar, was solemnly confirmed by the pious Emperor Basil II in the year 988 and preserved throughout the Orthodox oikoumene for centuries. It numbers the years from 5508 before the Incarnation, which Holy Tradition received as the year of the creation of the world, and it appoints September 1 as the beginning of the year. From the seventh century onward, this reckoning was embraced throughout the Orthodox lands.
When we celebrate the Indiction, we do not offer Christ gold or silver as earthly rulers demanded, but the offering of our lives. We offer steadfast faith instead of iron, unshaken hope instead of silver, and above all love, more precious than gold (1 Cor. 13). Thus the Church enters the New Year renewed, having put off the old man and put on the new, “according to the image of Him who created him” (Col. 3:10).
Let us therefore walk wisely in the sanctified order of time given to us by God, beginning the Church Year in repentance and obedience, and greeting the civil New Year with thanksgiving for the Incarnation of Christ, which we will celebrate on December 25, 2026 / January 7, 2027. In this way, we honor not human custom, but divine economy, and we celebrate in truth the acceptable year of the Lord.
Finally, as we stand within this sanctified order of time handed down by the Church, let us receive all these feasts with understanding, gratitude, and reverence.
Living already in the Church Year 7534, and entering the civil New Year 2026 from the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us sanctify every season by faith, repentance, and works of love.
May the Lord, who submitted Himself to the Law for our salvation, grant us the grace to fulfill His commandments in humility and obedience. And as we celebrate these holy days, let us glorify Him who is before all ages and yet entered time for our sake.
I therefore extend to all the faithful my heartfelt prayerful wishes:
- a blessed Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ,
- a joyful and grace-filled Feast of our father among the saints, Basil the Great, radiant teacher of the Church and pillar of Orthodoxy,
and - a blessed civil New Year 2026, named under the communist yoke as the “Orthodox Serbian” New Year, which we celebrate according to the traditional church calendar.
May the Lord grant that this year be for us a year of repentance, peace, spiritual growth, and salvation, to the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
protopriest Miroljub Srb. Ruzic
January 14/1 A.D. 2026
Categories: Гостинска соба
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