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STRUCTURE

The Lutheran calendar operates on two different cycles, that of ). Dates affected by placement of Easter include the Baptism of our Lord, Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent , the start of Easter itself, Pentecost, and Holy Trinity. Advent, the other moveable season on the calendar, comes exactly four Sundays before the start of Christmas (if Christmas falls on a Sunday, that day does not count), or the Sunday closest to St. Andrew ’s Day ( November 30 ). Like the other Western Church calendars, the first Sunday of Advent is also the first day of the liturgical year. The events commemorated on the Lutheran calendar fall into three different categories: Festivals, Lesser Festivals, and Commemorations.


Festivals

The Festivals are Nativity , Epiphany , the Baptism Of Our Lord , the Transfiguration , the Annunciation , Palm Sunday , Easter , the Ascension , Pentecost , and Holy Trinity . Many of these festivals are tied to the moveable feast of Easter. Festivals take precedence over all other days, including Sundays. Of the festivals, Christmas is considered to be twelve days in length (from December 25 until January 5) and Easter is fifty days in length (from Easter Sunday up to and inclusive of Pentecost). For Easter, Sundays are considered to be another part of the festival. In instances where festivals fall on days other than Sunday, they may be transferred to the next following Sunday. This is especially important in the case of the Ascension which, falling on fortieth day of Easter, will always be on a Thursday.

There is another type of day which, while not a festival, is considered to be equal with a festival. These days, called Days of Special Devotion, are Ash Wednesday and all the days of Holy Week , especially Good Friday . These particular days, like other festivals, automatically take precedence over any event on the calendar and sometimes even over other festivals. A good example of this would be in 2005 when Good Friday and the Annunciation fell on the same day ( March 25 ). The Annunciation was transferred to March 28 , or the second day of Easter to make room for Good Friday.


Lesser Festivals

These are days which are associated with the life of Christ or the apostles and deserve attention in their own right. Lesser Festivals do not have priority over festivals and technically do not have precedence over ordinary Sundays. However, the Lutheran Book of Worship does permit the celebration of a Lesser Festival on Sundays where the normal color of the day would be green (that is, seasons after Epiphany or after Pentecost) or on the Sundays in Christmas. This is abrogated for patronal festivals (that is, the day commemorating the saint or event for which a congregation is named) provided that they do not take place in Lent, Advent, or Easter, in which case they must also be transferred to the next convenient weekday.


Commemorations

Commemorations are for individuals or events which have been noteworthy in the life of the Church and in the history of Lutheranism in particular. These days do not take precedence over any other day and are observed on weekdays. If a particularly important commemoration does fall on a Sunday who’s color is green, the Collect for which that individual or event belong to could be said before the daily collect/prayer of the day (for example, if January 13 fell on a Sunday and there was a desire to commemorate George Fox, the pastor would recite the common of renewers of society and then the prayer of the day). The person may also be mentioned by name in the prayers of the faithful. In cases of conflict between commemorations (for example, November 11 with St. Martin Of Tours and SØren Kierkegaard ), there is no order of precedence and individual worship planners need to choose which commemoration, if any, to highlight. In some cases, several individuals are listed together ( June 14 with St. Basil The Great , St. Gregory The Theologian , and St. Gregory Of Nyssa ) because of their close association with each other and they are thus designed to be commemorated as a unit, not as a choice between one or the other.


DIFFERENCES FROM OTHER CALENDARS

The Lutheran calendar is most similar to the calendar of the Episcopal Church and thus to the Anglican Calendar of Saints, though like its close cousin, it bears resemblance to the Roman Calendar of Saints. However, the Lutheran calendar differs from both in two very significant ways, aside from an obviously heavy Lutheran accent. First, the Lutheran calendar, while commemorating many of the same events or persons, often does so on different days from either calendar ( St. Cyprian Of Carthage on September 16 for Lutherans, but September 15 for Anglicans and for Roman Catholics). In other cases (such as St. Valentine on February 14 ) individuals who have long standing within Western Christianity are not even mentioned.

The other significant difference is that the Lutheran calendar commemorates a wider variety of individuals than does either of it’s counterparts. Included on the calendar are musicians and artists who are associated with the Church, but are not typically thought of as “satins” in the classical sense. The intent is to provide a wider venue for commemoration of outstanding individuals who have served the Church through their vocations rather than simply commemorating the outstanding among the religious.
There is also no use of the title “saint” for anyone other than biblical persons (and even then the title is used with a certain degree of exclusivity). This is to prevent oddities of convention (such as St. George Fox) as well as to underline the Lutheran emphasis on the priesthood of all believers.

The North American calendar (upon which the following is based) is also different from its European counterparts in that it does not give equal weight (and sometimes no mention) to persons who may be commemorated in Scandinavian regions. One example would be the absence of St. Lucia on December 13 who enjoys particular popularity in Sweden . But, Lutheran calendars also differ amongst one another in North America. The calendar below is primarily based on the one used by the Evangelical Lutheran Church In America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church In Canada . But the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod have different, somewhat minimalized calendars when compared to what is seen here. Within the ELCA, This Far By Faith and both prescribe calendars with additional commemorations specific to the communities for which they were intended to be used (African Americans and Latinos respectively). The additions and variations are not noted below.

For calendars besides the Lutheran calendar, see: Calendar Of Saints , Calendar Of Saints (Anglican) , and Eastern Orthodox Church Calendar .


THE CALENDAR OF SAINTS

The event commemorated is listed with the type of event afterwards in parenthesis as well as the country where it is observed (if not commonly observed on that date in North America). For individuals, the date given is the date of their death or “heavenly birthday.” The single letter listed after each event is the particular color for Vestments , whether White (W) or Red (R).


January



February



March



April



May



June



July




August



September



October



November



December



SEE ALSO




EXTERNAL LINKS

Google Calendar of Lesser Festivals and Commemerations