the Apostles (six Sundays); the last of these Sundays is the Sunday of the twelve Apostles and the first of the next Shabu‘â (of summer). This Shabu‘â (the sixth) lasts till the seventh Sunday after that of the Apostles. Then begins the seventh Shabu‘â, of Elias. Two Sundays of Moses and four of the Dedication (of the Churches) form the eighth and ninth Shabu‘e.[1] There are four fasts in the year: Subârâ (Advent), lasting twenty-five days (counted back from Christmas); the Fast of the Ninevites, namely the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday beginning twenty days before the Great Fast, in memory of the penance of Nineveh when Jonas preached; then the Great Fast, forty-nine days before Easter;[2] and the Fast of St. Mary from August 1 to August 15.[3] The fasts include Sundays, and are kept, as by all Eastern people, exceedingly severely. Every day is what we should call a "black fast," including abstinence from flesh-meat, lacticinia, eggs and all animal produce. All Wednesdays and Fridays are days of abstinence.
The chief feast is, of course, Easter (‘ad‘idâ kabīrâ, "great feast"). Christmas (December 25) is the "little feast" (‘ad‘idâ ḳatīnâ). The Epiphany (January 6) is also a great day; it is the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, as with all Easterns. Other great feasts are Lady-day, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, the Transfiguration, Death of St. Mary (August 15), Holy Rood (September 13), etc. The main part of their Calendar consists of movable feasts, not fixed to a day of the month, but falling on a certain week-day after a Sunday—mainly determined by Easter. Thus all Fridays are feasts of great Saints: the Friday after the first Sunday after Epiphany is St. Peter and St. Paul, the next Friday the Four Evangelists, the next St. Stephen, and so on. Mar Addai is on the fifth Sunday after Easter, Mar Mari on the second Friday of the summer Shabu‘â. Mar Nestorius comes with Diodore and Theodore as the "Greek Doctors" on the Friday
- ↑ Nilles: Kalendarium manuale, ii. 681. Maclean and Browne (p. 350) count four Sundays of Moses. Their number, and the number of those after Epiphany, must depend on whether Easter falls early or late.
- ↑ Sometimes they begin this fast on the Sunday (our Quinquagesima), making it last fifty days.
- ↑ Like the Byzantine Fast of the Holy Mother of God; only, with the Nestorians it is, of course, not "of the Mother of God."
