Feast Days of the Orthodox Church
In the Orthodox Church every day is a feast day. In the church calendar there is a list of saints or events that are celebrated each day. Since every Orthodox Christian is named after a saint and every church, monastery, society or organization is named after a saint or a holy event we can be sure that every day is being celebrated somewhere in the world as a feast day. At Holy Dormition we do our part each day we have at least one church service where all the saints on the calendar are commemorated, During the school year the children of St Michael's School read the sixth hour in church each day before they have lunch where the reading from the prolouge is done which includes a life of saints of the day.
In the Orthodox Church feast days are divided into two catagories: the great feasts which commemorate the events in the lives of Christ and the Theotokos (Mother of God) and holy days that commemorate Saints and events of their lives.
There are two types of feasts in the church movable and immovable. Pascha (Easter) is calculated using the old testament lunar calendar because it is connected to the Jewish feast of Passover, therefore all feasts connected to Pascha are movable. All others are celebrated on specific days and are immovable.
The movable great feasts are : Entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem. Pascha, Ascension of our Lord and Pentacost.
The immovable great feasts are: the Nativity of the Theotokos (8/21 Sept.), the Elevation of the Cross (Sept. 14/27), the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple (Nov. 21/Dec. 4), the Nativity of Christ (Dec. 25/Jan. 7), Theophany (Jan. 6/19), the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Feb. 2/15), the Annunciation (March 25/Apr. 7), the Transfiguration of the Lord (Aug. 6/19), and the Dormition of the Theotokos (Aug. 15/28).