A feast of the Church year
The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers
As the Nativity draws near, the Church remembers the righteous of the Old Testament from Adam onward, who lived and died in faith, waiting for Christ. With Adam and Eve it honors the patriarchs and their wives, among them Abraham, who received the three angels at the oak of Mamre, Isaac, Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, with the Prophet Nathan and King David, of whose house Christ is born. Eve, the mother of all living, received the first promise of a Savior, and her sorrow is undone in the Mother of God, the new Eve.
The dates
- Kept on
- the Sunday between 11 December and 17 December
- Next, New Calendar
- Next, Old Calendar
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
The Church keeps it in the last weeks of the Nativity Fast, as Christmas draws near.
Eve has no fixed feast of her own; she is honored on this day with Adam and all the Forefathers.
The names of the patriarchs and their wives, such as Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, are kept on this day, and Greek name-day calendars add Eva. Russian and Ukrainian women named Eva usually keep the day of the New Martyr Abbess Eva instead.
Name days
These names keep their name day on this feast:
The saint
Icons for the feast
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