Trying to understand Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian)

Dan
Dan Member Posts: 68
edited November 20 in Resources Forum

The title of each week will say (for instance) THIRTY THIRD TUESDAY AFTER PENTECOST, then the readings will say "(32nd Tuesday)" after them. This may be more of a question about the Church calendar than the resource itself, but why the one-off count in the title vs. the readings themselves? Other resources will call that the 32nd week.

Is Pentecost the 0th ("zeroth") week (I'm a programmer so that would make sense to me)? But if so, wouldn't it then be that 33rd (ordinal) = 32 (cardinal: not 32nd)? For non-programmers, the range 0 through 32 has a length of 33 (because 0 counts as a digit, i.e. 0-9 consists of 10 digits). Or are they counting from a different starting point (the title says "after Pentecost" whereas the number in parentheses is beginning a week off for some reason)?

Please explain. Thanks,

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  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith Member, MVP Posts: 53,020 ✭✭✭✭✭

    This introduction to the Lectionary may help some https://www.academia.edu/12548250/An_Introduction_to_the_Byzantine_Lectionary

    Another source is http://www.byzcath.org/index.php/resources/faith-worship/lectionary-mainmenu-114

    If these don't do it for you, I'll pull out Robert Taft and get you an answer.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Dan
    Dan Member Posts: 68
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/949273#Comment_949273

    The first resource stops counting incrementally after the 19th week after Pentecost, at which point it (tellingly) says,

    "[The Advent Cycle gets underway sometime between the 20th week after Pentecost and the 26th after Pentecost, depending on the date of Easter.]"

    It then proceeds with numbering at 1 again. The second resource numbers the weeks appropriately and consistently.

    I'm actually beginning to wonder if the Logos resource is incorrect here. The resources you linked logically follow the Church calendar and consistently refer to each week in an incrementing fashion (and are consistent both in cardinal and ordinal numbers). I wonder if someone made a logic error in the week headers in the Logos resources (or at minimum a confusion between cardinal/ordinal numbers). Who would I contact about potential errata and to clarify this?

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith Member, MVP Posts: 53,020 ✭✭✭✭✭
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/950707#Comment_950707

    I don't know who is currently responsible for these. I would suggest reporting it as a bug (put BUG as the first word in the title) in the Logos 7 forum as a place we know it will be seen. If I get the chance, I'll see if I can find more definitive documentation to support the bug report - I'm not sure that all Byzantine rites use identical nomenclature.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

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