👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾Why #Meskerem Is the #Beginning of the Year.
(part 2)
Beloved in Christ, children of the Holy Orthodox faith, let us lift up our hearts with thanksgiving to God who orders the times and seasons, who “set the lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Gen. 1:14).
It is not by accident, nor by human invention, that Meskerem is for us the beginning of the year. Rather, this beginning has been sanctified by Scripture, confirmed by the lives of the righteous, kept by our holy forefathers, and preserved by our Church to this very day.
The Meaning of a Year and the Order of Creation
The first of the months in Ethiopia is Meskerem, which falls in September. It is called “the month of the year” because it crowns the cycle of the lights in the heavens. The sun, the moon, and the stars finish their course in Pagume, and a new cycle begins in Meskerem. At this time, day and night are perfectly equal: twelve hours of light, twelve hours of darkness. Thus the year contain 364 days, as is written in the Book of Enoch:
“The night is equal to the day, and if you count the year carefully, it will be three hundred and sixty-four days” (Enoch 26:44).
And the Prophet Jeremiah cries out, “Renew our days as before” (Lam. 5:21), teaching us that each new year is a renewal of life, an opportunity to begin again.
The Witness of Noah
In the days of Noah, after the floodwaters receded, the earth appeared in the “first month” (Kufale 7:1). The Book of Jubilees declares:
“In the beginning of the first month he commanded him to make an ark for himself, and the earth was dry in it” (Kufal 24:7).
Thus, the end of destruction and the beginning of renewed life came in this month. Noah and his family, stepping out of the ark into a cleansed earth, celebrated it as the beginning of a new year. So too, in our own Meskerem, the dark and rainy season passes away, the earth dries, flowers blossom, fruits ripen, and life begins anew.
The Queen of Sheba and Solomon
Our history also teaches that in this same month the Queen of Sheba went up to Jerusalem. After marveling at the wisdom of Solomon, she returned to Ethiopia laden with precious gifts. For this reason, Meskerem 1 is forever known as the “month of the year of the year, Enkuletatash” a month of wisdom and abundance.
God’s Command to Moses and Israel
It was in this month too that God commanded Moses to make the beginning of the year. In Leviticus we read of the great feasts appointed in the seventh month (Lev. 23:53). Israel departed from Egypt by God’s command in this season, and this time was sanctified as a memorial forever.
And note well, beloved: until the eleventh century, the whole Christian world celebrated the new year in Meskerem. Only in the days off Gregory VII (1073–1085) was the celebration transferred to Tir, to tie it with the Nativity. Yet the Eastern Church, faithful to her inheritance, never forsook Meskerem. Greece, Russia, Romania, Alexandria, and Ethiopia still proclaim Meskerem as the beginning of the year.
The Change of Seasons
Europeans change their seasons in Tir, but we Ethiopians reckon the change in Meskerem, when light and darkness are equal. Herein lies not only a natural wisdom, but a spiritual one: for as the world moves from cloud and gloom into brightness, so too we are called to pass from sin and shadow into the light of Christ.
Continues 👇🏾