Christmas Every Day

1964

A step toward the end of the Great Schism.

When the Roman empire in the west fell to Germanic barbarians in the 400s, the Christian church was still largely a single body of belief and administration. However, over the next 600 years, eastern and western Christianity grew farther apart, separating slowly on issues of doctrine and politics. The two sides disagreed on whether clergy should marry, the date of Easter, the type of bread used at the Eucharist, whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from God the Father or the Father and Son and how the sign of the cross was to be made. The western church spoke Latin and conducted its services in that language; the easterners spoke Greek but allowed local languages to be used in church. The west looked for leadership to the Bishop of Rome and the German emperor; the east had the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Byzantine emperor.

In 1054, the papal delegate to the east laid a bill of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia while the Patriarch countered by excommunicating the westerners. Though these decrees were meant to be aimed at particular people and as short-term maneuvers, historians date this as the beginning of the Great Schism, a division between a Catholic and an Orthodox Church. Numerous attempts were made during the Middle Ages to reconcile the two sides but as the Byzantine empire was fading in strength these attempts usually took the form of demanding that the eastern church surrender to the pope’s authority. In 1453 when Islam overwhelmed Constantinople and last remnants of the eastern empire were extinguished, the cry in the Orthodox camp was still “better a turban than a tiara” (better to have Muslim rule than papal domination).

In 1964 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenogoras I simultaneously read a message of reconciliation in Rome and Constantinople (called Istanbul by the Turks). The two apologized for hostile words by both sides over the centuries, voided the excommunications, and wished for a new era of cooperation, hoping

that this act will be pleasing to God, who is prompt to pardon us when we pardon each other. They hope that the whole Christian world, especially the entire Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church will appreciate this gesture as an expression of a sincere desire shared in common for reconciliation, and as an invitation to follow out in a spirit of trust, esteem and mutual charity the dialogue which, with Gods help, will lead to living together again, for the greater good of souls and the coming of the kingdom of God, in that full communion of faith, fraternal accord and sacramental life which existed among them during the first thousand years of the life of the Church.

1854

An Immaculate Conception?

On this date in 1854 Pope Pius IX issued the bull Ineffabilis Deus which proclaimed:

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful.

The belief that the Virgin Mary, alone of all humankind, had been conceived without sin had long been discussed in the church. The longstanding veneration of Mary, the use of the term “Theotokos” or “God-Bearer” and the celebration of her conception on December 8 led some by the thirteenth century to proclaim that she was ever sinless. The notion of an “immaculate conception” was opposed by Dominicans such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas but the doctrine was supported by Franciscans, particularly in Britain. Protestant reformers were willing to view Mary as personally without sin but denied that her conception was free of the taint of human corruption.

Pope Pius’s declaration was strengthened by the apparition of the Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes in 1858. The female form which Bernadette claimed to see announced, “I am the Immaculate Conception”. The feast on December 8 is a national holiday in some Catholic countries and is especially celebrated in Portugal and parts of Latin America.

December 4

Feast of Saint Barbara

Barbara is the patron saint of blowing things up. One of the legendary martyr-virgins of the pre-Constantinian period, Barbara was placed in a tower by her father (and is thus often depicted in art with such a structure.) She rejected marriage and when her father learned she was a Christian he attempted to kill her. Miraculously she was transported to a mountainous region where she was betrayed to the authorities by a shepherd. Roman officials tortured her but she clung to her Christian faith and performed miracles. Finally she was beheaded by her father who was shortly struck dead by lightning.

Probably because of the manner of her father’s death, she is the patron saint of artillerymen, armourers, gunsmiths, miners and those with dangerous work. When the great Rialto Fire of 1514 broke out in Venice, the head of St Barbara was paraded “around the burning areas because it was believed to have great preventive powers in such matters.” Alas, it availed naught. It is still customary in many places to put an image of St Barbara at the entrance to new tunnels that are being dug.

In Europe it is customary to take the branch of a fruit tree and bring it indoors on St Barbara’s Day. Placed in a vase of water it should blossom on Christmas.

1552

Death of the Apostle of the Indies.

Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta, better known as Francis Xavier, was born in 1506 to a noble family of the Kingdom of Navarre, in what is now the Basque country of northwestern Spain. He studied in Paris where he met Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. This acquaintance drew him into the priesthood and into the first small cadre of members of the Jesuit order.

In 1540 the King of Portugal asked for missionaries to be sent to India where Portugal was carving out a commercial empire and Francis was chosen to lead this mission. He first based himself in Goa on the west coast of India but travelled widely though the south of the subcontinent and Sri Lanka. Casting his eyes farther east he travelled to Portuguese outposts in what is now Indonesia, southern China and Japan. In 1552 he died in China and his body was taken back to India where it is buried in splendour in Goa. (His right arm was detached and sent to the Jesuit church in Rome.)

Not only was Francis the pioneer of Catholic missions in much of Asia but he and his successors conceived of the notion of indigenous presentation, putting forth the Gospel in terms the locals could culturally understand. In India Jesuits would dress as high-caste Hindus, in China as imperial mandarins; in Canada the story of the Nativity was expressed in native terms, such as in the “Huron Carol”. Sometimes this went too far as in China where the Jesuits were accused of presenting the doctrine of the Mass in terms of ancestor worship.

Francis was canonized in 1622 and is the patron saint of Navarre, foreign missions, navigators, India and Japan.

1581

Execution of Edmund Campion. When Catholic Europe realized that England’s Queen Elizabeth I meant to put her country in the Protestant camp, all manner of attempts were made to reverse that decision. Nobles from the conservative north of the country rose in rebellion. Plots were launched to kill Elizabeth and put a Catholic ruler, possibly Mary Queen of Scots, on the throne. In 1570 the pope sanctioned Elizabeth’s overthrow in a bull entitled Regnans in Excelsis. Catholic clergymen fled to the Continent and established English-speaking seminaries to train the next generation of priests. All of this convinced the English government that Catholicism and treachery were synonymous. After a decade of winking at the refusal of Catholics to worship in the Anglican fashion, Elizabeth cracked down on the beleaguered minority that clung loyally to Rome. Especially harsh were the laws against the presence of Catholic priests who had smuggled themselves back into England.

One of the most prominent of those men was Edmund Campion, born 1541. He was a brilliant student at Oxford early in the reign of Elizabeth and was ordained a priest in the Church of England. His doubts about Protestantism grew to the point that he left his country and was received into the Catholic church in France at an English college run by Jesuits. Studies in Rome led to his becoming a Jesuit priest in 1578. Two years later the Jesuits began to smuggle English-language missionaries back into England. They were instructed to avoid any political involvement or pass judgement on Elizabeth’s right to the throne and were to concentrate on bolstering the Catholic community who had to worship in secret.

With great boldness (and perhaps little wisdom) Campion published two challenges to the English church, printed on clandestine presses. The first was known as Campions Brag, announcing the Jesuit mission and denying any treasonous intent, and the second was a Latin tract Decem Rationes (“Ten Reasons”) attacking the Anglican settlement. This public challenge led the government to put a great effort into finding him. Within a month of his arrival he was arrested and sent to the Tower of London. There he was both tortured, wooed with promises of freedom and high position, and allowed to debate Protestant theologians.

In 1581 he was put on trial for political crimes and plotting the overthrow of the Queen. On December 1 of that year he was hanged and disemboweled along with two other Catholic priests. He was canonized in 1970.