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VoL 4, No 1 |
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VoL 4, No 1 |
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and the Glastonbury Thorn |
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THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN HERITAGE of the English nation has survived
in fragments, even if only in a very small part. One is aware of this in
small villages in England, where perhaps survive a Saxon church or foundation,
the manor house, and clustered around them the black-and-white thatched
cottages and the inn. In my own experience, having been born into such
an environment, I know, for example, of old people who still, through family
tradition, regard the Julian calendar (changed in England to the Gregorian
only in the mid eighteenth century) as the only true calendar. In farming
families of my acquaintance in East Anglia, "Old Christmas" was religiously
kept right up until Hitler’s war. Such people- now outside the Orthodox
Church, bring to shame the "Orthodox" New Calendarists, who, apparently,
have less sense of tradition than they!
It is sad that when Christ is born, the oxen and the cattle in the farms
kneel down in worship. When a teamed scholar mocked this belief, saying
that he had never witnessed such an event, he was informed by farm laborers
that this was because he had watched on December 25, not on the true date,
January 7. We are told that the scholar departed in his
According to the Glastonbury tradition, St. Joseph of Arimathea, who had previously been a secret disciple of the Saviour, openly confessed his faith following the Ascension. Having been driven from his homeland, he became the Apostle to the Britons. The place where he came was none other than Glastonbury. This same tradition relates that St. Joseph arrived first in Marseilles. St. Philip, who had just converted the Gauls, sent him with twelve other missionaries to Britain in 63 A.D.. The thirteen holy companions traveled across the perilous marshes of Somerset to Glastonbury, coming at last to a hill where they rested. As was the custom, the saint carried a pastoral staff` of dry hawthorn. When he stopped to rest what was to become known as Weary-all Hill, he stuck the staff into the ground. There, as a sign of God’s favor, it blossomed, and it has continued to blossom during Nativity-tide every year. Known as the Glastonbury Thorn, it was ravaged by a Puritan soldier in 1653. Fortunately several specimens survived and may be seen today. A curious story is related concerning the annual blossoming of the Glastonbury Thorn. Until the seventeenth century, England continued to follow Julian calendar, which is still used by the True Orthodox Church today. The records show that after England adopted the Gregorian calendar, King George II was very perturbed because the miraculous thorn tree continued to blossom on the old calendar dale for Holy Nativity. Adapted from: Deacon Andrew Phillips, The Shepherd, Brookwood, Surrey. |