ANNEX 2

THE ATTITUDE OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES TO HOLIDAYS

The Watch Tower Society unequivocally rejects Christian holidays as having a pagan character. The holidays of Jehovah's Witnesses are included in the category of idolatry. "We must avoid religious festivals and practices that are contrary to God's principles," they write. Of course, this did not prevent them from creating their own holiday. Simultaneously with the Jews, once a year the "Jehovah's Witnesses" celebrate Easter. A special ritual was even developed: wine or grape juice is poured into a vessel, over which some kind of prayer is read. Then a piece of bread is eaten and the contents are drunk from separate glasses.

In the 19th century, the forerunners of Jehovah's Witnesses, the followers of Ilyin, celebrated the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. The image of the name of Jehovah, in Hebrew letters, was greatly revered, as well as a cross with the image of the name of Jehovah on the triangle. Ilyin himself invented the rite of "vespers", "mass". The cornerstone of Adventist teaching is also the observance of the Sabbath.

Man was created to serve God, and the celebration of events that are especially known to us from Holy History has been one of the parts of the Divine Service since ancient times. After the Fall, man was doomed to work in the sweat of his brow. The holiday gave him joy, because the meaning of life was revealed in it. In the holiday, people were freed from complete subordination to the rhythm of work and rest. The feast, in other words, was not just a necessary break from this rhythm, but its transformation into joy, into meaning, into communion with the fruits of labor, into the sanctification of rest by accepting these fruits. In the Old Testament, the fullness of time and the perfection of creation were defined by the number seven. "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: for in it he rested from all his works which God had done and made" (Gen. 2:3). Thus, in the Jewish calendar, the celebration of the seventh day was, as it were, an entry into the perfection, beauty and fullness of God's peace, and a delight in the rest of God: "... six days it is possible to do business, and on the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, the holy assembly; do not do any work; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your gates (Lev. 23:3). However, the seventh day is not so much a prohibition of work, but an active participation in the Sabbath joy, in Divine rest, as a communion with God's creation. The Lord called the Jewish people to remember "... the Sabbath day, to keep it holy..." (Exodus 20:8) Remember the Sabbath as an appeal to the future, to the coming of the Savior. In this sense, we must understand the words: "... and let the children of Israel keep the Sabbath, keeping the Sabbath throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant" (Exodus 31:16). On Saturday, Christ rested in the tomb from all His works, from the new six-day creation completed by the cross and death. But the life of this new creation began early in the morning on the first day, when the myrrh-bearing women heard: "Rejoice!" and saw the risen Lord. That is why the Church celebrates this First and at the same time the Eighth Day.

Seventh-day Adventists claim that Sabbath observance was practiced in the early church, and "the first ecclesiastical writer known to have taught that Sabbath keeping was carried over by Christ to Sunday was Eusebius of Caesarea... in the second quarter of the fourth century" 400. They also quote Augustine of Hippo, who spoke of Christians fasting on the seventh day. How did the change from Saturday to Sunday happen? "We Adventists believe that there has been a wholly unauthorized, unlawful, and unauthorized change of the Sabbath by the Catholics or by Great Rome, the apostasy foretold in the prophecies of Daniel..." 401

There are a large number of historical documents indicating that Sunday was celebrated from the earliest times. To the end of the first century belongs the Epistle of the Apostle Barnabas (more precisely, 70-100 A.D.), in which he says: "See how He says: The present Sabbaths are displeasing to me, but those which I have determined, and which will come when, having put an end to all things, I make the beginning of the eighth day, or the beginning of another world. For this reason we spend in joy the eighth day, on which Jesus also rose from the dead" (402). To the same period belongs the document known as the "Teachings of the 12 Apostles" (c. 100-135 A.D.), in chapter 14 of which we read: "On the Sunday of the Lord, when you are assembled, break bread and give thanks, having previously confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure." By the fourth decade of the second century, we already have more or less detailed descriptions of the celebration of Sunday. In the Apology of Justin the Philosopher, relating to the year 138-139 A.D., the following is written: "On the so-called day of the sun (Sunday) we have a gathering in one place of all those who live in cities or villages; and the sayings of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as time permits... On the day of the sun, we all hold a meeting in general, because this is the first day on which God, having changed darkness and matter, created the world, and Jesus Christ, our Saviour, rose from the dead on the same day. They crucified Him on the eve of Saturn's day (Saturday), and on the day after Saturn's day, i.e. on the day of the sun, He appeared to His apostles and disciples and gave them what we had presented... "404 From the last sentence it is clear that the Christians of the beginning of the second century considered the celebration of Sunday to be a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The fact that the church celebrated divine services on this day was widely known and was not disputed. During the reign of Emperor Trajan, the governor of the province of Bithynia, as a result of judicial investigations (c. 111-114 AD), established that Christians "claimed that all their guilt or error consisted in the fact that on a fixed day (Sunday) they gathered before dawn, glorified Christ as God in turn, and swore not to commit crimes, but to refrain from theft, robbery, adultery, violation of the word, refusal to give up what was trusted..." 405

Having analyzed the above texts from the turn of the first and second centuries A.D., we can conclude that the assertion of the Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses that the celebration of Sunday in the early Church was unknown and arose only under Constantine the Great does not correspond to reality.

Moreover, already from the Holy Scriptures we see that the meetings were held on this day. Describing the Apostle Paul's sojourn in Troas, his disciple Luke gives the following details: "On the first day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together to break bread, Paul, intending to depart the next day, conversed with them and continued his discourse until midnight. In the upper room where we were gathered there were plenty of lamps" (Acts 20:7-8). It is evident that out of all the seven-day stay in this city, the Apostle Paul chose the Sunday on which the service took place. For the newly founded churches, the Chief Apostle established the periodicity of meetings on Sunday: "On the first day of the week, let each one of you lay aside and save as much as his wealth allows, so that he may not make collections when I come" (1 Corinthians 16:2).

The Sabbath sects claim that by honoring the Sabbath, they keep the eternal covenant given by God. It was already revealed to the prophet David that in the future there would be a new day instead of the Sabbath: "For it is not written anywhere about the seventh day thus: And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. ... then he also determines a certain day "today," speaking through David, after so long a time..." (Hebrews 4:4-7) And indeed, history testifies that the feast of Sunday replaced the reverence of the Sabbath rest, just as the Old Testament was replaced by the New. By the way, Sabbath-keepers, very often, beginning with the commandment about the Sabbath, evolve in their teachings to the full acceptance of the Mosaic Law. This is evidenced by the history of Russian sectarianism in the 19th century.

The question of the Church's acceptance of the Mosaic Law in general and the teaching on the Sabbath in particular arose very early. This problem was discussed at the first Apostolic Council in Jerusalem. The Apostles in 51 A.D. decided that from the ceremonial law for Christians it is obligatory only "to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornication" (Acts 15:5-6). Thus, circumcision, Sabbath veneration, etc., ceased to exist in the life of the church. Saturday was replaced by Sunday. Divine services on this day almost immediately became widespread in all churches. Even being in exile and persecution, the Apostles celebrated this day, being transported in it to the Age to come, which we read in the most mysterious book of Holy Scripture: "I was in the Spirit on the Sunday day (on the day of the Lord - ejn th[/ kuriakh[/ hJme; ra/), and heard a loud voice behind him, as if it were a trumpet (Rev. 1:10).

In the Old Testament there was a large annual circle of holidays dedicated to various events in Holy History. During the celebration of these days, it was prescribed to observe rest and not to work. All the people were to gather in a "holy assembly" (ejpi; klhtow aJgi; a), (klhth’ aJgi; (a) And to offer sacrifices of atonement, which reminded people of their sins. Moreover, the Greek text has the connotation of a call to the holy judgment, the court session, as a reminder of the Lord's judgment. On the first day of the seventh month, the Feast of Trumpets (Hebrew Rosh HaShaia) was celebrated - "the day of the trumpet sound" (Lev. 23:24; Num. 29:1). Eight days later, "on the ninth day of the seventh month of this month," the "day of atonement" was appointed (Lev. 23:27; Num. 29:7). The people were commanded: "Humble your souls and offer sacrifice to the Lord," as a call to repentance and remembrance of sins. A week later, the Feast of Tabernacles (Hebrew Sukkot) began. Perhaps it was one of the most colorful Old Testament holidays. The Lord Himself commanded Moses to say: "... To the children of Israel, from the fifteenth day of the same seventh month, the feast of tabernacles, seven days unto the Lord..." (Lev. 23:34) The whole altar was decorated with greenery, and the rite of drawing water was performed. The church was not locked in the evening, as usual, but people remained in it all night. The courtyard of the temple was lit by high-set bulbs. There were so many of them that according to some reports, they illuminated all the courts of Jerusalem. Of course, all activity ceased (Numbers 29:12). This feast was blessed by the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ: "The feast of the Jews drew nigh, the setting up of tabernacles... But when His brethren came, then He also came to the feast, not openly, but as if secretly" (John 7:2,10). The last rite of this festival was the pouring of water from the spring of Siloam into two silver pipes fixed on the western side of the altar. Taking the pretext from this custom, Christ delivered a miraculous sermon about living water. Those who saw the water of Siloam flowing into the silver pipes became more comprehensible to the words of the Lord: "Whosoever believes in Me, as it is said in the Scriptures, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). In general, this seventh month of Tishri was very full of holidays, at the same time being the first month of the new year according to the civil calendar.