The Lord Jesus Christ honored with His presence the much later feast of the Dedication. "And then came the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch" (John 10:22-23). Two hundred years earlier, Simon Maccabee had instituted this celebration and "established to spend this day every day with gladness" (1 Maccabees 13:52).

The main Old Testament feasts, without a doubt, were the Feast of the Passover and Unleavened Bread. In the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month of Nisan, they began to celebrate the Passover of the Lord, and the next day came the Feast of Unleavened Bread, after which it was necessary to eat unleavened bread for seven days (Lev. 23:5-6; Num. 28:16-17). In these days, the salvation of the people from slavery in Egypt was commemorated. All pious Israelites celebrated these days. "Every year His parents went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover" (Luke 2:41). From the age of twelve, the Lord also went there (for example, John 2:13). When the time of His Passion drew near, "a multitude of people who had come to the feast, hearing that Jesus was coming up to Jerusalem" (John 12:12), went out with branches to meet the Lord. This was the last Old Testament Passover, "... for our Passover, Christ, was slain for us. Therefore let us celebrate not with the old leaven, but with unleavened bread of purity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8), as the Apostle Paul said. That Easter was a type. In it the same sacrifices were offered every year, which could not "make perfect those who come with them" (Hebrews 10:1). In this same New Pascha, celebrated by the Church, "we are sanctified by the single offering of the body of Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 10:10). Easter is celebrated by almost all Christian denominations. Many sects also celebrate it. That the divine services of the early Church centered around Sunday has already been pointed out above. Each Sunday was a reflection of the Main Resurrection - Easter. The Watch Tower Society believes that "Passover was not celebrated by the early Christians" but "originated in non-Christian celebrations."406

The fact that the New Testament Passover became the main feast of the Church is evidenced by the sources of the pre-Constantine era. "We strictly observe this holiday: we do not add anything, we do not subtract anything. In Asia lie the great luminaries of faith, who will arise on the day of the Lord's coming... They all celebrated the Passover...", we read in a letter from Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, to Victor, bishop of Rome, which dates from 190-192 A.D. 407 There are several sects that celebrate the Passover at the same time as the Jews on the 14th of Nisan. These are "Jehovah's Witnesses", "Right Hand Brothers", some interpretations of the Molokans, etc. Of course, this stems from other false ideas of the sects under consideration, for example, the teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses, who deny the bodily Resurrection of the Savior, is also flawed in the celebration of Easter. And this is a general law - a false theological opinion creates a false rite.

The Watch Tower Society also believes that "early Christianity did not know the feast of the Nativity of Christ . . . The first Christians did not celebrate the birth of Christ... In the Gospels there is not a word about the date of Christ's birth... According to the New Encyclopedia Britannica, the church decided to celebrate Christmas on December 25, the birthday of the ancient Iranian god of light Mithras... and on the day of honoring the invincible sun, as well as on the day following the Saturnalia, in order to counteract the influence of these festivals" (408). As a matter of fact, the date of God's birth itself does not have any special significance. It is important that this event has taken place. As for the possibility of consciously borrowing the date of the pagan celebration, this hypothesis is unlikely. There are no specific references to such an event in the sources. In addition, taking into account the instruction of the Didache: "Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites. For they fast on the second and fifth day of the week. But you fast on Wednesday and Friday..." 409, it can be concluded that the early Church had a sharply negative attitude to the possibility of borrowing sacred dates from external ones. Information about the time of the Nativity of Christ is found already in Clement of Alexandria (II century A.D.) "Some of the historians extend chronological accuracy to the point that they indicate not only the year, but also the day of the birth of the Saviour, asserting that He was born in the 28th year of the reign of Augustus, on the 25th day of the month of Pahon." Thus, we see that the news of the Nativity is found much earlier than the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great.

To the year 180 A.D. belongs the seventh passage from the lost writings of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, which mentions Pascha and Pentecost: "It is not the bending of the knees on the (day) of the Lord that is a symbol of the resurrection, through which we have been freed from sins and from death by the grace of Christ, which He slain. This custom originated from the times of the Apostles... he also mentions Pentecost, on which we also do not kneel, because it is equal to the day of the Lord..." 411 Pentecost, mentioned by the Hieromartyr Irenaeus, is another holiday that completely changed the meaning in the New Testament Revelation. Previously, it was called the feast of weeks or harvest. When the first fruits appeared, their firstfruits were brought to the Lord in the assembly (Lev. 23:21; Num. 28:26). In the New Testament, the Apostles "At the coming of the day of Pentecost (th'n hJme; ran th[w penthkosth[w;) ... were with one accord together" (Acts 2:1). (Pentecost fell on Sunday John 19:31, Lev 23:15). Then there occurred the appearance of the Holy Spirit – the Third Hypostasis of the Most Holy Trinity. The apostles celebrated this event from the first years of their ministry. The Holy Apostle Paul tried to always be in Jerusalem for Pentecost and other feasts celebrated by the local Christian community, and his time calculation was based on the festive circle. "... for it was determined that Paul should pass by Ephesus, that he might not tarry in Asia; for he hastened, if possible, on the day of Pentecost (hJme; ran th[w penthkosth[w] to be in Jerusalem" (Acts 20:16). To his disciples in Corinth, the Apostle wrote about future plans: "In Ephesus I will abide until Pentecost..." (1 Corinthians 16:8) Therefore, the words of the sectarians about the uselessness of church holidays can be answered with his words: "Let no one, therefore, condemn you for food, or drink, or for any feast..." (Col. 2:16-17) The Apostle teaches us not to condemn those who deprive themselves of the fruits of spiritual celebrations: "One distinguishes day from day, and another judges every day equally. Everyone should act according to the testimony of his mind. He who discerns the days, discerns for the Lord; and he who does not distinguish the days for the Lord does not discern" (Romans 14:5-6).

Spiritual celebrations in the Church were performed in a certain order, although now it is difficult to say which one. It is known that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians: "... everything must be decently and orderly" (1 Corinthians 14:40), that is, according to order. And in St. Clement of Rome (end of the first century) we read in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: "Being convinced of this and penetrating into the depths of divine knowledge, we must do in order everything that the Lord commanded us to do at certain times. He commanded that sacrifices and sacred acts (prowfora'w kai' leitourgi; a) were not performed randomly or without order, but at certain times and hours. Likewise, where and through whom this should be done, He Himself determined by His highest will, that everything should be done holy, and pleasing to His will. Therefore pleasing to Him and blessed are those who offer their sacrifices at the appointed times; for by following the commandments of the Lord they do not sin" (412).

Very early in the Church there appeared in the Church the veneration of the departed saints. "Remember your leaders who preached the word of God to you, and considering the end of their lives, imitate their faith" (Hebrews 13:7), wrote the Apostle Paul. And this was quite natural for the early Church, which lived in communion with the Church Triumphant. Several sources have been preserved, thanks to which we can judge how such celebrations were performed. According to the acts of martyrdom of Ignatius the God-bearer, dated between 107 and 115 AD, "... having spent several days over his grave singing hymns, the Christians decided to continue to sing of his life and sufferings, and in remembrance of him to glorify the Lord Jesus." "We have sung the praises of God, the giver of blessings, we have blessed the holy man, and we have marked for you the day and year (of his death), so that, gathering on the day of his martyrdom, we may have communion with the ascetic and valiant martyr of Christ," we read in these documents. Describing the martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna about 167 A.D., eyewitnesses wrote to the local churches: "So we then took his bones, which are more precious than precious stones and nobler than gold. And they put it where it should be. There, if possible, the Lord will grant us, gathered in joy and joy, to celebrate the day of his martyrdom, in memory of those who struggled (for the faith) before us and for the instruction and preparation for future (ascetics)."

Thus, we can confidently affirm that the celebration of various events in Holy History is part of the life of the Church. Remembering them, a person turns to the future blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven. But the Watch Tower Society does not seek the heavenly. We have already mentioned in previous chapters that the ideals of Jehovah's Witnesses are limited to earthly, carnal, material well-being. Perhaps this is the reason for the hostility experienced by the members of the sect to church holidays, which are an earthly reflection of the eternal feast of the Kingdom of God.

1 New religious organizations in Russia of a destructive and occult nature. Belgorod, 1997. P. 9.

2 Bernard of Thuringia (c. 960) predicted the destruction of the universe in 992, when the Annunciation was to coincide with Good Friday.

3 Vincent Ferve, a famous Spanish preacher, who declared that the world would last as many years as there were verses in the Psalms, i.e. about 2537 years.

4 Arnaud de Villeneuve, who lived at the end of the thirteenth century, fixed the date of the birth of the Antichrist in 1335.

5 Stofler, a famous mathematician who lived in the sixteenth century, predicted that in 1524 there would be a new global flood. This prophecy caused a sharp reaction among the population of Europe. Residents of the coastal provinces of Germany began to sell their houses at bargain prices. Many rich people built large arks.