08 — Veneration East and West

The one section of this compendium that sets the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic handling of St. Barbara side by side. It treats, even-handedly and without polemic, the 1969 reform of the General Roman Calendar that dropped Barbara’s universal feast on grounds of doubtful historicity — stating exactly what that reform did and did not do — and, beside it, the unbroken Orthodox veneration of Barbara as a Holy Great Martyr commemorated on 4 December with full liturgical honor. The two files present each tradition with its own rationale and its own sources, per METHODOLOGY §4.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Great Martyr; virgin-martyr)

The historical questions about St. Barbara — her absence from the earliest record, the lateness and division of her Passio, the unestablished kernel behind the legend (set out in The Historical Core and The Cult Without a History) — are the same in East and West. What differs is what the two communions did with those questions in the twentieth century. The Roman Catholic Church, in the post-Vatican-II revision of the General Roman Calendar (1969), applied a historicity criterion and removed a number of feasts, Barbara’s among them, from the universal calendar — without de-canonizing the saints or forbidding their veneration. The Orthodox Church undertook no such reform: Barbara remains a Great Martyr commemorated across all the Orthodox Churches on 4 December, her cult and her hymnography the warrant for her honor. This section lays the two approaches alongside each other, giving each its proper rationale, so that the difference is understood and not merely scored. The frame is the broader Orthodox–Catholic difference in the theology of the calendar and of saints of legendary record (see Orthodox vs. Catholic).

Files in This Section

File Description
The 1969 Roman Reduction The revision of the General Roman Calendar promulgated by Mysterii Paschalis (Paul VI, 14 February 1969) and detailed in the Calendarium Romanum (1969), which removed Barbara’s 4 December feast from the universal calendar on grounds of insufficiently established historicity — together with Catherine, Christopher, and others. What the reform did and did not do (it did not de-canonize Barbara; she remains in the Roman Martyrology and may be venerated locally); and the continued, undiminished Orthodox veneration set beside it. Both sides with their own rationale and sources, per §4.
The Orthodox Great Martyr The Orthodox understanding of Barbara as a Holy Great Martyr (megalomartys): what the title means, the company of the great martyrs (George, Demetrios, Catherine, Panteleimon), Barbara’s place in the liturgical year and her hymnography (the troparion and kontakion of 4 December), and the ecclesial-reception theology by which the Church venerates a saint of legendary record — the cult and the hymnody, not a documented biography, as the warrant.

See Also

References

  • Paul VI. Mysterii Paschalis (motu proprio), 14 February 1969. (Promulgating the revised General Roman Calendar and the new norms for the liturgical year.)
  • Calendarium Romanum. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969. (The revised General Roman Calendar with the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar; the explanatory notes on the saints removed from the universal calendar.)
  • Martyrologium Romanum (Roman Martyrology). Editio typica, Vatican City, 2001; 2004. (Barbara retained under 4 December.)
  • Menaion for December, under 4 December. (The Orthodox liturgical office of St. Barbara: troparion, kontakion, and canon.)
  • Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 2. Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII, 1962, s.v. “Barbara.” (The Acts as legendary; the historicity question.)
  • Delehaye, Hippolyte. Les légendes hagiographiques. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1905; 4th ed. 1955. (The science of reading legendary Passions.)
  • METHODOLOGY.md — the repository’s citation and attestation standard, esp. §3.5 and §4.