THURSDAY, MAY 24: Our Holidays column just reported on the recent Western Christian Feast of the Ascension. Now, a week later (due to the later Eastern date of Easter this year), Orthodox Christians mark the Feast of the Ascension—and with a somewhat different emphasis in traditional teaching. From the Eastern perspective, the Ascension is the height of the Mystery of the Incarnation; in other words, the Ascension both completes Jesus’ physical presence amid his apostles and, duly, the union between God and humanity. (Learn more from the Greeek Orthodox Archiocese of America.)
Eastern Christians follow up the Ascension feast by remembering the importance of this belief in the life of the Church. On Sunday, Eastern Christians recall the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea. The council wrote the creed, still used around the Christian world today, that says Jesus “ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father; and shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.”
