Clergy and faithful are reminded that feast days were established in Old Testament times by the command of God — which God appointed and sanctified — as also were days of fasting and lamentation.
The Lord Jesus Christ, teaching the true understanding of the significance of a feast, did not abolish these but confirmed the observance of feast days, and from the beginning the New Testament Church of Christ observed holy days.
In establishing the yearly cycle of services, the Church designated feast days, giving special distinction to those which manifest Divine providence and which pour forth God's grace to this day. Along with these, the Church enjoins us to honor days commemorating significant events in the life of the Saviour and the Mother of God, signs of God's mercy, and the memory of God-pleasers. The Church precisely established the significance and the order of their celebration, as also the days when these are held and, in special cases, their transfer to another day. When possible, the commemoration of the saints and sacred events are celebrated at the same time, so that Orthodox Christians may be united in the same thought and the same feeling, raising with one soul their prayers and praise. This does not, however, exclude the special local celebration of an event or saint known or specially revered in a particular locale.
In addition to major feast days, each parish has a patronal feast, i.e., a day when the sacred event or saint to whom the church is dedicated is celebrated. According to the Church typi-con, patronal feasts hold equal rank with the Great Feasts of the Lord and the Mother of God, and they are marked with a corresponding service appointed for that particular day, which is a solemn and grace-filled occasion for those praying in the church and for its parish community.
For this reason, it is inadmissible to willfully transfer a parish feast for the sake of convenience. Both the clergy and laity should be aware that transferring the celebration to another day does not make that day the parish feast; likewise, if a parish feast is not celebrated this does not lessen its spiritual significance, which is preserved regardless of how it is treated by either the clergy or the parishioners. Clergy and laity should try in every possible way to worthily observe their patronal feast, to gather in church and take part in the Divine services of that day. Those unable to make it to church even briefly on that day should transport themselves in mind and heart, and at least in this way receive in themselves the emanating rays of grace.