Orthodox – Orthodox Appalachia

Take heart ye heavy laden

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in.” Matthew 11:28-29

The struggle of addiction is becoming more commonplace than it was in our granddaddies day. We all do things we wish he hadn’t. Most of us get off with a slap on the wrist or an awkward/embarrassing moment and then we either correct our actions or fumble right back into our sins. Some can’t kick the habit of gossiping, lying, pride, boasting, stirring up mischief (all of which are things God hates Proverbs 6:16-19), and we should be in terror that these passions are commonplace in most near all of us! Either way we’re all bound by some kind of wickedness in our lives that we either struggle against in repentance and confession or we simply continue headlong into our own damnation. Just look around and see the greed, sexual immorality, unrestrained and encouraged vice of every sort, and glorification of all manner of evil accepted in our media and billboards. We tolerate all manner of wickedness, even when we know it’s evil, and don’t even attempt to struggle against it in our own lives.

Now I don’t want to make light of illegal narcotics, but they are just one of many forms of evil plaguing our communities. I do want to commend, however, the people that are truly struggling against chemical addiction. Christ said, “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” Anyone that knows an addict knows the act of violence they undertake anytime they turn down or go more than a few days in sobriety. These folks struggle against their passions unlike any other person I’ve met. They wake up in the middle of the night sweating in constant want. They dream about sticking the needle in their vein or inhaling the toxic fumes into their lungs. Even in their sleep the evil one comes for them and moves his forces to surround and seize their soul. The only people who truly understand them are others who share in this particular pleasure, yet some of them have no desire at all to ever attempt the violent struggle to stop using. Their families sometimes shun them and their friends will shun them even quicker. The friends that don’t use won’t want them around, yet the friends that do use will treat them like a discarded cigarette butt if they ever stop using.

Christ gives us all a cross to bear. This cross is necessary for the threshing out of our sins and our salvation. Some are heavier than others, but they all must be bore if we ever hope to seize the Kingdom of Heaven. A lot of us, I feel, have very light crosses and do not know the sheer weight of a chemical dependency. We can’t even keep a simple fast or diet, we can’t shut our mouths for one day and dam up that torrent of sin that pours forth from our mouths, people avoid the truth like it is a hornet’s nest, and yet, since these are “acceptable” sins in our society we expect to go on without interruption. Sure we can get a divorce, sleep around, do whatever, and still be invited to Christmas dinner. Not so easy for someone burdened with the cross of addiction, however.

I think we could all learn a lesson of perseverance and true Godly struggle from our neighbors battling with these particular sins. Just imagine if we could put forth the same effort to stop gossiping that the heroin user puts forth in staying clean just one week! What could someone accomplish if they put the exact same level of violence into controlling their pride or sexual lusts that a meth user does every time he turns down the needle? If we could all imitate this same struggle our towns would look like Mayberry by tomorrow! No doubt!

I don’t envy a meth/coke/heroin/alcoholics cross. I know it has a different pull on different people and our real enemy has been studying humans for over six thousand years. He knows when and what temptations to employ, and on who, to attempt to steal our souls. This is the real warfare with eternal consequences. If we read history we sometimes hear about those who stood to the end in the face of insurmountable odds. Some like King Leonidas or the 189 Swiss Guards fought to the bitter end and were completely obliterated. Others like Count Von Stahlberg at Vienna were prepared to be destroyed, but were saved at the last moment. These are all stories worth retelling. People who fight to the bitter end, and never accept defeat, are always remembered. Those who give up, give in and/or surrender are forgotten. Let us not be like the coward who gives himself up in order to escape the battle and heartache before us. Do not be over judgmental of the people around who are fighting much harder than most of us against vices. If a soldier in a battlefield sees his fellow warrior wounded and pinned down he goes to his aide suppressing the enemy and helping his fallen comrade. When we see someone in agony and suffering and being brought to their knees we should go and help them lift their cross. Especially we should not laugh at them or mock them for that is literally what the demons do. Christ warns us, ”For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7:2-3)

All of our sins are conquerable if we abide in Christ. Attempting to overcome any passion or evil without Christ is like taking up a wooden stick and assaulting an iron clad warrior. The great enemy of mankind is a formidable opponent. Victory may not come overnight and we may literally fight to the death against our sins, but God rewards those finish strong even to the very end.

There is a true story about a drunk monk. He was always stumbling, always reeked of alcohol, a very mockery to other monastics who lived in complete sobriety. After his death the Abbot (the head of the Monastery), informed the other brothers that he saw an angel come and whisk away the soul of the drunken monk straight through the clouds. The other monks were in disbelief. How could this be? The Abbot then informed them that when his monk came to the monastery he was consuming multiple bottles of liquor every day. The Abbot told him to stop, but he simply couldn’t kick the addiction; so the Abbot then told him to cut down his consumption to one bottle a day. This the drunken monk did after some time with a great struggle. After this the Abbot told him to cut down his drinking to just half a bottle a day. This the monk eventually succeeded in achieving. After years and years the monk was down to just drinking a few glasses a day when he died. He struggled hard and intensely. He always got back up after each fall and in the end the Good Lord, who sees the true heart of man, rewarded him for his perseverance.

Take heart for God is with us! He wants us to overcome the evil in our lives and He will help us both in this age and the age to come to attain unto the ultimate victory! Whether you’re having trouble bridling your tongue, controlling your sexual lusts, putting down the spoon and needle, humbling your out of control ego; no sin is beyond Christ! He trampled down death, hell and the grave and has attained the ultimate victory over all evil! He showed us the way to salvation, by carrying the cross and conquering Golgotha by humiliation. Come home to the Church to be restored and renewed and armored so that we can withstand and defeat our great enemy. For it is the devil that roameth about like a hungry lion seeking whom he may devour. It is the devil that will never rest until he may swallow up and thieve away a great many souls into his deception. And it is the devil that was brought to bondage and cast down when Christ sacked the depths of hell. Satan is powerless against the blood of Christ. We must receive the blood of Christ at Eucharist and confess our sins and continue the fight that we might attain the Kingdom of Heaven! This is the path, the struggle, the only battle worth really fighting. Nothing else matters if we lose our souls.

Rigging it

There’s a lot of areas we learn to make do for less. For instance, if you’re noticing a small leak in the plumbing, maybe you’ll just use a piece of bubble gum to plug the hole until you get the materials to replace the pipe. If you can’t get the job you want, then you take the job that you can. Even if it pays less. If your boots are talking to you but you can’t afford another pair, then perhaps you’ll find a cobbler or utilize some duct tape. There’s a lot of things we do without or stretch, pull and bend to make work. Garbage bags to cover broken windows, patches for clothing, using a chainsaw instead of skillsaw or vice versa, moving a piece of furniture in front of a hole in the wall; the examples can go on and on. I’ve often heard it called “rigging it”.

Of everything we rig to make work there is one thing we’ve rigged that we ought not to and that’s the Church. When I drive from one end of my town to the other it takes about fifteen minutes and I’ll pass by more than twice as many churches. The first is a Freewill Baptist, second is an Apostolic, then a General Baptist, a Methodist, a non-denominational, a Church of God, Christian denomination, a Missionary Baptist, an Independent Baptist, a Southern Baptist, a Presbyterian PCA, another Independent Baptist, a Lutheran, an Episcopalian, another General Baptist, a Presbyterian PCUSA, a Pentecostal, a Jehovah Witness; the list goes on and on. A lot of folks rightly point out that this is a good sign of the religious nature of the area. People are out there seeking God and to be fair this is the culture we were raised in. In modern America we pick and choose what we want. Its very individualistic, very self serving. very egocentric. Often we’ll hear folks saying, “Just go to the church that you like”, or “that feeds you”, and “find a church that’s right for you”. Following after our own likes, passions, and wants often leads to sin and we must be wary to not fall into this trap.

In absence of what was needed, the One True Holy Church, people have rigged their religion. People look at the Ancient Church and they can see the Eucharist, water baptism, Apostolic succession, seal of the Holy Spirit, vestments, incense, candles, fire, crosses, iconography, the Holy Scriptures, the presence of the Saints, the early Church Fathers, the Jesus prayer, and literature spanning back to the beginning of time. The Orthodox Church possesses the fullness of the Truth. So naturally when someone starts another church they take something from this treasure laden vault and run with it. Then stretching and rigging this one thing they make it to be a foundational block of their new church. They say to themselves, “We have baptism”, “We have the Eucharist”, or (most common in the Bible Belt) “You have to say the Jesus prayer to become a member at this church” and “We have the Holy Bible. They then proceed to build an entire denomination or body of believers. Most of these folks are in a right spirit. They have found some spiritual validity in an age of confusion and they are clinging to it. They are attempting to cling to Jesus because they know He is their only hope for salvation. This is a noble undertaking. A noble rigging.

However, the Church is the Bride of Christ and was established by Jesus Christ. All of the sacraments and treasures of the Church are helpful and necessary for our salvation or else Christ wouldn’t have instituted them. It pains me to hear someone say, “Yeah, but you don’t have to be baptized/receive communion/go to Church/confess/etc”. Then for what reason did Christ Himself, God in human flesh, institute these things and why has the Church practiced all of them since Pentecost?

Why make do with less when we all have access to all of these things in the Orthodox Church? We are blessed now to have Orthodox Churches dotting the Appalachian mountains. God is with us! We now all have access to the treasury, the full armory, the entire hardware shop. We don’t have to rig it anymore. We can experience the Kingdom of Heaven come to earth. We can see the harmonious blend of the Gospel, the incense, Baptism, Apostolic Succession, the Jesus Prayer all within the ageless Traditions of the Holy Orthodox Church. The Liturgy is so ancient that it is almost strange and even those of us who had thought we had something old timey realize this is the True “Ole Time Religion.”

The Church isn’t anything we need to rig. This isn’t a house, a tool, a pair of clothes or an automobile that moths and rust will destroy. This is an institution founded by Jesus Christ and it pertains to our eternal salvation. We should accept it in its entirety and thank God that He is stretching out His loving arms around our region.

Be ye separate

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you”—2 Corinthians 6:17

“Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:”—Ephesians 5:6-8

In this post modern society we see all manner of evil and temptations on every billboard, tv commercial, internet ad, on the street around us and in our workplaces. Some folks are asking, “How did it get this bad and what is the solution?” This triumphant display of sin in America causes misguided anger, depression, hopelessness and desperation in good hearted people. We are called to secede from the Kingdom of this world. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”—1 John 2:15 This is the great challenge to believers. We must secede not only for our temporal, but more importantly for our eternal needs. Every day as the forces of darkness, disguised in vice and sugar coated, choke the life out of our beloved communities, followers of Christ understand the more, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”—Amos 3:3.

In order to secede from the neo-Babel culture that has risen from the ashes of Western Civilization we must learn to be true Christians again. Fasting is one of the tools given us by the Church in order to break ourselves from being caught up in this disastrous, demonic whirlwind. Prayer and true repentance is the means by which we can implore God and seek his mercy and compassion on our land and ourselves. “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”—2 Chronicles 7:14

We are plagued and ensnared with the material desires and wants of this world. We can spend hours at the golf course, the lake, theaters, the bonfires, the parties, ball games, the video games, or bars and blow through a hundred dollars, give or take, at one instant. However, on Sunday we go to the Church to celebrate the Resurrection of the God-man Jesus Christ and His Victory over death, hell and the grave, to receive His life saving Body and Blood into our cores, to be spiritually armed, to regroup with our compatriots in this struggle against good and evil, and we want the shortest, cheapest, easiest service in town and heaven-forbid it goes past noon! Most folks treat the Church like their least favorite hobby. They produce arguments like ‘Jesus is with me wherever I go’, ‘Wherever two or more are gathered’, ‘Nature is my church’, or ‘I’m saved so I don’t have to go church’. All of these are excuses to forsake the assembling together of the believers and to excuse impiety and spiritual laziness. This is the fruit of what the protestant movement has produced here in the Bible Belt and everywhere it has taken root. Every day another “new” church springs up in the strip mall and now people have become so exasperated with denominations that they’re claiming to be non-denominational where people can come and believe whatever they want as long as they believe in some form of Jesus. “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”—James 2:19 This is what protestantism has led us to. This is why we need to secede from this reconstructed society and go back to Holy Orthodoxy.

When the flood came Noah built an Ark. Nothing and nobody that wasn’t on that Ark was saved when the wrath of God came. Noah and his family where separated from the earth by being enclosed in that Ark. Likewise when Jesus came down to earth He built something for the sake of the salvation of the world.

Matthew 16:17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

There are many who come not of the Apostolic Tradition and claim to offer eternal security. “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”—Matthew 24:11 ” Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”—1 John 4:1 It is a very confusing time. “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”—1 Corinthians 14:32-33

The Orthodox Church has survived the Roman Empire’s persecutions, Muslim yoke, Roman Catholic Crusades, Mongol enslavement and the Communist Soviet oppression. No matter the extent of the violence, the longevity of the persecution, the amount of churches leveled to the ground, nor the numbers of martyrs brutally murdered; when the smoke clears the Church remains. The gates of Hades have not prevailed. When the waters recede we see the Ark has weathered the storm and delivered it’s passengers to a greener country; whether this side of the grave or the other. No other institution could have survived the entire weight of the world crushing down upon it like the Orthodox Church has.

The Flood of the wrath of God is coming. The invitation onto the Ark of Salvation is open. The time for all of us to confess our sins and repent is now. I’ll close this with the Apostle Paul’s instruction to the Church in Colosse, and if this ain’t a call to secede from this world then I don’t know what is,

“1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

5Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

6For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

7In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

8But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.

9Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;

10And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

11Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

12Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

13Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

14And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

15And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

17And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

18Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

19Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.

20Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.

21Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

22Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:

23And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;

24Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.

25But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.”

If it ain’t King James, it ain’t Bible!

Surely if you lived around the Bible Belt long enough then you heard the old saying, “If it ain’t King James, it ain’t Bible!” Throughout my life I’ve seen it on Church signs and bumper stickers and heard it quoted like scripture in debates and conversations. Being raised by a father who refused to read the other interpretations of the Book, I admit I’m a bit biased towards the KJV. Several Orthodox monastics and priests have said the KJV is a good English translation and it is also what they read. It is clearly a more complete edition than later editions. For instance, there are many individual verses that appear in the KJV that have been removed by modern interpretations like the RSV, NIV, NLT, etc. Also there are entire chapters and Books that have been removed. From 1611 to 1885 KJV Bibles were printed with 80 Books, but since then they have been reduced to 66. 66? Really 66? What a number! Anyways, for a more complete picture of the Book, as an English speaker, the original 1611 AKJV is a good option. They’re hard to find, but so are pearls.

The cover of the original 1611 portrays an iconic scene. Although there is an element of the modern at play here in this image, there is also some very Orthodox imagery. I’ll admit, I never even understood or racked my brain on figuring out this cover, but when I became Orthodox it all slowly began to make sense.

The Four Gospels Revelation 4:7, Ezekiel 1:5-14

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but let’s just focus on the highlighted gospel writers. When one walks into an Orthodox Church and see’s the icons hung round about they’re liable to notice the four Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John represented with their accompanying symbols: the man/angel, the lion, the bull and the eagle. As it is in Heaven (Revelation 4:7, Ezekiel 1:5-14), also it is so portrayed in the Orthodox Church. Even the early Protestants hadn’t lost this understanding as is evident on this KJV cover. In a day and age of rampant iconoclasm in most of heterodox Christianity, the ability to have a theological picture worth a thousand words is being lost.

Folks struggle with the old English writing and antiquated speech of the 1611, but it is worth the toil to get the full picture. There are questions to be asked, “Why were entire chapters of Daniel and Esther removed?”, “Why were verses edited out of the NIV, NLT, etc.?”, “For what reason did Books that were quoted and expounded by Jesus and His Apostles get cut from the current prints of the Holy Bible?” and “How did the Holy Bible remain for 1885 years basically unaltered, until the current age?” There’s a host of answers, too, because these questions have been floating around the protestant church for over a hundred years. One answer out there says that the Bible was abbreviated to 66 books to save on printing costs. Another says the verses or books removed were due to “modern scholars” not believing them to be in the original text. Some go as far as to say that these “Apocryphal Books” and verses have never been in the true Bible even though there is no evidence for this in the near 2000 years we’ve had the Book.

The original 1611 is a useful tool to help us reconnect with the ancient Faith. The translators of the King James Version were, at the least, removed from over 400 years of confusion, competing confessions, johnny/janey come lately denominations, and the spiritual anarchy that has enveloped the Christian West. They were also “translators”. They “translated” the Holy Bible into English. The newer modern versions of the Bible aren’t “translations”, they are “interpretations”. It would do us all well to take the words and warnings of the Apostle Peter to heart when approaching our study of the Holy Scriptures so that we don’t read them to our “own destruction”,

2 Peter 1:15 Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

¹⁶For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

¹⁷For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

¹⁸And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

¹⁹We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

²⁰Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

²¹For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2 Peter 3:¹⁶As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

It seems like every year yet another, “clearer” interpretation of the Scripture is published. It makes me wonder if soon there’ll be as many Bible versions as there are denominations. So if you believe that “if it ain’t King James, it ain’t Bible!” then you’re on a noble path. Just make sure you’re reading the original 1611 to get the full picture.

Old Christmas: January 7th By: AppalachianMagazine – January 6, 2020

http://appalachianmagazine.com/2020/01/06/old-christmas-january-7th/

From our earliest of days, the people who settled the mountains of Appalachia have sought diligently to preserve their heritage, culture and language. Our much derided accent, ancient customs and mountain knowledge is a source of pride to millions of Americans.

Even today, there is a comfort and longing from folks all around to return to the mountains and hollers of Appalachia — back to a forgotten world that seems foreign to the modern world and its man conveniences.

Among these forgotten Appalachian traditions is the celebration of “Old Christmas” — January 7th.

To understand why the early inhabitants of Appalachia celebrated Christmas two weeks after December 25th, we must first jump back in time nearly a half-century before the birth of Christ and visit the Roman Empire.

In the year 46 BC, Julius Caesar proposed a new calendar to be used throughout the entire Roman Empire — prior to this time, the land had been relying upon a convoluted system in which years ranged from 355 days to 383 days in length and had very little in common with the tropical year.

Caesar proposed a 365-day year and changed the first date of the year to January 1st and the modern-day calendar we still use today was birthed… or at least conceived. Caesar’s calendar, known as the Julian Calendar, was well received and even outlived the Roman Empire that had created it.

By the time white settlers began exploring the “Allegheny Mountains” (old name for Appalachian Mountains), the Roman Calendar was serving as the predominant calendar throughout Europe, the settlements in the Americas and elsewhere.

In the meantime, somewhere around the year 336 AD, December 25th began serving as a Christian observed holiday — eventually becoming known as “Christmas”, acting as a symbolic observance of Christ’s birth.

Unfortunately, the Julian Calendar had a major flaw — it was based on a 365-day year and did not take into account the fact that an actual year is roughly 365.25 days (to put it simply, it did not have a leap year).

In the years that followed, leap years would be added periodically, but not enough and soon this oversight became so problematic that by the late-1500s, Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII felt that it was time to modify leap years and get things back on track with the astronomical calendar — this was primarily done so that the Easter holiday would be restored to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when first introduced by the early Church.

Gregory’s revisions, which removed ten days from the calendar was accepted by Spain, Portugal, France and Italy in 1582.

In Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, residents went to bed on October 4, 1582, and woke up the next morning on October 15, 1582.

In France, the switch came in December, with Parisians jumping from Sunday, December 9, 1582, to Monday, December 20, 1582.

In the centuries ahead, one by one, the nations of Europe followed suit, even protestant Great Britain and her American colonies in 1752.

Staunchly anti-Catholic, the fiercely independent Scots-Irish who had, by the mid-1700s, began settling the Appalachians were adamantly opposed to the notion of embracing a new calendar — a new calendar invented by Catholics and adopted by some distant government on the far side of the ocean.

The people of the mountains were unwilling to allow the government “to steal eleven days” from their lives. Christmas had long been celebrated weeks after the winter solstice and the Appalachian settlers didn’t take kindly to the though of celebrating Christmas, the premier “winter holiday” only four days past the close of autumn.

Thanks to being isolated from the rest of the nation, the men of the mountains continued to celebrate Old Christmas 12 Days after the December 25th celebration date set by the new calendar.

In the years that followed, the settlers and mountain people of the hills had no choice but adopt the new calendar, allowing the government to “steal” those eleven days from their lives; however, in a final act of defiance, they resolved to continue celebrating Christmas precisely one year to the date their ancestors celebrated the holiday — which so happened to fall on January 7.

January 7 became the new date many of the families and communities selected to celebrate Christmas, Old Christmas.

The practice of celebrating “Old Christmas” in the Appalachian Mountains continued on for generations.

In the years that followed, superstitions and lore would spread regarding to magical powers of old Christmas. It was said that on Old Christmas Eve, the animals would kneel and even speak.

As an old Kentucky poem about Old Christmas proclaims,

“They’s heaps o’ folks here still believe,
On Christmas – that’s Old Christmas – Eve,
The elders bloom upon the ground,
And critters low and kneel around,
In every stall, though none I know
Has seen them kneel, or heard them low…”

Nearly all of the modern Christmas traditions we know today were born during the 1800s, and it was during this same time that the sons of many of the Appalachian mountianmen surrendered to celebrating on December 25.

Today, there remain a few holdouts who continue to celebrate “Old Christmas” in the Appalachian hills; however, they are a dwindling number. In another generation or two, celebrating “Old Christmas” will be just another forgotten part of Appalachian history.