2025 Icon Calendar: Most Holy Theotokos, Gregorian or "new" calendar edition. If you celebrate Christmas/Nativity on December 25, this is the proper calendar for you.
- 11" X 12" full-color calendar features large calendar boxes (1-3/8" X 1-3/4") for recording your important date reminders
- Major saints and feast days traditionally celebrated in Orthodox countries around the world are listed
- There are two 11" X 12" pages for each month, with a large size icon image on the top page, and a calendar page below
- A hole is drilled at the top of the calendar, so that it is easy to hang on your wall
The Ancient Faith 2025 icon calendar, available in Gregorian and Julian formats, features saints and feast days traditionally celebrated in Orthodox countries around the world, as well as fasting-day reminders and iconography information. Each month includes two 11” x 12” pages with a large icon image on the top page. The bottom page displays the calendar month with large boxes (1⅜” x 1¾”) for each day to record important date reminders. This year on certain feast days we have also included QR codes that lead to books and podcast episodes about saints and sacred events.
About the Calendar Dates
The feast days shown on this calendar in bold, blue type are the twelve great feast days of the Orthodox Church. Other feast days of some of the most popularly venerated saints of the Orthodox Churches around the world are listed in black, regular type. Dates are listed according to the Gregorian or "new" calendar.
Many days throughout the Orthodox church year are designated as fast days (on which we refrain from eating meat products, milk products, fish, wine, and oil). These fast days, marked in red type, include the four canonical fasting seasons (Great Lent, the Apostles’ fast, the Dormition fast, and the Advent fast), as well as almost every Wednesday and Friday. When a major feast falls during a fasting season, fish, wine, and oil are allowed. In addition, there are also several fast-free weeks and other special fast days. Because fast day designations vary slightly from church to church, consult your local parish for further details.
About Icons
The word icon derives from the Greek word eikon, meaning “likeness,” “image,” or “representation.” An iconographer, or icon painter, is thus an artist who “paints images.” In the Eastern Orthodox Church, icons hold a very special place. They are not just stylized representations of saints or events; they are endowed with a mystical connection to that which they depict. Always seeking to portray the invisible reali- ties of heaven, icons celebrate holiness in lines and color, revealing “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them” (Rev. 21:3).
According to tradition, the first icon came from the hand of the Apostle and Evangelist Luke. From the very earliest period of the Church’s history, icons were painted and venerated. The ancient historian Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, reported seeing “a great many portraits of the Savior, and of Peter and Paul, which have been preserved up to our time” (Church History VII, 18).
Throughout history, the patterns and techniques of the iconographer’s craft were passed on from generation to generation. Icons were never looked upon as “original” works of art. Instead, each new generation of iconographers meticulously followed the previously established examples and parameters. With the passage of time, various schools of iconography developed as Christian artists from Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Syria, and other countries made minor adaptations to the standard iconic formulas, incorporating elements of color and design from their own cultures and making use of the creativity of their God-given artistic talents.