www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings Melchisedec

Alex... if you are too nice to me... I would fall asleep from boredom.

Melchezdek, may or may not have been a real historical person. I do not lay down any 'you must believe' about it. To me it is a bit like "How tall was Jesus in inches?" because the massive point of Melchezdek is obviously not if he were a real walking talking person - but his ikonic meaning and value as a pre-figure of Jesus. In that sense, I would agree with the set of early fathers who considered Melchezedek to be nothing other that Jesus Christ himself.

It is not the role of the Church to be scientifically 'right'... it is the goal of the Church to be spiritually right - in a few things.

The Church is not wrong in celebrating Melchezdek in his importance and ikonic role, in feast day or Liturgy. Nether is the Church wrong in celebrating any event (The Visitation, etc..) or any thing (the Cross, etc..). What is feast-ed (I made up another word) and honored is not the literal and physical visit of Mary to Elizabeth or the actual wood of the cross - but the spiritual meaning and value of these things.

This itself is exactly related to how an ikon is made. As you know, when making an icon a certain abstract and traditional stylization is proper, and the dead nuts reality of a Michael Angelo is not to be done if an ikon is what is to be made.

In one sense, I would not have even answered JDS original question post - if it had not seemed to me that he was perhaps looking too historically and scientifically at Melchezedek. My original answer to him actually gave both sides of the coin (some say he was real and some say he was not). No actual records exist to prove he was real. Some early writers believed he was but most of them believed he must have been real and the records they quote to prove it are not convincing at all. Which does not mean that a person named Melchezedek did not walk this earth at shake hands with Abraham.

Before the Protestant Reformation - no one would have even conceived the idea that doctrines and faith should be proven out by scripture references. After the Reformation - everyone (knowing it or not) tends to hold items of belief (doctrine and such) against the measure of if it can be proven from scripture. This is done in two ways. The first person holds things to be true and forces scripture to reflect what he holds to be true - and the second person reads scriptures and takes what he understands and makes a religion out of it. Most of us see-saw between the two ways when needed. We all put the cart (scripture) before the horse (what the Church guarantees).

You would agree - scripture is not infallible - yet - because of the Reformation - we really act as if it is.

Jesus guarantees a few items of faith that the Church presents. He does not guarantee everything about the church. And even in the few items of revealed faith that He does guarantee - there is no personal guarantee to any member of the church that he will fully understand and comprehend these guaranteed statements. That is certainly evident when sections of the One Church argue over - words and semantics and meaning. Witness the ridiculous arguments between East and West over the meaning of Original Sin or the filoque debate. Witness Purgatory and Toll Houses - two ways to express the same spiritual reality yet the disagreement is over the personal meaning of words and semantics. The literal meaning or personal meaning is more important than the spiritual meaning and so all is lost. Words can not contain the spiritual meaning yet some poeple act as if they can and must. All words are inferiror to the spiritual meaning (a dictum of the East as well as the West) so in forgetting that the arguments become un-resolvavble - and that is really what is wanted.

Was Melchedek a real, walking, person?? No one will ever know for sure. And apparently that is the way God wants it.

Invariably - the assent to truth - must happen through the literal door - the literal historical image� and by that one mounts up to the spiritual reality which is the origin of the literal image. We have all fallen (become obsessed with the senses and the world of the senses) and so we all begin with the literal and historical image (the shadow).

Genesis is such a literal doorway. It is told in a historical way - so that we might enter it - but the spiritual meaning of Genesis is such a primary importance as to make most of its possible historical accuracy more than inconsequential. One enters it by reading its as a historical narrative but to research it as a historical narrative makes it fall apart. Now enters the two ways of mistaking portions of scripture ... 1) hold a belief and force scripture to confirm what we hold 2) obtain our own personal and un-gurenteed understanding and join up with others who understand it more like that.

OK� now I have gone off on another incomprehensible tangent.

-ray

I think - Paul blessed his thorn.

Sometimes I think I love my wife more simply because she has the guts to argue with me and sometimes by that she forces a break in soemthing I have convinced myself of.

Often I think I misunderstand Alex as much as he misunderstands me. But then I have a cup of coffee and that felling passes (sorry Alex - I could not resist that joke!)

If Alex lived near me I would be walking over his house weekly just to debate with him.

-ray

Dear RayK,

You are indeed right on all points!

However, I do think that the Latin Church in contemporary times - with its characteristic tendency to rationalization - tends to want to walk with the scientific world too closely for comfort.

The issue of St Melchisedech and whether or not he was a real person is resolved for me on the basis of the Church's liturgical life - not on whether historical studies can verify his existence or whether or not we have "stills" of him

The Latin Church's "dropping' of saints' names from the universal Calendar because of lack of evidence - well, why stop with the saints?

There are a lot of other religious matters that would be called into question if we applied "scientific" reasoning to them.

During my time in a Catholic college, the open cynicism of the liberal teachers and students toward traditional Catholic teaching and devotions just rubbed me the wrong way all the time.

I know you are not with them, but then again my reaction to certain points that SEEM to me to be in agreement with their paradigms is a time-conditioned one.

May God bless you, now and always, by the prayers of St Melchisedech and all the Saints!

Alex

RayK's point about Adam and Eve as part of cosmogony is shown well in the traditional icons of them that show them. They are not depicted alone for veneration, but in the context of the cosmogony (a fresco, mural or mosaic of Adam naming the animals; or the icon of the Resurrection in which they are depicted). In all of these depictions, they are depicted without "halo."

There were some people or the "first people" that God created, but exactly who they were or what their names were is not the point of the Genesis account. That's why they are called "earth/clay" and "life." Just to remind us....

In Christ,
Andrew

Tell you what Ray, I won't call you a modernist if you won't call me a fundamentalist. Okay?
That said, I think if you "spiritualize" scripture to the point that you deny the real historic persons and events portrayed that you are going to quickly get into trouble.
Yes, an icon is not a "portrait" done in a naturalistic manner but it is always linked to the historic personage in codified ways; there are endless canons describing the proper portrayal of holy persons, quite detailed, to assure identification with the historic person.
Contemporary people have difficulty with anything in scripture that challenges their limited rationalistic approach to reality and describing things as [merely] symbolic and spiritual is a handy way to keep some tenuous hold on one's faith.

Is a cosmogony a better description of the origins of the universe if it is about non-historical entities? Or is it not more beautiful if it tells a truth that is rooted in the historical?
The idea that "Adam" represents not the first man but symbolizes a group of humanoids cannot be reconciled with Catholic teaching, however universal the idea seems among modern scripture scholars.

My knees are weak! Let me find a chair to sit in!

(kidding)

Dear Alex�

I have not experienced the type of Catholics you speak of, but I know they exist. I am �protected� here in New England by RC churches that were built by early immigrants to America and that mindset has been mostly maintained. We should probably designate this portion of New England as an area with good parish priests.

On occasion I have �stepped� out of my world here, and spoken with highly regarded Catholic theologians and professors - and they seem to me more like what you describe. I was invariably disappointed and had little in common with them. My own experience here is that once we get above the parish priest level - we are going to be disappointed.

I can certainly understand your knee-jerk reaction to many of my comments, I came to the Church in a very odd way and I remain an odd-ball and what I often present comes from a stance no one is familiar with. If I did not know me so well - I would not know what to make of me!

-ray

Italics are mine.

The Catholic Church (and the Eastern as well) recognizes that there can be several meanings to a portion of scriptures. It can be used in an allegorical way, a moral way, and an anagogical way (a sign leading or pointing to a higher reality) <CCC 117>

In English, the word �man� may have three uses. It may mean mankind (the species of man) and it may mean a group (men) and it may mean one particular by a modifier added to the generic male(this man).

In Hebrew the word adam is similar to the the English use of "man" in its three ways. The word adam may mean mankind, or men, or a proper name of one indiv

As to the question - can Adam represent a �group of humanoids�? (hehe) and you say that is inconsistent with Catholic teaching.. � here is the same one Hebrew word adam used in the Hebrew text of Genesis. (Note that in Hebrew charaters this is three Hebrew letters and I am representing them by the traditional use of �adam�.

�Let us make adam in our image.� translated as �Let us make man in our image.� and used in the Catholic church in the sense of all mankind� man and woman� each man and every man. In short - the group we call mankind. Used here adam means mankind as a whole and each individual. That is the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church and it is used in that way in the Catholic translation by using the English word �man� where the Hebrew word adam is. And that takes care of � �The idea that "Adam" represents not the first man but symbolizes a group of humanoids cannot be reconciled with Catholic teaching,

In fact adam is not used as a proper name for an individual man until chapter 4:25 in the New American Catholic Translation. (�Adam again had relations with his wife��) before that point the Hebrew word adam is always translated as �man� in the meaning of �all mankind� or �the man� which uses �man� in the generic sense of any man as divided from the group of any woman. The group of male as opposed to female. You might say that �when used as - the man - it indicates the one particular man who is adam.� but if it did then it would have been translated as Adam used as proper name. For example.

�The LORD God took the man ([I]adam[/]) and settled him in the garden of Eden.�

Why not�??

�The LORD God took Adam ([I]adam[/]) and settled him in the garden of Eden.�

Notice that the makes the difference of how to translate the same exact word into either a proper name or into a generic of male group or mankind as a whole.

This will not make much sense to you unless you get your hands on an interlinear transliteration to confirm what I am saying and see for yourself that the one Hebrew word is translated in three ways and which meaning becomes primary depends upon the context in which used.

We have drifted away from Melchezdek.

-ray

Dear iconophile...

You are obviously not a Fundamentalist (and I did not mean that you were) but rather a good man dedicated to living a Chritian life and one who believes that most items should have some sense and reason.

Alex has probably noted that I am 'showing off a bit' in as much as Genesis has been a 30 year study of mine. Only Revelations is more difficult.

I tip my hat to you for the way in which you discussed things.

Thanks.
-ray

Ray, thank you for the charitable response; you are obviously more learned than I, so I feel like I am arguing way out of my league. Not that that is going to stop me!
I am aware of the meanings of "adam", but as you mentioned , one of the meanings is the proper name of the first Man. I am defending that when used in this sense it refers to a historical man, our father Adam. This doctrine assures the fundamental unity and equality of mankind. Polygenism was condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis and I have seen nothing to indicate that the mind of the Magisterium has changed. "Through one man sin came into the world" seems a necessary preface to the thesis that salvation came through one Man.
You are right, we have wandered from Melchezdek, but it is not an unrelated discussion.
I would suggest that if one accepts the presuppositions of modern historical critical biblical scholarship, one may get really flummoxed on an Eastern forum. After all, we have solemn feast days based upon apocryphal texts that the modern scholar would consider mere pious tales....

You just happened to stumble into the one of the few area that I am good at and have done years of research and study of. Mystical Theology is another and your answer in another thread (what satan can know) displays that you have something beyond the general common knowledge of Mystical Theology and its sometime associated phenomena.

>Polygenism was condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis

Polygenism: After looking that up� I can say I do not adhere to it. Poly (many) gene (generation) used in the sense of : the human race was generated from many first parents, is not something I can agree with. Nor in the sense of separate or unequal creations - I can not adhere either.

As regards Darwin�s Evolution (which the Apostolic Letter seems to be addressing) I can not adhere to its apparent assumptions as to origins on the simple grounds that - that which is higher can not proceed from or be a product of - that which is lower. Any potential must already exist within the essence of its origin. There is an evolution to the form of the individual man (fetus, baby, child, teen, adult, old) and there is an evolution to the general form of mankind over time (boy! They were a heck of a lot shorter!) and there may be variations of form among the same species - but there is not an �evolution� from one essence to another , one species to another, and the concept of that completly misuses the definition of �species� so as to make the whole premise non-sensical and un-workable. Darwin certainly recognised and evolution in some way - but it is not the huge and 'most important human discovery' that he desireid it to be.

The �missing link� is missing because it is simple not there. Any missing link �found� has turned out to be a misinterpretation of reality and evidence cause by the human desire to prove the theory.

Our concept of the universe as functioning entirely as a mechanical watch, wound up on day one to run in an inevitable manner ever after (inherent to Darwin�s theory) is just not true. But rather the concept of creation being contingent upon the immediate will and purpose of Providence - is true (so says the Church and so I find to be true). One is our experience and sense based upon our fallen nature and our preoccupation with sense experiences and a dis-association from reality - - -and the other (the doctrine of Providence) is the only reality that truly exists. One is where we are and the other is where God would like us to be.

Specifically, as regards Polygenism� I do not hold it - as I understand it from paragraph 37 of the Apostolic letter.

As regards Adam of Genesis, let me say this. . . Genesis has a certain correlation with what we call history (the sequence of sensate events in time) but that correlation is used in an unusual way and not in the same way throughout. The history within Genesis first four narratives is not what we are used to and would assume and expect. The first four narrations are indeed the core of it as a cosmogony, and while these sections have some parallel correspondence with historical events as we would like to know them, it is not in a way that we would generally assume and that parallel is entirely secondary and almost inconsequential to what the text of these first four sections is intended to impart.

Beginning with the narration of Noah - a correlation with historical events (as we wont to define them) begins to become more predominant. There is a �slide� in Genesis where the items that appear in the beginning narrations are more important to us in an allegorical sense and the items at its end are more important to us in a time and history sense. And the �slide� from the emphasis on something as a spiritual symbol to an emphasis of that same item now having a more historical sense - culminates with Joseph in Egypt. That was a wordy way of saying what we already know and experience when we read through Genesis. Adam means more to us as to how sin is related within each of us and Joseph�s going to Egypt seems more like a historical fact with little relation to our own spiritual condition.

As regards if there was an Adam (one particular man of historical existence from which we all came) I consider this to be true - but not in the same way as is generally and commonly held. This is difficult to explain - so I will not. I will only say that I do not adhere to a time sense as it is assumed by the Darwinian theory of Evolution or the assumption of time to be Newton like. (In practical daily life I do of course but not in philosophical and more real - reality).

A big bang at the beginning of time - makes no sense to me. Time has no objective reality outside of human experience. It is a function of human memory and it is an - experience - and has no self-existence outside of that human experience. Be that as it may �

that �ground zero� of time has its �home� within the event of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ - makes all the sense in the world to me. In very much the same way that the Church figures time to be �0� within the event of the resurrection and to be counted into the past - and into the future - from that event.

� 3BC 2BC 1BC -0- 1AD 2AD 3AD �

That Jesus himself personally speaks in the �Old Testament� of specific events of his human experience, events and experiences which happen at the days and hours of his trial, crucifixion and resurrection - makes good sense to me. In this view, time, begins at the present moment of the Resurrection and spreads out to past and future - from there. In this sense, the moment of Resurrection (which is the moment of God revealing to all humanity that Jesus is his Son) is the hub or center or the �first�, highest, moment of creation and all creation flows out from it. That moment is the origin of all creation. It is the one �place� and moment of where and when eternity and time - touch - mingle - meet - and are one thing (so to speak),

That all creation �looked forward� to, and takes its meaning from, the event of the crucifixion and resurrection even before that took place within time and history - and now all creation looks back at the event of the crucifixion and resurrection and takes its meaning and purpose from that one event - makes sense to me.

I do not have all the answers - and I think that I do not want them all either.

If I have learned anything from my long study of Genesis and the mind of the Hebrews of the time of Jesus and Moses - I have learned how many wrong assumptions we make while reading it - which assumptions are a subconscious habit of our current culture and our own desire to have things - mechanical.

Of course, creation was not made in 6 days. Of course Satan is not a physical snake. Of course God does not hinge heaven and hell on - an apple and eating it. Of course God does not walk in the garden, and of course God already knew what had happened and did not need to ask Adam in order to find out. These things are metaphorical and have a direct relation to our own inner spiritual life - while yet having some relation to our human experiences of nature. The language of cosmogony is the language of shared human experience of natural things and event. The root of all languages is not in some �mother tough� but rather to be found within our common human experience of nature. The experience of fire is the same to any human even if the spoken word meaning fire may be different. It has been proven time and time again that a same experience invokes within common human nature a similar instinctive and intuitive reaction of sign (vocal or hand). The hand held upright, fingers flat and spread is a universal sign of halt, cease, stop, hold, be still, etc.. and has its origin in instinct and intuition as response to some experience. It is a sing and language instinctive to a shared human nature.

Does the fact that these items have their importance in symbolic meaning - make any historical parallel to be void? No - but it does make it that any historical aspect of them are inconsequential to the intent of the author.

If Adam was the �first man� - and the Hebrew use of �first� has the meaning of the - best / first place / origin / the original pattern / the ideal - and scripture calls Adam �the son of God� - then could the Adam of Genesis also reflect Jesus Christ himself?

The odd thing about Hebrew is it is a wide language - as opposed to the limiting and restrictive English language. English nails one concrete meaning down to one word (for the most part) and so it takes many words to say something. Hebrew words, on the other hand, most times have many related meanings to one word and which meaning is primary depends upon the context. The best of Hebrew poetry has all meanings of a word as being true and implied. A line of Hebrew poetry can be read in several ways and each way be true.

Now I have not really proposed to you here any solid meaning of Adam in Genesis - what I have done is (I hope) shaken within you some of our habitual assumptions regarding how we creatures of modern world naturally assume that the way we read it and understand it is necessarily just as the author intended us to understand from it. My goodness� I can misunderstand my wife�s words and intent and I know her more intimately of mind and soul than any man - much better than I know Moses (a different culture, a different time and society) or even God.

In final� I find Humani Generis to be a directive to Catholic educators and clergy that Polygenius (as described as being a theory that proposes that humans are descended from several original parents) is not to be taught within Catholic institutions. And I find that, while it does not condemn a Darwin like Evolution - it advises caution into the investigation of the origins of the body. It advises Catholic educators and clergy not to just accept any and all theories as true in a misguide effort to validate the beliefs of others at the cost of our own Catholic beliefs. While I do find Adam spoken of in the traditional way (first man, first parent, with a proper name of Adam) I do not find it (or any other document of Pope or Council) to be an infallible definition of Adam as being restricted to only that limited and literal definition.

I am now reminded of a conversation which I had one day with a Jehovah�s Witness. The subject was heaven and Jesus speaking on the cross to the good thief �Today - you shall be with me in paradise.� You are aware that the Jehovah�s Witnesses understand heaven to be an actual place with time - having some kind of geographical location - and they understand God the Father to have a body with legs and arms etc.. In any event � I said to him �Paradise?? Eden � you mean the good thief would be restored to Eden??� and he did not know about that - but he figured that after Jesus died (and the thief also) they would meet in a place of time and space called heaven. I pointed out to him that the Hebrew word and Jewish use of the word �today� is not the same as we use it. We think of today as a day bordered by 24 hours.. (Monday, Tuesday, etc..) and in the Hebrew mind of the time the word today would have had the meaning of - this moment right here and right now. The line �If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart.� has a more accurate meaning of �If, at this moment - now - you hear his voice, harden not your heart.� It has the meaning of - any moment of - now.

In any event� I said to him that there is the possibility that at the moment that Jesus gave this pronouncement of - now - the good thief�s soul could be experiencing Jesus in his Resurrected nature in Paradise. After all, it is clear that some of the Old Testament did experience Jesus in his Resurrected nature - even though his historical Resurrection would come centuries later into the stage of space and time. The Witness rejected this and said �No� the meaning is that the thief would go to Paradise on that Friday at the some time after his death. � To this I asked him - �Ahh� so the day and time in Paradise would be Friday, at maybe 3:30 PM??�

The church often speaks of heaven in terms of as if it were a - place, has a location, and is subject to - time. Jesus himself spoke of hell as if it had the physical location of the town dump which was located outside of the city walls and on which the Jews often threw the bodies of executed criminals and where fires were kept lighted to consume the garbage - which physical place and geographical location had the name - Gehanna. It is obvious that Jesus is speaking of an experience that a soul will have of hell - without telling us much more.

Thank you for this occasion of discussion. I have spent my time here this week.

It has really cause me to think and examine what the Church presents to us alone with my personal evolution of belief. For my part, it has been an interesting walk and I do not pretend that I have set out any solid �this is the way it is� but more so rather exposed some false assumptions that we all (myself) have unconsciously held.

See you next week.

-ray

Dear Ray, thank you for the clarification; we are not so far apart as I first suspected. I do have one [minor] question: why do you count the resurrection of Christ as "year zero"? I thought the years of Our Lord began with His birth...I'll wait until next week for your reply.
I do appreciate your tone in this discussion [well, at least after the provocative opening remark suggesting that I am an ignorant fundamentalist!] Unfortunately, too often on the Forum things get personal and the participants don't persevere in dialogue until reaching accord, as we have blessedly done.

I try not to get obsessed with this board... so I will break my own rule for only a minute and then I should probably cease perpetuating this thread as it has grown off of Melchedek anyway.

- - - - -

Simply put - think �Liturgical year�, let me explain . . .

How did this BC and AD thing come about anyway??

The whole thing began with a commision and directive of Pope St. John I to Dionysius Exiguous - to find the exact lunar/solar annual day of - Easter - The Resurrection! To nail it down within the cycles of moon and sun... day and night.

Why? Because Different churches celebrated Easter at different times and this was a confusion.

Review
Q: What was a confusion?
A: Which lunar/solar day WAS Easter??

What day was actually �ground zero�?? and the day the new creation began?? The day of Resurrection?? Ground zero for the church??

Dionysius did so by using the current calendar in use at the time in Rome (the Alexandrian calendar) as his work-book standard. You have to start some where.

Dionysius did his work and - bingo - ground zero was identified (the date according to the Alexandrian calendar on which Jesus Resurrected).

If this date was exactly right I do not know, but for ikonic purposes the day was identified as exact as possible - and that was good. It was believed to be correct by all calculations.

The Pope could now be sure of the day of Resurrection within the natural annual cycles.

Ground zero.

Keep in mind that for the Church, the Liturgical year begins on - Easter!! Tada!!

What was the Pope finding?? Answer: the first day of the church calendar of Liturgical cycle.

So now we have the exact annual day - on which the Church calendar begins. Ground zero or better kjown as day "1" according to the Arabic and Roman numbering system.

We have the day! So now � how can we make 'day 1' the same day throughout the universal church ? ? ? of which many particular churches used a different assortment of secular calendars to figure it??? (Dionysus had used the Alexandiran calandar particular to Rome)

Well . . . you can do that if you base everyone�s calculation on one single calendar method to be used for that purpose church wide - and we can kill two birds with one stone by replacing secular calendars to a church based calendar!! Tada! Good idea!! The Church was placing itself as the higher authority of temporal matters anyway!

But neither Dionysius, nor the Pope, wanted to perpetuate �Alexander the Great Persecutor� by making the calendar that was created to honor the year of Alexander�s birth - to be the calendar that the Church proposed to put upon temporal society. Rather, Jesus (more important than most persons who had calendars created to honor them) needed his own calendar to honor him.

So now a second purpose emerged in order to make the first purpose - universal amoung all the churches.

Calendars of the time began the first day of the year - according to a traditional method of nature cycles (harvest/Lunar/Solar). So the first day of the year, instead of being on the exact day of the personage whose birth is being honored, is synchronized with the common traditional cycles (harvest/lunar/solar). So while having day one be somewhere off-synch with secular calendars is fine - if you are now going to replace these secular calendars it is best to create something in synch .

Ground zero being identified (for the church cycle) - now the task was to create a �Jesus calendar� for world wide use and secular standard - so that the exact date of Easter (day one of the new year for the church) could be celebrated in common. A replacement calendar must be in some kind of synch with what it is to replace.

Hence - the calendar of BC and AD was born from [I]the original desire to identify the exact day, in annual cycle, when the new creation began with the Resurrection[/]� and once found - a method of having that day celebrated on the same day throughout the church was created by replacing secular calendars with a standard created by the church.

TaDa!

The purpose of the BC and AD calendars method was to have a temporal way (secular way) to fix the Churches own Liturgical Calendar which begins on the day of Resurrection and not birth.

This 'split of time' is into former times and end times.

On a linear scale this equals (with the Resurrection as the split)... or 'left to right' . . .

<-- former times -- [resurrection] -- end times -->

and the span of "end times" begins on the day that Jesus resurrected and continues even now. And this is how Paul and John defines history, into two epochs... the time before the Resuurection (former times) and the time after the Resurrection (end times). And with that you should now be able to understand how it is that Paul and John do say to thier contemporaires that they are already living in the "end times" (the epoch after the Resurrection of Christ). Two epochs, two aeons, thier deliniation being the pivotal event of the Resurrection (the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God) and the New Adam, new creation, etc..

This is how I see it. If you can understand what I wrote - you ARE good!

-ray

Ray,

I'm not sure what you mean with this statement:

For the Byzantine Churches, the liturgical year begins on September 1. For the Latin Church, the liturgical year begins on the Monday following the Feast of Christ the King, which is the beginning of Advent. Granted, Pascha (Easter) is the summit of the liturgical year and the starting point of the movable cycle of feasts, but it is not the beginning of the liturgical year.

My pastor (Byzantine Catholic) has often stated that, according to the Jewish Targums, Melchizedek was Shem.