www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Troparion of the Groundhog

While snooping around a church�s archive near Punxsutawney PA, I found this from a page that was ripped out of the menaion for February 2nd. In view that it is the feast day tomorrow, I am reprinting the missing page.


[Linked Image]

Is this from the New American Revised Menaion?

No, it is from the old recension. In fact, a new revised troparion has been prepared, and it about to be promulaged and mandated. Feminists objected to the term 'groudhog' because hog is exlusively male (sows everywhere have been outraged, and have suggested the more inclusive term 'swine').

And the use of archaic language has been entirely done away with, since that is not the way people talk nowadays anyhow.

Nick

I'm assuming then, Rome approved it as well? What about it's use in other languages?

Actually, any pig that weighs more than 70 pounds is a "hog."

Well, since I'm well over 70 pounds (with plenty to spare)....

Are you serious, this has to be some sort of a joke?

Yes, it is not serious, it is a groundhog day joke.

My agricultural definition of "hog" was in reference to the feminist sows' complaint. It was definitely NOT a comment on any of the forum participants. I'm a little sensitive about that comparison myself.

Basil in this case is obviously a male.

Thanks for the humorous troparion.

MARINA K:

I've been told that if I had to "live off the fat of the land," that I'd have plenty of acreage to live off. Was that a cut?

BOB

I've been doing more research regarding this text and it's accompanying ceremonial. I've found that it is not mentioned ANYWHERE in ANY typikon, Slavic or Hellenic, before 1692. It looks like it's a Baroque accretion. Probably based on a Latin ceremony of the same day, where in parts of Germany and Poland, if said rodent viewed his shadow prior to Mass, he was made bishop for the day, but if he did not, he became errr, ummmm dinner for the day! Also, something else that does not seem quite right is the fact that it mentions Matins being celebrated in the early morning hours to coincide with the rising of the sun. Is outrage!!!

I must respectfully dissent from John K.
opinion that the Service of the Holy
"Groundhog" is a mere Latinization .

It is at first puzzling that this service
should have appeared at all in the Eastern
Churches, inasmuch as the groundhog proper,
marmota monax, is found only in North
America. However, a solution to this problem is
not far to seek. The groundhog is a member of
the family Scuiridae and the genus Marmota
of which many representatives are found in Europe
and Asia. One of these is the Marmota Bobax
whose range extends from Central Europe to Central
Asia. This creature is in fact the animal for whom
the Service was composed.

We learn this, in fact, from the Vita of
St. Minimaximos the Little Known and Very Footsore,
the original manuscript by Monk Dimitri the Otherwise
Unoccupied of the Monastery of the Swamps of Smolensk
to be found in the Angarsk Public Library Manuscripts
Division.

There was a people called the Bobaki at one time
dwelling in several remote and obscure valleys of
the northern Urals. So remote and obscure were these
valleys that no missionaries reached them until St.
Minimaximos' appearance about 1685. Monk Dimitri tells
us that the Bobaki reverenced a certain rodent, called
a sirokwhich they regarded as the herald of the
Sun-God, a deity central to their religion - understandably,
given the climate. St. Minimaximos succeeded in
Christianizing these people but found that though
they were willing to give up their pagan gods, they
retained a great reverence for their siroki.

To accomodate them, therefore, the Saint composed the
Service of which the Administrator speaks. Monk Dimitri
mentions this specifically, although with some distaste,
for they had a rodent problem in his monastery.

The Bobaki learned from St. Minimaximos what they
had never before known, that it was warmer further
south. In 1690, therefore, they packed up their
tents and sirokiand moved to the Crimea,
where the village of Bobakisirosk is still to be
found with its parish church of St. Minimaximos.
There are also many colonies of marmots to be found in
the vicinity. Having been released from their cold
and obscure valleys, the Bobaki at once became great
travellers, visiting every monastery and cathedral
they heard of. Thus did this service spread through
all the East, at least the parts where they liked
marmots.

Edmac

I believe the priest in Punxsatawny probably ripped the page out because our current groundhog, Phil, is actually female. It's "Pope Joan" all over again!

I think I heard Dan Brown is writing a novel about the cover up.