> >If I might butt in here ----- > >The "official" calendar of saints for the Roman Catholic Church >differs from that of the Orthodox Churches and even from those of the >Byzantine Rites of the Catholic Church. However, names days do not >differ *within* national groups of the Roman Catholic rite. The reason the >names days appear different on the Czech, Slovak and Polish calendars >is because there are so many saints that each country tends to emphasize >the ones most important to them. However, just because a "Czech" saint >doesn't appear on the Slovak calendar doesn't mean that the saint "doesn't >exist" in Slovakia. An example of this is St. David, very popular name in the US. >However, there is no David's day on the official US calendar. It does >exist on British calendars and is celebrated by Americans at that time. >==== > >A list of Slovak names days is maintained by the Jednota Press, Middletown >PA and used to be published annually in their newspaper. >I am sure they could help if you contacted them. >Joe > > > > > I too had always assumed that in the west the saint's feasts were celebrated on uniform dates from country to country. Perhaps this is true on the ecclesial level. But when I examined the Czech and Slovak name-day calendars, I found them celebrating a given saint on completely different dates. How could this be if the saint's days don't vary from country to country? I wish I had those two calendars at my fingertips so I could cite a specific example, but unfortunately I don't. But anyone who gets his hands on the two calendars will readily see what I am pointing out. Saint XYZ on the Czech calendar his his/her feast in March, and the very same Saint on the Slovak calendar is celebrated in August or November, for example. This is what I find puzzling. Can anyone explain it? > > > > -- Gary N. Deckant bs039@yfn.ysu.edu Youngstown, Ohio