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Feast classes

A brief guide to feast classes used in the calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

This page offers a brief guide to those classes and to the ordinary weekdays known as feria. Together, they help explain why some days always shape the Church's worship, while others may be kept more simply or optionally depending on the season, the local church and the calendar date.

What are feast classes?

Feast classes are the way the Scottish Episcopal Church orders the celebrations in its calendar.

They are not simply a list of 'more important' and 'less important' days. Rather, they show precedence: in other words, which observance takes priority when two fall on the same date.

The SEC Calendar and Lectionary explains that commemorations are classified into six groups, and that 'the lower number takes precedence'.

It also notes that categories 1 to 4 are intended for observance by the whole Church, while categories 5 and 6 are optional.

Feast classes and feria

The calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church orders its observances into six feast classes, and also recognises ordinary weekdays, known as feria. The sections below give a brief explanation of each class and of feria.

Class 1

Class 1 includes the highest-ranking days in the calendar, centred on the principal seasons and events of the life of Christ, and these take precedence over all other observances.

Arranged in calendar order

Class 2

Class 2 includes major feasts and Sundays that are widely observed across the Church, but which stand below the principal days of class 1 in the order of precedence. These are important celebrations in the Christian year, marking key moments in the life of Christ and the Church.

Arranged in calendar order

Class 3

Class 3 includes the regular seasonal Sundays that shape much of the Church year outside the principal feasts and festivals. These Sundays are part of the ordinary rhythm of worship, but they still have a defined place in the order of precedence.

Arranged in calendar order

Class 4

Class 4 brings together the apostles and evangelists, other key biblical saints and figures, several major saints with a particular place in the life of the Church in Scotland, and the weekdays of Lent. These observances are kept across the Church, but stand below classes 1 to 3 in the order of precedence.

Arranged in alphabetical order within categories

Apostles and evangelists

Other New Testament saints and feasts

Principal biblical figures

Major Scottish and regional saints

Class 5

Class 5 includes observances that are appointed in the calendar but are not required for observance throughout the whole Church. These days may be kept where there is local custom, pastoral reason or particular devotion, but they stand below classes 1 to 4 in the order of precedence.

Arranged in calendar order

Class 6

Class 6 includes other saints and commemorations which may be observed at local discretion. In the Scottish Episcopal Church, these are optional days with no specific lectionary provision, so churches may choose whether and how to keep them.

Arranged in alphabetical order

Examples:

Feria (ordinary weekday)

In church calendar language, a 'feria' is an ordinary weekday, meaning a day that is not being kept as a feast or commemoration of a particular class. In Anglican usage, a ferial day is essentially the default weekday observance of the season rather than a named saint's day or festival.

In the Scottish Episcopal Church, that means the ordinary weekdays that fall between the more clearly ranked observances in classes 1 to 6.

So, for example, many Mondays to Saturdays through the year are feria, unless they are taken up by a feast, a commemoration, or one of the specially weighted weekdays such as those in Lent, which the SEC places in class 4.

Examples: