Feast Day Calendar for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Protestant Germany compiled by Inger M. Bukke and Finn A. Thomsen  

The calendar is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year on the level of days by associating each day with one or more saints, and referring to the day as that saint's feast day. The system arose from the very early Christian custom of annual commemoration of martyrs on the dates of their deaths (Dies Mortis, day of death, opposite of Dies Natalis). As the number of recognized saints increased during Late Antiquity and roughly the first half of the Middle Ages, eventually every day of the year had at least one saint who was commemorated on that date. Eventually, some saints were moved to another day in some traditions, or completely removed; thus, some saints do have more than one day.

This calendar system, when combined with major church festivals and movable and immovable feasts, constructs a very human and personalised yet often localized way of organizing the year and identifying dates. It may be compared with the roman Missal.

Many children acquire baptismal or confirmation names from the saint associated with his/her date of birth, baptism or confirmation, and believing Eastern Orthodox Christians (and in some countries, Roman Catholics) mark the "name day" (namesday) of the saint whose name he/she bears with special attention, often instead of birthday celebrations.

This Feast Day calendar is divided into three sections:

            1.  The Index to fixed and movable feast days

                The index consists of an alphabetical lilsting of fixed and movable feast days. If the feast day is fixed, meaning that the daate is the same every year, the day and month is sgiven in the column "Date of #". If the date is moveable, meaning that the feast day can vary up to 35 days, depending upon the year, a number is listed in the column "Date of #". This number refer to the first column (No.) in the second section (the movable feast days tables).

            2.  The movable feast days tables

                The second section of the calendar consists of movable feasst days with the day and month of each feast day recorded in the column of the year. The day and month of the desired movable feast day is recorded by the number obtained in the index, in the column of the year. (For the period 1700-1753).

            3.  The movable feast days tables for Sweden and Finland for the yeaars 1700-1753

                This section of the calendar is arranged the same as section two. It is to be used for Sweden and Finland for the time perios 1700-1753.