Calendar snapshots
1st – Lammas, Pagan
Lammas is an ancient festival that would mark the beginning of the harvest for Celtic agrarian communities. To honour the harvest, people often bake a loaf of bread and bring it to church, showing the overlap between old pagan ways and Christianity.
7th – Tish’a B’av, Judaism
This is the saddest festival in the Jewish calendar, and acts as a day of mourning for several tragedies to befall the Jews over the centuries, as far back as the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE, when 100,000 Jews were killed.
23rd – International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition
This day, started by UNESCO, marks the anniversary of the Haitian revolution, led by Toussaint Louverture, which was instrumental in bringing about the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The day aims to keep the Transatlantic Slave Trade alive in our collective memory, and to examine the causes and consequences of it, some of which persist to this day.
This month’s dates at a glance
1st Lammas – Pagan
Fast in honour of Holy Mother of Lord Jesus – Orthodox Christian
Lughnasadh – Imbolc – Wicca/Pagan
6th Feast of Transfiguration of Our Lord – Christian
Transfiguration of the Lord – Orthodox Christian
7th Tish’a B’av – Judaism
8th Ashura – Islam
9th International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
10th Feast of Saint Lawrence – Christian
11th Raksha Bandhan – Hindu
12th International Youth Day
15th Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary – Catholic Christian
Dormition of the Theotokos – Orthodox Christian
18th Krishna Janmashtami – Hindu
19th World Humanitarian Day
22nd Queenship of Mary – Catholic Christian
International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence based on Religion or Belief
23rd Paryushana Parvarambha begins – Jain
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition
24th Feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle – Christian
29th Beheading of Saint John the Baptist – Christian
Summer Bank Holiday – England, Wales and Northern Ireland
31st Ganesh Chaturthi – Hindu
Samvatsari – Jain.
