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For other uses, see Sunday (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Sundae.

Sunday (/ˈsʌndeɪ/ ⓘ or /ˈsʌndi/) is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. For some Christians, Sunday is observed as a day for worship of God and rest, due to the belief that it is Lord's Day, the day of Christ's resurrection.

Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries, part of 'the weekend'. In some Muslim countries, Sunday is a normal working day and Friday is the day of rest, Muslims also go to jummah prayer.[citation needed]

According to the Hebrew calendars and traditional Christian calendars, Sunday is the first day of the week. But According to the International Organization for Standardization ISO 8601 Sunday is the seventh and last day of the week.

No century in the Gregorian calendar starts on a Sunday, whether its first year is '00 or '01.[1] The Jewish New Year never falls on a Sunday. (The rules of the Hebrew calendar are designed such that the first day of Rosh Hashanah will never occur on the first, fourth, or sixth day of the Jewish week; i.e., Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday).

Etymology

A depiction of Máni, the personified moon, and his sister Sól, the personified sun, from Norse mythology (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.
Sunday is named after our Sun

The English noun Sunday derived sometime before 1250 from sunedai, which itself developed from Old English (before 700) Sunnandæg (literally meaning "sun's day"), which is cognate to other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian sunnandei, Old Saxon sunnundag, Middle Dutch sonnendach (modern Dutch zondag), Old High German sunnun tag (modern German Sonntag), and Old Norse sunnudagr (Danish and Norwegian søndag, Icelandic sunnudagur and Swedish söndag). The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis ("day of the sun"), which is a translation of the Ancient Greek heméra helíou.[2] The p-Celtic Welsh language also translates the Latin "day of the sun" as dydd Sul.

In most Indian languages, the word for Sunday is Ravi-vāsara or Aditya-vāsara or its derived forms — vāsara meaning day, Aditya and Ravi both being a style (manner of address) for Surya, the chief solar deity and one of the Adityas. Ravi-vāsara is first day cited in Nakshtra Jyotish, which provides logical reason for giving the name of each week day. In the Thai solar calendar of Thailand, the name ("Waan Arthit") is derived from Aditya, and the associated color is red.

In Russian the word for Sunday is Воскресенье (Voskreseniye) means "Resurrection".[3] In other Slavic languages the word means "no work", for example Polish: Niedziela, Ukrainian: Недiля, Belorussian: Нядзеля, Croatian: Nedjelja, Serbian and Slovenian: Nedelja, Czech: Neděle,Bulgarian: Неделя.

The Modern Greek word for Sunday, Κυριακή, derives from Κύριος (Lord) also, due to its liturgical significance as the day commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, i.e.The Lord's Day.

Position in the week

ISO 8601

The international standard ISO 8601 for Representation of dates and times states that Monday is the first day of the week. This method of representing dates and times unambiguously was first published in 1988.

Culture and languages

In the Judaic, some Christian, as well as in Islamic tradition, Sunday has been considered as the first day of the week. A number of languages express this position either by the name for the day or by the naming of the other days. In Hebrew it is called יום ראשון yom rishon, in Arabic أحدal-ahad, in Persian and related languages یکشنبه yek-shanbe, all meaning "first". In Greek, the names of the days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday ("Δευτέρα, "Τρίτη,", "Τετάρτη," and "Πέμπτη") mean "second," "third", "fourth", and "fifth," respectively. This leaves Sunday in the first position of the week count. The current Greek name for Sunday, Κυριακή (Kyriake), means "Lord's Day" coming from the word Κύριος (Kyrios), which is the Greek word for "Lord". Similarly in Portuguese, where the days from Monday to Friday are counted as Segunda-feira, Terça-feira, Quarta-feira, Quinta-feira and Sexta-feira, while Sunday itself similar to Greek has the name of "Lord's Day" (domingo). In Vietnamese, the working days in the week are named as: "Thứ Hai" (second day), "Thứ Ba" (third day), "Thứ Tư" (fourth day), "Thứ Năm" (fifth day), "Thứ Sáu" (sixth day), "Thứ Bảy" (seventh day). Sunday is called "Chủ Nhật," a corrupted form of "Chúa Nhật" meaning "Lord's Day." Some colloquial text in the south of Vietnam and from the church may still use the old form to mean Sunday.

In Hindi, Sunday is called "रविवार", where "रवि" means sun and "वार" means day.

Slavic languages implicitly number Monday as day number one, not two. For example, Polish has czwartek (4th) for Thursday and piątek (5th) for Friday. Hungarian péntek (Friday) is a Slavic loanword, so the correlation with "five" is not evident to Hungarians. Hungarians use Vasárnap for Sunday, which means "market day". Bulgarian понеделник and Russian понедельник (Monday) literally mean "after no work", Russian вторник (Tuesday) means "second day", среда (Wednesday) means "middle day", четверг (Thursday) means "fourth day", пятница (Friday) means "fifth day", суббота (Saturday) means "sabbath", and воскресение (Sunday) means or "resurrection (of Jesus)" (that is the day of a week which commemorates it). In Old Russian Sunday was also called неделя "free day" or "day with no work", but in the contemporary language this word means "week".

In the Maltese language, due to its Siculo-Arabic origin, Sunday is called "Il-Ħadd," a corruption of "wieħed" meaning "one." Monday is "It-Tnejn" meaning "two." Similarly Tuesday is "It-Tlieta" (three), Wednesday is "L-Erbgħa" (four) and Thursday is "Il-Ħamis" (five).

In Armenian, Monday is (Yerkoushabti) literally meaning 2nd day of the week, Tuesday (Yerekshabti) 3rd day, Wednesday (Chorekshabti) 4th day, Thursday (Hingshabti) 5th day. Saturday is (Shabat) coming from the word Sabbath or Shabbath in Hebrew, And "Kiraki" coming from the word "Krak" meaning "fire" is Sunday, "Krak" describing the sun by fire. Apostle John also refers to the "Lord's Day" (in Greek, Κυριακή ημέρα, "kyriake hemera" i.e. the day of the Lord) in Rev. 1:10, which became the Armenian word for Sunday.

However, in many European countries calendars almost always show Monday as the first day of the week.[4]

In the Persian calendar, Sunday is the second day of the week. However, it is called "number one" as counting starts from zero; the first day - Saturday - is denoted as 00.

Sunday and Sabbath

See also: Sabbath in Christianity

Christians from very early times have had differences of opinion on the question of whether Sabbath should be observed on a Saturday or a Sunday. The issue does not arise for Jews or Seventh Day Adventists, for whom "Shabbat" or Sabbath is unquestionably on Saturday (Acts 13:13-14). Nor for Muslims whose day of assembly (jumu'ah) is on a Friday.

The first given evidence for a differentiation, between traditional Jewish "Shabbat" observance and the religious observance of the first day of the week, appears in Acts 20:7 where the disciples met and "broke bread" together. (In the Bible and by the Jews, a day was reckoned from evening to evening, Gen. 1:5, Dan. 8:14 margin. Thus the meeting mentioned in Acts 20:7 was on Saturday night, not on Sunday (See Acts 20:7 Good News Version)). Some believe this was a participation in the ordinance of the sacrament. Seventh-day Sabbatarians say that the believers met on all days of the week to "break bread" together for the sake of meals and fellowship, such as in Acts 2:46, regarding the incident in Acts 20:7 as nothing outside of usual practice.

Col. 2:16 suggests that early Christians had been judged by others in their traditions of eating foods and in observance of particulars of Sabbath and festivals. Also, the Jews had defined "forty minus one" works to be abstained from on "Shabbat," and Jesus and his disciples had been accused of breaking some of these customs during his ministry.

The Apostle John also refers to the "Lord's Day" as κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ ("kuriake hemera") in Rev. 1:10. "Kuriake," meaning "Lord's," later became the Greek word for Sunday. However, in light of the texts Mark 2:28 and Luke 6:5 it is seen that Jesus himself (as the Son of Man) claimed to be the Lord of the Sabbath, and that day fell on the seventh day. Some early Christians observed Sabbath on Saturday, while others gathered for worship on Sunday. However, in AD 363 a seventh-day Sabbath was prohibited by Canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea.[5]

The ancient Romans traditionally used the eight-day nundinal cycle, a market week, but in the time of Augustus, the seven-day week also came into use. The two weeks were used side-by-side until at least the Calendar of 354 and probably later,[6] despite the official adoption of Sunday as a day of rest by Constantine in AD 321.[7] Mithraism kept Sunday holy in honor of Mithras.[8] On 7 March 321, Constantine I, Rome's first Christian Emperor (see Constantine I and Christianity), decreed that Sunday would be observed as the Roman day of rest:

On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.[9]

Many Christians today consider Sunday a holy day and a day of rest and church-attendance. Denominations which observe Saturday as Sabbath are called "Sabbatarians", but the name "Sabbatarian" has also been claimed by Christians, especially Protestants, who believe Sunday must be observed with just the sort of rigorous abstinence from work associated with "Shabbat". For most Christians the custom and obligation of Sunday rest is not as strict. A minority of Christians do not regard the day they attend church as important, so long as they attend, as the apostles and disciples gathered on Sundays, on Saturdays, and whenever they could. There is considerable variation in the observance of Sabbath rituals and restrictions, but some cessation of normal weekday activities is customary.

In Orthodox Christian families and communities, working and requiring somebody else to work are prohibited, including buying goods or services, use of public transport, gardening or driving or washing a car.[verification needed] Allowed exceptions include religious services, electricity, and urgent medical matters. In Roman Catholicism, those who work in the medical field, those in law enforcement, and soldiers in a war zone are dispensed from the usual obligation to avoid work on Sunday.

The majority of Christians observe Sunday as the Lord's day. However, in Early Christianity as well as in the modern times, some groups have also observed a Saturday Sabbath. More recently, Christians in the Seventh-day Adventist, Seventh Day Baptist, and Church of God (Seventh-Day) denominations, as well as many Messianic Jews have revived the practice of abstaining from work and gathering for worship on Saturdays.

Some languages lack separate words for "Saturday" and "Sabbath" (e. g. Italian, Portuguese). Outside the English-speaking world, Sabbath as a word, if it is used, refers to the Saturday (or the specific Jewish practices on it); Sunday may be called the Lord's Day Rev. 1:10 (which directly or etymologically is the actual name of the day in Romance languages and Modern Greek). On the other hand, English-speaking Christians often refer to the Sunday as the Sabbath (provided, of course, they are not seventh-day sabbatarians); a practice which, probably due to the international connections and the Latin tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, is more widespread among (but not limited to) Protestants. Quakers traditionally refer to Sunday as "First Day" eschewing the pagan origin of the English name, while referring to Saturday as the "Seventh day".

In Roman Catholic liturgy, Sunday begins on Saturday evening. The evening Mass on Saturday is liturgically a full Sunday Mass and fulfills the obligation of Sunday Mass attendance, and Vespers (evening prayer) on Saturday night is liturgically "first Vespers" of the Sunday. The same evening anticipation applies to other major solemnities and feasts, and is an echo of the Jewish practice of starting the new day at sunset ("Shabbat" starts on Friday night).

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Sunday begins at the Little Entrance of Vespers (or All-Night Vigil) on Saturday evening and runs until "Vouchsafe, O Lord" (after the "prokeimenon") of Vespers on Sunday night. During this time, the dismissal at all services begin with the words, "May Christ our True God, who rose from the dead ...." Anyone who wishes to receive Holy Communion at Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning is required to attend Vespers the night before (see Eucharistic discipline). Among Orthodox Christians, Sunday is considered to be a "Little Pascha" (Easter), and because of the Paschal joy, the making of prostrations is forbidden, except in certain circumstances. The Russian word for Sunday is "Voskresenie," meaning "Resurrection day." The Greek word for Sunday is "Kyriake" (the "Lord's Day").

The Czech, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Belarusian words for Sunday ("neděle," "niedziela," "nedelja," "недеља", "неділя" and "нядзеля" respectively) can be translated as "without acts (no work)."

Common occurrences on Sunday

In government and business

Further information: Sunday shopping

In the United States and Canada, most government offices are closed on both Saturday and Sunday. A few will be open on Saturdays and a very small number will be open on Sunday. In major cities like San Francisco and Washington, DC, for example, a few branches of the US Postal Service are open on Sunday as well as Saturday; and a few branches of federal banks are also open on Saturday and Sunday.

Many private sector retail businesses open later and close earlier on Sunday. Business offices that are neither retail nor manufacturing outlets, such as corporate headquarters, are typically closed on both Saturday and Sunday. Large manufacturing plants, by contrast, typically operate one to three shifts every day of the week.

Many countries, particularly in Europe such France, Germany and Belgium, but also in other countries such as Peru, hold their national and local elections on a Sunday, either by law or by tradition.

In media

Many American and British daily newspapers publish a larger edition on Sundays, which often includes color comic strips, a magazine, and a coupon section; may only publish on a Sunday, or may have a "sister-paper" with a different masthead that only publishes on a Sunday.

North American Radio stations often play specialty radio shows such as Casey Kasem's countdown or other nationally syndicated radio shows that may differ from their regular weekly music patterns on Sunday morning and/or Sunday evening. In the United Kingdom, there is a Sunday tradition of chart shows on BBC Radio 1 and commercial radio; this originates in the broadcast of chart shows and other populist material on Sundays by Radio Luxembourg when the Reithian BBC's Sunday output consisted largely of solemn and religious programmes.

Many American, Australian and British television networks and stations also broadcast their political interview shows on Sunday mornings.

In sports

Major League Baseball usually schedules all Sunday games in the daytime except for the nationally televised Sunday Night Baseball matchup. Certain historically religious cities such as Boston and Baltimore among others will schedule games no earlier than 1:35 PM to ensure time for people who go to religious service in the morning can get to the game in time.

In the United States, professional American football is usually played on Sunday, although Saturday (via Saturday Night Football), Monday (via Monday Night Football), and Thursday (via Thursday Night Football or Thanksgiving) see some professional games. College football usually occurs on Saturday, and high-school football tends to take place on Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

In the UK, some club and Premier League football matches and tournaments usually take place on Sundays. Rugby matches and tournaments usually take place in club grounds or parks on Sunday mornings. It is not uncommon for church attendance to shift on days when a late morning or early afternoon game is anticipated by a local community.

One of the remains of religious segregation in the Netherlands is seen in amateur football: The Saturday-clubs are by and large Protestant Christian clubs, who were not allowed to play on Sunday. The Sunday-clubs were in general Catholic and working class clubs, whose players had to work on Saturday and therefore could only play on Sunday.

In Ireland, Gaelic football and hurling matches are predominantly played on Sundays, with the first (used to be second) and fourth (used to be third) Sundays in September always playing host to the All-Ireland hurling and football championship finals, respectively.

Professional golf tournaments traditionally end on Sunday.

In the United States and Canada, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League games, which are usually played at night during the week, are frequently played during daytime hours - often broadcast on national television.

Most NASCAR Sprint Cup and IndyCar events are held on Sundays. Formula One World Championship races are always held on Sundays regardless of timezone/country, while MotoGP holds most races on Sundays, with Middle Eastern races being the exception on Saturday. All Formula One events and MotoGP events with Sunday races involve qualifying taking place on Saturday.

Astrology

Sunday is associated with the Sun and symbolized by its symbol ☉.

Named days

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Return of the calendar 1582–3000". Hf.rim.or.jp. 2007-09-24. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  2. ^ Barnhart (1995:778).
  3. ^ "ДНИ НЕДЕЛИ - СЛАВЯНСКАЯ СЕДЬМИЦА". Retrieved 2013-06-19.
  4. ^ J. R. Stockton. "Calendar Weeks". Retrieved 2010-01-05.
  5. ^ "Canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea". Ccel.org. 2005-06-01. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  6. ^ The Chronography of 354, Part 6: The calendar of Philocalus A–G is the seven day week and A–H is the nundial cycle.
  7. ^ Zerubavel, Eviatar (1989). The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week. University of Chicago Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-226-98165-7, 9780226981659. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  8. ^ "Mithraism in the Catholic Encyclopedia". Newadvent.org. 1911-10-01. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  9. ^ Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church: Vol. II: From Constantine the Great to Gregory the Great A.D. 311–600 (New York: Charles Scribner, 1867) page 380 note 1.

References

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