Expert: Fr. Michael - 9/15/2010

Question
was sabbath change to sunday?if yes why.

Answer
       Did the early Christian Church worship on Sunday, the Lord's Day, or Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, as some sects like the Seventh Day Adventists contend?

       St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (20:7/DR) in the New Testament, writes:  "And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, being to depart on the morrow.  And he continued his speech until midnight."

       St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate renders the phrase as "in una sabbati, which, as usual, closely parallels the Greek "en te mia ton sabbaton, literally "on (day) one of the week," that is, the Lord's Day, or Sunday.  If St. Luke had wished to say "on the Sabbath [Saturday]," he would have said simply "en to sabbato."

       Moreover, St. Paul writes in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (16:2):  "On the first day of the week, let every one of you put apart with himself, laying up what it shall well please him: that when I come, the collections be not then to be made."

       Finally, St. Justin, Martyr (ca. 100-165), who writes within a few decades of Sts. Luke and Paul, is an early witness to the practices of the Apostolic Church and confirms in his Apologia (I.67) that the Christians worshipped "on day called that of the Sun," that is, Sunday.