Sabbatarianism

Sabbatarianism advocates the observation of the Sabbath in Christianity, in keeping with the Ten Commandments.
The observance of Sunday as a day of worship and rest is a form of first-day Sabbatarianism, a view which was historically heralded by nonconformist denominations, such as Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Quakers and Baptists, as well many Episcopalians. Among Sunday Sabbatarians (First-day Sabbatarians), observance of the Lord's Day often takes the form of attending the Sunday morning service of worship, receiving catechesis through Sunday School, performing acts of mercy (such as evangelism, visiting prisoners in jails and seeing the sick at hospitals), and attending the Sunday evening service of worship, as well as refraining from Sunday shopping, servile work, playing sports, viewing the television, and dining at restaurants. The impact of first-day Sabbatarianism on Western culture is manifested by practices such as Sunday blue laws.
Seventh-day Sabbatarianism is a movement that generally embraces a literal reading of the Sabbath commandment that provides for both worship and rest on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. Judaism has observed a sabbath on the seventh day since antiquity, following the creation account in Genesis 2 which unambiguously states that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, having rested on the seventh day from all his creation which God had made to do. Seventh Day Baptists leave most other Sabbath considerations of observance to individual conscience. The Sabbatarian Adventists (Seventh-day Adventist Church, Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, Church of God (Seventh Day), and others) have similar views, but maintain the original, scriptural duration as Friday sunset through Saturday sunset. The Orthodox Tewahedo Churches in Ethiopia and Eritrea observe the seventh-day Sabbath, as well as Sunday as the Lord's Day. Likewise, the Coptic Church, another Oriental Orthodox body, "stipulates that the seventh-day Sabbath, along with Sunday, be continuously regarded as a festal day for religious celebration."
Its historical origins lie in early Christianity, later in the Eastern Church and Irish Church, and then in Puritan Sabbatarianism, which delineated precepts for keeping Sunday, the Lord's Day, holy in observance of Sabbath commandment principles.
Non-Sabbatarianism is the view opposing all Sabbatarianism, declaring Christians to be free of mandates to follow such specific observances. It upholds the principle in Christian church doctrine that the church is not bound by such law or code, but is free to set in place and time such observances as uphold Sabbath principles according to its doctrine: to establish a day of rest, or not, and to establish a day of worship, or not, whether on Saturday or on Sunday or on some other day. It includes some nondenominational churches.
Most Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Methodist Churches and Reformed Churches, have traditionally held that law in the Old Covenant has three components: ceremonial, moral, and civil. They teach that while the ceremonial and civil (judicial) laws have been abolished, the moral law as contained in the Ten Commandments still continues to bind Christian believers. Among these Ten Commandments, which are believed by Jews and Christians to be written by the finger of God, is "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy."
According to the New Testament, after the resurrection of Jesus he appeared to his disciples on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1–19), the Holy Spirit was sent to the Church on the first day of the week (Pentecost Sunday), the disciples celebrated the Eucharist and took up collections on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1–2); in addition the first day of the week is referred to as the Lord's Day in Revelation 1:10—these findings, for Christians, served as the divine institution of the Lord's Day as a fulfillment of the Jewish Shabbat, a change that these Christians believed was foreshadowed in Isaiah 65:17.
The Apostolic Constitutions (ca. 380), in Section II, reveals that the early Church kept both the seventh-day Sabbath, observed on Saturday, as well as the Lord's Day, celebrated on the first-day (Sunday): "But keep the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection." Section VII reemphasizes this:
The Didache commands believers to "Gather together each Sunday, break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins, that your sacrifice may be pure." It was upheld in the fourth century by the ancient Church of the East, as well as in the sixth century by the Celtic Churches. Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century Church Father, implored the faithful to observe both the seventh-day Sabbath and the Lord's Day: "With what eyes do you regard the Lord's Day, you who have desecrated the Sabbath? Do you know that these two days are related, that if you wrong one of them, you will stumble against the other?" Nevertheless, Johann Lorenz von Mosheim stated that the practice of observing both the Hebrew Sabbath and the Lord's Day was principally observed in those congregations that were made up of Jewish converts to Christianity and gradually faded away; on the other hand, the observance of the Lord's Day was characteristic of all Christian assemblies.
In distinguishing the observances performed on the Christian Sabbath from those performed on the Jewish Sabbath, Jonathan Edwards wrote:
As early as the second century, Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, himself a disciple of John the Apostle, "On the Lord’s day every one of us Christians keep the Sabbath, meditating on the law, and rejoicing in the works of God." Writing in the fourth century, the early Church Father, Eusebius, taught that for Christians, "the sabbath had been transferred to Sunday". This view held by Eusebius, particularly his "interpretation of Psalm 91 (ca. 320) greatly influenced the ultimate transfer of sabbath assertions and prohibitions to the first day of the week." In "the fourth and fifth centuries theologians in the Eastern church were teaching the practical identity of the Jewish sabbath and the Christian Sunday." Saint Cæsarius of Arles (470-543) reiterated the view that "the whole glory of the Jewish Sabbath had been transferred onto Sunday, so that Christians had to keep it holy in the same way as the Jews had their own day of rest." The Council of Elvira, in A.D. 300, declared that individuals who failed to attend church for three Sundays in a row should be excommunicated until they repented of their sin. Tendencies towards Sabbatarianism began to resurface very early in the Reformation (early 16th century), causing some of the first Protestants, Luther and Calvin among them, to deny the need for legal codes and accept the non-Sabbatarian principles long established in Christianity.
In Oriental Christianity, however, the Sabbath always retained importance, particularly leading to controversy within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. In the fourteenth century, the monk Abba Ewostatewos and his supporters, mostly based in mountainous areas of northwest Ethiopia found themselves in controversy with southern monks over strict observance of the Sabbath; "the Sabbatarian controversy divided the kingdom during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries." Zara Yaqob, the king, eventually "decreed that the Sabbatarian teaching of the northern monks become the position of the church". This "Sabbatarian" teaching was not the innovation of Ewostatewos but was based on the historic teaching of the Apostolic Constitutions and was not a controversy within the Coptic Orthodox Church up until that point. This observance is not considered a Judaizing practice, as the Confession of emperor Saint Gelawdewos summarizes: "we do not honour it as the Jews do... but we so honour it that we celebrate thereon the Eucharist and have love-feasts, even as our Fathers the Apostles have taught us in the Didascalia".
In the Roman Catholic Church, Church Councils and imperial edicts "sought to restrict various activities on this day Sunday, especially public amusements in the theater and circus." Abstention from sin, in the eyes of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), meant Sabbath rest from servile work on Sunday.
Many Protestant denominations, such as the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, observe Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland promoted first-day Puritan Sabbatarian practices. In addition, first-day Sabbatarianism is historically heralded by nonconformist denominations, such as Congregationalists and Presbyterians, as well as Methodists and Baptists.
The essence of first-day Sabbatarianism, named for the Sabbath, is that it upholds the idea that Christians are bound to keep a specific code of conduct in relation to the principal day of Christian worship, or a day of rest, or both. The first-day, Puritan Sabbatarians constructed their code from their understanding of moral obligations following from their interpretation of "natural law", first defined in writings of Thomas Aquinas. Not seeking to re-establish Mosaic Law or Hebrew Sabbath practices, their connection to Judaizing was limited to the use of a legal code by which Christians might be judged.
With unwavering support by mainstream Christian denominations, Sabbatarian organizations were formed, such as the Lord's Day Alliance (founded as the American Sabbath Union) and the Sunday League of America, following the American Civil War, to preserve the importance of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. Founded in 1888, the Lord's Day Alliance continues to state its mission as to "encourage all people to recognize and observe a day of Sabbath rest and to worship the risen Lord Jesus Christ, on the Lord’s Day, Sunday". The Board of Managers of the Lord's Day Alliance is composed of clergy and laity from Christian churches, including Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Friends, Lutheran, Methodist, Non-Denominationalist, Orthodox, Presbyterian, and Reformed traditions. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union also supports first-day Sabbatarian views and worked to reflect these in the public sphere. In Canada, the Lord's Day Alliance (renamed the People for Sunday Association of Canada) was founded there and it lobbied successfully to pass in 1906 the Lord's Day Act, which was not repealed until 1985. A Roman Catholic Sunday league, the Ligue du Dimanche was formed in 1921 to promote first-day sabbatarian restrictions in Quebec, especially against movie theaters. Throughout their history, first-day Sabbatarian organizations, such as the Lord's Day Alliance, have mounted campaigns, with support in both Canada and Britain from labour unions, with the goals of preventing secular and commercial interests from hampering freedom of worship and preventing them from exploiting workers.
In the present day, 'First-day Sabbatarian' or 'Sunday Sabbatarian' is applied to those, such as the Presbyterian Churches, who teach morning and evening Sunday worship, rest from servile labour, as well as honouring the Lord's Day by refraining from shopping on Sundays, as well as refraining from participating or viewing sporting events held on Sundays, in addition to performing works of mercy on the first day. Similarly, the common term "Christian Sabbath" is sometimes used to describe the fact that most Christians assemble in worship on Sunday, and may also consider it a day of rest, aligning with the Biblical norms of the Sabbath, and even the Puritans. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, makes a clear distinction or separation between the Sabbath and Sunday, arguing that the Christian observance of the Lord's Day respects the moral law of Ten Commandments as it is a fulfillment of the Hebrew Sabbath, with only the ceremonial law changing the weekly day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. In the Catholic Church, the 1917 Code of Canon Law ¶1248 stipulated that "On feast days of precept, Mass is to be heard; there is an abstinence from servile work, legal acts, and likewise, unless there is a special indult or legitimate customs provide otherwise, from public trade, shopping, and other public buying and selling." Examples of servile works forbidden under this injunction include "plowing, sowing, harvesting, sewing, cobbling, tailoring, printing, masonry works" and "all works in mines and factories"; commercial activity, such as "marketing, fairs, buying and selling, public auctions, shopping in stores" is prohibited as well.
A minority of Western Christians, such as Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists, observe Saturday as the Sabbath.
First-day Sabbatarian (Sunday Sabbatarian) practices include attending morning and evening church services on Sundays, receiving catechesis in Sunday School on the Lord's Day, taking the Lord's Day off from servile labour, not eating at restaurants on Sundays, not Sunday shopping, not using public transportation on the Lord's Day, not participating in sporting events that are held on Sundays, as well as not viewing television and the internet on Sundays; Christians who are Sunday Sabbatarians often engage in works of mercy on the Lord's Day, such as evangelism, as well as visiting prisoners at jails and the sick at hospitals and nursing homes.
The Puritans of England and Scotland brought a new rigour to the observance of the Christian Lord's Day, in reaction to the customary Sunday observance of the time, which they regarded as lax. They appealed to Sabbath ordinances with the idea that only the Bible can bind men's consciences in whether or how they will take a break from work, or to impose an obligation to meet at a particular time. Sunday Sabbatarianism is enshrined in its most mature expression, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), in the Calvinist theological tradition. Chapter 21, "Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day", sections 7–8 read:
The confession holds that not only is work forbidden in Sunday, but also "works, words, and thoughts" about "worldly employments and recreations." Instead, the whole day should be taken up with "public and private exercises of [one's] worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy." Denominations that adhere to the Westminster Larger Catechism (1648), such as the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and the Netherlands Reformed Congregations, teach:
This statement was adopted by the Congregationalist Churches, which are descended from the Puritans, in the Savoy Declaration. The Puritans' influential reasoning spread Sabbatarianism to other Protestant denominations, such as the Methodist Churches for example, during the 17th and 18th centuries, making its way beyond the British Isles to the European continent and the New World. It is primarily through their influence that "Sabbath" has become the colloquial equivalent of "Lord's Day" or "Sunday".
Reformed Baptists, for example, uphold the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, which advanced the same first-day Sabbatarian obligation of the Puritan Congregationalists' Savoy Declaration.
Strict Sunday Sabbatarianism is sometimes called "Puritan Sabbath", and may be contrasted with "Continental Sabbath". The latter follows the continental reformed confessions, such as the Heidelberg Catechism, which emphasize rest and worship on the Lord's Day, but do not explicitly forbid recreational activities. However, in practice, many continental Reformed Christians also abstain from recreation on the Sabbath, following the admonition by the Heidelberg Catechism's author Zacharaias Ursinus that "To keep holy the Sabbath, is not to spend the day in slothfulness and idleness".
The evangelical awakening in the 19th century led to a greater concern for strict Sunday observance. In 1831, the founding of the Lord's Day Observance Society was influenced by the teaching of Daniel Wilson.
The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living, which is the covenant taken by members of the Moravian Church, teaches:
The Church Polity of the Dunkard Brethren Church, a Conservative Anabaptist denomination in the Schwarzenau Brethren tradition, teaches that "The First Day of the week is the Christian Sabbath and is to be kept as a day of rest and worship. (Matt. 28:1; Acts 20:7; John 20:1; Mark 16:2)"
The Church of the United Brethren in Christ, in its membership standards codified in the Book of Discipline, teaches in its position on the Lord’s Day Observance:
These standards expect the faithful to honour the Lord's Day by attending the morning service of worship and the evening service of worship on the Lord's Day, in addition to not engaging in Sunday trading.
The Richmond Declaration, a confession of faith held by the Orthodox branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakerism), teaches with regard to the First Day:
Various yearly meetings in the Orthodox branch of Quakerdom further discuss the importance of the First Day in their Book of Discipline. For example, the Central Yearly Meeting of Friends in its Manual of Faith and Practice teaches:
Similarly, the Book of Discipline of Ohio Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (which aligned with the Wilburite branch of Quakerism) teaches "Remember the special opportunities for refreshment of spirit and for service which the first day of the week affords; use them faithfully, as befits the Friends of the Master."
First-day Sabbatarian views are embodied in the confessions of faith held by both General Baptists and Reformed Baptists. With respect to General Baptists, the Treatise on the Faith and Practice of the Free Will Baptists states:
Similarly, the Liberty Association Articles of Faith (1824), as well as the General Association Articles of Faith of both 1870 and 1949 all state:
With regard to the Particular Baptists, the Second London Baptist Confession advances first-day Sabbatarian views identical to the Westminster Confession, held by Presbyterians, and the Savoy Declaration, held by Congregationalists.
Edward L. Smither explains that first-day Sabbatarianism is the normative view held by Baptists (both General and Reformed):
Citing Hebrews 10:24–25, Nathan Rose, a clergyman in the Southern Baptist Church, states with regard to the Lord's Day that "for every Christian, attendance at church gatherings is not optional." Similarly the Baptist Faith and Message, Article VIII, states "[t]he first day of the week is the Lord's Day" and that "[i]t is a Christian institution for religious observance" (though nothing forbids a congregation from holding services on Saturday evenings).
Like the aforementioned Calvinist groups, the early Methodists, who were Arminian in theology, were known for "religiously keeping the Sabbath day". They regarded "keeping the Lord's Day as a duty, a delight, and a means of grace". The General Rules of the Methodist Church require "attending upon all the ordinances of God" including "the public worship of God" and prohibit "profaning the day of the Lord, either by doing ordinary work therein or by buying or selling". Methodism, however, teaches that "Christ made allowances for acts of mercy on the Lord's Day such as; nurses, doctors, etc. [Matt. 12:11; John 5:15-16]". The Sunday Sabbatarian practices of the earlier Wesleyan Methodist Church in Great Britain are described by Jonathan Crowther in A Portraiture of Methodism:
In the past, individuals who engaged in buying and selling (with exception of medicine for the sick and necessaries for funerals) on the Christian Sabbath were to be excommunicated from the Wesleyan Methodist Church according to its Discipline. Wesleyan Methodists were also encouraged to neither to hire a barber on the Lord's Day, nor to employ one who conscientiously broke the Sabbath.
Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, a United Methodist elder and theologian, writes that the Sampson Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church made a Sabbatarian resolution that "resounded throughout all spheres of Methodism":
Similarly in 1921, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South heralded the Sunday Sabbath as a "day of worship, meditation and prayer". It proclaimed that the "tendency to commercialize the sabbath, making it a day of traffic, travel, business and pleasure is wrong and we want to sound a word of alarm and call our people to God's way of observance". As such, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South stated that it "oppose[s] the playing of baseball, golf, and like games on that day". The 2014 Discipline of the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches states, with regard to the Lord's Day:
Reflecting the traditional Methodist standards regarding first-day Sabbabbatarianism, the 2018 Handbook for the Evangelical Wesleyan Bible Institute (EWBI), a seminary of the Evangelical Wesleyan Church, states:
The Statement of Faith of the Fellowship of Independent Methodist Churches teaches:
Methodist churches have historically observed the Lord's Day devoutly with a morning service of worship, along with an evening service of worship.
Churches in the Holiness Pentecostal tradition hold to the historic Methodist views on the Lord's Day; Holiness Pentecostal churches have a morning service of worship and an evening service of worship on the Lord's Day. To this end, Holiness Pentecostal churches "oppose the increasing commercialization and secularization of Sunday." The 1900 Book of Discipline of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, a Holiness Pentecostal denomination, states:
The "Conditions for Membership" of the Calvary Holiness Association state:
Keith A. Burton stated that "The church in Africa [recognized] that the resurrection of Christ in no way nullified the fact that 'in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.' ...Even though the power of the Western papal legacy has made some indelible indentations on the churches of Africa, to this day they have refused to fully succumb."
Deriving from the precepts of the Apostolic Constitutions, the Oriental Orthodox Tewahedo Churches most famously in Eritrea and Ethiopia practice two-day sabbatarianism, observing both Saturday and Sunday as the Sabbath. Likewise, the Coptic Church alongside other Oriental Orthodox bodies, "stipulates that the seventh-day Sabbath, along with Sunday, be continuously regarded as a festal day for religious celebration."
Seventh Day Baptists are Christian Baptists who observe seventh-day Sabbath, as a holy day to God. They understand that observance is as a sign of obedience in a covenant relationship with God and not as a condition of salvation. They adopt a covenant Baptist theology, based on the concept of regenerated society, conscious baptism of believers by immersion, congregational government and the scriptural basis of opinion and practice.
The first known Seventh Day Baptist Church was the Mill Yard Church established in London, where the first service took place in 1651, led by Peter Chamberlen. M.D. "the Third". The first records of church activities were destroyed in a fire; the second record book is in possession of the Seventh Day Baptist Historical Library and Archives, the local church continues its activities to this day. Immigration to the British colonies in North America also included Seventh Day Baptists, the couple Stephen and Anne Mumford were the first Seventh Day Baptists in the Americas and with five other Baptists who kept the Sabbath, establishing in 1672 the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in the Americas. A similar occurrence in Piscataway, New Jersey in 1705 led to the formation of a sister conference among the Germans in Ephrata, Pennsylvania in about 1728. The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference united them in 1802. The Ephrata community formed the German Religious Society of Seventh Day Baptists in 1814 and its site came to be known as the Ephrata Cloister. Its last surviving resident, Marie Kachel Bucher, died on July 27, 2008, at the age of 98, but its grounds are now owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and are open to public viewing.
Embracing education where it had not yet become available to the public, the churches established schools, including three that became colleges in Alfred, New York, Milton, Wisconsin, and Salem, West Virginia. A seminary was added at Alfred University in 1871. Missionary activity in the 19th century led to expansion both in the U.S. and overseas into China, India, the Philippines, Oceania, and Africa. Today, its General Conference offices are located in Janesville, Wisconsin.
United in a literal interpretation of the Sabbath commandment to keep the seventh day holy (in worship) and to rest, Seventh Day Baptists leave other observances largely to its individual members to interpret and follow for themselves. In this way it represents the least uniform and least rigorous type of Sabbatarianism.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is the largest modern seventh-day Sabbatarian denomination, with 20,008,779 members as of June 2018, and holds the sabbath as one of the Pillars of Adventism. Seventh-day Adventism grew out of the Millerite movement in the 1840s, and a few of its founders (Cyrus Farnsworth, Frederick Wheeler, a Methodist minister and Joseph Bates, a sea captain) were convinced in 1844–1845 of the importance of Sabbatarianism under the influence of Rachel Oakes Preston, a young Seventh Day Baptist laywoman living in Washington, New Hampshire and a published article in early 1845 on the topic by Thomas M. Preble, pastor of the Free Will Baptist congregation in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Preble was the first Millerite to promote the sabbath in print form, through the February 28, 1845, issue of the Adventist Hope of Israel in Portland, Maine. In March he published his sabbath views in tract form as A Tract, Showing that the Seventh Day Should be Observed as the Sabbath, Instead of the First Day; "According to the Commandment". This tract led to the conversion of John Nevins Andrews and other Adventist families in Paris, Maine, as well as the 1845 conversion of Joseph Bates, who became the foremost proponent of the sabbath among this group. These men in turn convinced James Springer White, Ellen Harmon (later White), and Hiram Edson of New Hampshire. Preble is known to have kept seventh-day sabbath until mid-1847. He later repudiated the sabbath and opposed the Seventh-day Adventists, authoring The First-Day Sabbath.
Bates proposed an 1846 meeting among the believers in New Hampshire and Port Gibson, New York, which took place at Edson's farm, where Edson and other Port Gibson believers readily accepted the sabbath message and forged an alliance with Bates, White, and Harmon. Between April 1848 and December 1850, 22 sabbath conferences in New York and New England allowed White, Bates, Edson, and Stephen Pierce to reach conclusions about doctrinal issues.
Also in 1846, a pamphlet written by Bates created widespread interest in the sabbath. Bates, White, Harmon, Edson, Wheeler, and S. W. Rhodes led the promotion of the sabbath, partly through regular publications. Present Truth magazine was largely devoted to the sabbath at first. J. N. Andrews was the first Adventist to write a book-length defense of the sabbath, first published in 1861. Two of Andrews' books include Testimony of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries Concerning the Sabbath and the First Day and History of the Sabbath.
Traditionally, Seventh-day Adventists teach that the Ten Commandments (including the fourth commandment concerning the sabbath) are part of the moral law of God, not abrogated by the teachings of Jesus, which apply equally to Christians. Seventh-day Adventists believe it is possible to maintain an antinomian position while at the same time faithfully observing the Ten Commandments. Adventists make a keen distinction between the "law of Moses" and the "law of God", with the former being the traditional levitical requirements intended to maintain the integrity of the ancient nation of Israel and their special role in sharing God with the rest of the world, and the latter being the universal moral code by which the universe is governed. In other words, Adventists have traditionally distinguished between "moral law" and "ceremonial law", arguing that the moral law (the Ten Commandments) continues to bind Christians, while events symbolized by the ceremonial law (the law of Moses) were fulfilled by Christ's death on the cross.
Seventh-day Adventists observe the sabbath from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. In places where the sun does not appear or does not set for several months, such as northern Scandinavia, the tendency is to regard an arbitrary time such as 6 p.m. as "sunset". During the sabbath, Adventists avoid secular work and business, although medical relief and humanitarian work is accepted. Though there are cultural variations, most Adventists also avoid activities such as shopping, sport, and certain forms of entertainment. Adventists typically gather for church services on Saturday morning. Some also gather on Friday evening to welcome in the sabbath hours (sometimes called "vespers" or "opening Sabbath"), and some similarly gather at "closing Sabbath".
The pioneers of the church have traditionally taught that the seventh-day Sabbath could be a test, leading to the sealing of God's people during the end times, though there is little consensus about how this will play out. The church has traditionally taught that there could be an international Sunday law enforced by a coalition of religious and secular authorities, and that all who do not observe it will be persecuted, imprisoned or martyred. This is taken from the church's interpretation, following Ellen G. White, of Daniel 7:25, Revelation 13:15, Revelation 7, Ezekiel 20:12–20, and Exodus 31:13. Some early Adventists were indeed jailed for working on Sunday, in violation of various local blue laws that legislated Sunday as a day of rest. It was speculated by Ellen G. White that a universal Sunday law would soon be enforced and would serve as a sign of the end times.
In Eastern Orthodoxy, the Sabbath is still considered to be on Saturday however, the day of worship is on Sunday (the Lord’s Day) which is considered to be a mini-Pascha celebration. Saturday is also considered to be a day of preparation for the Lord’s Day. Sunday worship is not considered to be a direct observance of the Sabbath. Despite that, more emphasis is put on the Lord’s Day.