Jubilee

Jubilee, among the ancient Jews, extraordinary Sabbatical year (following every seventh ordinary Sabbatical year) celebrated every 50th year. In the year of Jubilee, the land was completely left to rest, as in the ordinary Sabbatical year. (Ordinary Sabbatical years were celebrated every seventh year.) All debts were remitted; land that had been alienated was restored to its original owners; and all Jews who, through poverty, had been obliged to hire themselves out as servants were released from bondage (see Leviticus 25).

The Christian Church adopted the concept of a year of remission and the term Jubilee from the Jews; the Jubilee year, or Holy Year as it is officially designated, exists in two forms, the ordinary and the extraordinary, and is still an institution in the Roman Catholic Church. The ordinary Holy Year is celebrated at stated intervals. It was instituted by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, and the interval between Holy Years was fixed at 25 years by Pope Paul II in 1470. Observance of the Holy Year involves a pilgrimage to Rome or equivalent works specified in the papal proclamation. Extraordinary Holy Years, or Jubilees, are proclaimed on special occasions, as, for example, the 50th anniversary of the ordination of the pope to the priesthood. The most recent Holy Year, an ordinary Jubilee, was 2000.