diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index f79103ecb35..4156a53fdef 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -309,7 +309,10 @@ Build
 * LUCENE-5512: Remove redundant typing (use diamond operator) throughout
   the codebase.  (Furkan KAMACI via Robert Muir)
 
-Documentation:
+* LUCENE-5614: Enable building on Java 8 using Apache Ant 1.8.3 or 1.8.4
+  by adding a workaround for the Ant bug.  (Uwe Schindler)
+
+Documentation
 
 * LUCENE-5534: Add javadocs to GreekStemmer methods. 
   (Stamatis Pitsios via Robert Muir)
diff --git a/lucene/common-build.xml b/lucene/common-build.xml
index 229106a2969..0fd7a754163 100644
--- a/lucene/common-build.xml
+++ b/lucene/common-build.xml
@@ -333,6 +333,17 @@
     </and>
   </condition>
 
+  <!-- workaround for https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=53347 -->
+  <condition property="build.compiler" value="javac1.7">
+    <and>
+      <equals arg1="${build.java.runtime}" arg2="1.8"/>
+      <or>
+        <antversion exactly="1.8.3" />
+        <antversion exactly="1.8.4" />
+      </or>
+    </and>
+  </condition>
+
   <target name="-documentation-lint-unsupported" unless="documentation-lint.supported">
     <fail message="Linting documentation HTML is not supported on this Java version (${build.java.runtime}) / JVM (${java.vm.name}).">
       <condition>