January brings celebrations of some of the most public events of the life of Jesus. Holy Name Day on January first, which we used to call the Feast of the Circumcision, remembers Jesus being
presented in the Temple by his parents to fulfill the rituals that name and claim a baby boy for Judaism. The Feast of the Epiphany on January sixth marks the end of the Christmas season, or
which our primary narrative is the story of the Magi bringing their symbolic gifts to the two-year-old Jesus. It celebrates the manifestation of God in God’s own creation. And the Feast of the
Baptism of our Lord, on the first Sunday after Epiphany, remembers Jesus being baptized in the River Jordan by his Cousin John.
I want to talk a little about the history of the celebrations of Epiphany and the Baptism of our Lord through history, and especially how those celebrations are distinctly different in the Eastern
and Western churches of Christendom – the Orthodox tradition of the East and the Catholic tradition of the West, of which the Episcopal Church is a part. But there are a few confusions that
need to be cleared up so that we don’t end up comparing apples and oranges. Most of you know that the Orthodox churches keep a different calendar than the Western churches. But even here
there is confusion about what we mean by calendar. There is the church calendar, which is only slightly different from East to West, and there is the secular calendar, which is where most of
the differences lie.
Until 1582, there was no difference in secular calendars, but scholars in the West, noticing that the Julian calendar, so called because it had been reformed under Julius Caesar, had drifted away
from the natural calendar, so that the equinoxes and solstices were ten days away from their traditional dates, while the traditional dates, rather than astronomical observations, were still
used to calculate the date of Easter and the other movable feasts. The problem was that the Julian calendar didn’t adequately correct for the difference between the length of the solar year
and 365 days. Leap days every four years make most, but not all of the necessary correction. So Pope Gregory XIII, on the advice of astronomers, decreed that leap days would not be observed in
years evenly divisible by 100, save in years also divisible by 400. This is why we observed leap year in 2000, but none was observed in 1900. Furthermore, to correct the shift that had happened
since the establishment of the Julian calendar, Thursday, October 4, 1582 was followed by Friday, Unfortunately for people who like things neat and tidy, not only did the Orthodox Churches refuse to follow the Pope’s edict, so did the Protestant nations in the West. Britain and her colonies didn’t adopt the change until 1752, by which time the error had increased to eleven days, which is why George Washington changed the date of his birthday from February 11 to February 22 when the correction was made, so that it would still be 365 days between birthdays. Alaska didn’t adopt the reformed calendar until it became a part of the United States in 1867, and Greece didn’t reform its calendar until 1923.
The Orthodox churches never accepted the Gregorian reform, but many of them have embraced a revised Julian calendar which has a different formula for compensation but will align with the
Gregorian calendar until the year 2800. The Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria use the revised Julian calendar, but for the sake of unity, all the Orthodox churches use the old Julian calendar to calculate the date of Easter. In recent ecumenical dialogues between East and West, the Orthodox have declared that reconciling
the calendar and the date of Easter before fundamental theological issues are resolved between he churches would be an empty sign of a unity that has not yet been achieved. For Orthodox
Churches that use the old Julian calendar, the difference between them and the reformed and Gregorian calendars is now thirteen days.
If that’s clear, I can move on to church calendars, but before I discuss differences, I want to spend a moment considering exactly what a church calendar is. At its root, a church calendar is not
a cycle of seasons, or colors, or rituals; it is a cycle of readings. In the most fundamental sense, the lectionary is the calendar. The feasts, fasts, seasons, colors and ceremonies all arise from
basic decisions about what to read on any given day. Sometimes those readings reflect historical events, such as the deaths of saints, or the presumed date of the Resurrection, but often the
choice of readings reflects a fundamental theological position. The choice of the Christmas narrative in Luke’s gospel vs. the cosmological version of the Word becoming flesh in John’s gospel
is a familiar example, but the choice of readings for Epiphany in East and West is what I am focused on here.
In the Western Church, with an orientation toward a triumphalist Christology, the primary story about God’s manifestation to humankind, or epiphany, is the visitation of the Magi. The wise ones
(scripture doesn’t actually say how many there were) who journey for two years from eastern lands to see the baby king are themselves a sign that Jesus kingship extends even to places beyond the reach of the Roman emperor. And their symbolic gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh proclaim Jesus to be king, priest and sovereign over death itself.
The Orthodox Church, more focused on both an incarnational Christology and the resolution of Trinitarian controversies, chose the story of the baptism of Jesus as its fundamental Epiphany story, the primary account of the manifestation of God to humankind. They made this choice because the account of Jesus’ baptism is the only place in all of scripture where all three persons of the Trinity are witnessed together: the voice of the Father, the Dove of the Holy Spirit, and the incarnate Son in the water of the river Jordan. This manifestation of God in Trinitarian fullness is so significant that the Orthodox don’t even call the feast the Epiphany, which means manifestation in a general sense. They call it the Feast of the Theophany, which means the “manifestation,” or more literally the “blazing forth” of God.
The celebration of that manifestation is a much older observation in East and West than the Christmas. The first mention of January 6 as one of two dates for Epiphany/Theophany observances that has come down to us is from Clement of Alexandria, writing in the late second century. By the fourth century that date had become fixed, and the readings associated with Epiphany/Theophany include many manifestations of God, including the birth and baptism of Jesus, and Jesus’ miracle at the marriage at Cana. The birth narrative gets separated from Epiphany in the fifth century, when Christmas becomes a separate feast.
In the Orthodox churches, the Theophany, observed on January 6 Julian (January 19, Gregorian), remains the biggest holy day of the winter calendar, third in the year after Easter and Pentecost. The Orthodox Theophany celebration is extremely elaborate, beginning with a forefeast on January first, followed by the Theophany Vigil on January fifth, after a day-long a strict fast of water only until the first star is observed, when a meal with wine and oil is served. After the meal, a series of services begins with the Service of the Royal Hours, followed by the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, and then the Great Blessing of the Waters, which is performed twice: once at the fount and then again during the day of the feast at the nearest body of water. In Greece, a cross is thrown into the lake, river, or sea, and volunteers dive to recover it. In colder climates, a hole is chipped through the ice and the cross is dipped in the water three times. Theophany water is taken home for people to bless themselves and their homes, and to drink. In the Orthodox tradition, Theophany water is dif-ferent from holy water in that its very nature is changed and made incorrupt, according to the teaching of St. John Chrysostom. At the Theophany day service, baptisms are performed. After this service, the Priest will visit each of the houses of the members of the congregation and bless them with Theophany water. And Theophany is followed by an eight day festival, but the Saturday and Sunday services after Theophany have readings about temptation and perseverance that look forward to Lent.
In the Western churches our Epiphany observances, although festive, were never so elaborate. These days in many Episcopal churches, the Feast of the Epiphany is becoming less significant, because it seldom falls on a Sunday, and Western Christians are increasingly less inclined to celebrate weekday feasts. Some churches observe Epiphany the Sunday following, others mark it in a small way on the day, or else ignore it unless it falls on a Sunday. Consequently, the feast of the Baptism of our Lord, which falls on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, is gaining prominence by default as the major Sunday observance that ends Christmastide. In that way, there is a convergence between the practices of Eastern and Western Christianity which may give us more ground for future reconciliation.
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