The Salt Lake Tribune writes:
Christmas is not just a day, according to the Christian tradition, it’s a season — and it’s not over yet.
Contrary to the commercial notion that the Christmas season begins on Black Friday, Christians consider the weeks leading up to Christmas to be the advent season and Dec. 25 to be the start of the Christmas season, known as the 12 Holy Days of Christmas among Eastern Christians.
The season ends with the Feast of the Epiphany on Wednesday. In Eastern orthodoxy, it’s typically called the Feast of the Theophany and is celebrated either Jan. 6 or Jan. 19, depending on the calendar used in a particular Eastern church.
Celebrated by Christians since the early centuries of the church, the feast “starts the season of the Epiphany, which is the showing forth of Jesus,” says the Rev. W. Lee Shaw, pastor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in West Valley City. “Epiphany is one of those seasons that many people just don’t know about. It’s a quiet season.”
Read the article here:
http://www.sltrib.com/features/ci_14095550
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I have been in the “Christmas season” since the fast began (the day after Thanksgiving this year), and will celebrate Nativity with services tonight, Royal Hours and Liturgy tomorrow morning and vigil in the evening, then liturgy on Thursday, the day of Nativity. The article is correct that the season then stretches through to Theophany (also called Epiphany).
When I saw the title, I though it might be referring to the fact that the majority of Orthodox Christians in the world have not yet celebrated the day of Nativity, which, according to the church calendar is the familiar date of Dec 25, but on the secular calendar is Jan 7 (Thursday this year).
This was pleasing to me, because even the local clergy seem to never remember that not everyone is celebrating according to their new schedule. I was disappointed to see that this article, like so many, was mute about the calendar. There is a history regarding the calendar change that we should know, otherwise we will continue to make the same mistakes. The hegemony of the Ecumenical Patriarch that we are witnessing at this very moment is one of them.
On local clergy lists, there are wishes for “Merry Christmas” and “Blessed Theophany” that are obviously not remembering that for many in the world, and a few in the DFW area, the day of Christmas has not arrived yet.
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