25th December: The Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. Easter. Abstention from work for three days The birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ was first liturgically commemorated in Egypt where it was celebrated during the night of January 5 to the 6. It took the place, among the Christians, of the nativity Ayon, the god of Alexandria, that the pagans celebrated during the winter solstice, established on January 6 according to the Egyptian calendar established by Amenemhet I, around 1991 before Jesus Christ. In the process of time, the date of the solstice was transferred to December 25, and it is upon this day that the Romans celebrated the Natalis solis invicti, a feast instituted in 274 after Jesus Christ by Emperor Aurelian. In other regions of the empire, similar feasts were celebrated on the same date. For example, in Petra the Arab Nebataeans had the nativity of their god Dusara. The Hebrews celebrated the new dedication of the Temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev, which also corresponded to the winter solstice. The Nativity of Jesus was in fact commemorated in the East as at Rome from the beginning of the Fourth century, but not an historic commemoration but above all a feast of notions; the Theophanies, that is the diverse manifestations of Christ: His birth, manifestation to the Magi, baptism. It remains thus today in the Coptic Church. It is then in Rome that it first was made a separate feast apart from January 6, and established on December 25, without any doubt to baptize the Feast of the Sun which we spoke of above. At what date is this institution placed? It was certainly established in 354, perhaps even from the conclusion of the Council of Ephesus (431). But if Rome was the first to separate the Nativity from the Theophanies, it is from the liturgy of Jerusalem that she borrows the outline of its ceremonies as well as a great number of prayers. Jerusalem celebrated Theophany like Easter, by two Eucharistic sacrifices: one after the vigil, in the middle of the night, in the Basilica of Bethlehem; the other, on the day, in the Martyrion of the Holy Resurrection. In Rome also the Eucharist was celebrated first in the middle of the night, at Saint Mary Major, then on the day, at the tomb of Saint Peter. Later, a third Divine Liturgy was added to it. Other borrowings by Rome from the original Theophany are evident enough. At Antioch, the feast of Christmas was introduced for the first time in the East by Saint John Chrysostom himself, as he attests in his homily for the day of the Saviors Nativity. It was from the beginning, much more than at Rome, a solemnity commemorative of an historic fact. Above all the marvel of the Virgin birth was insisted upon. This idea inspired a considerable part of the hymns of the Office, without doubt in repercussion of the Council of Ephesus. It did not take long to establish a special concomitant feast of the Theotokos, on December 26, a common synaxis feast in the Byzantine and Syrian Churches. It is only later that the popular and poetic character of the oriental feast passed into the West where it was to take, above all by the influence of Saint Francis of Assisi, a very important place in the folklore of the Latin countries. It was of such importance that the feast of Christmas there, in fact, became the greatest one after Easter, and which on this point has supplanted Theophany, which remains only the feast of the adoration of the Magi is tied to the Saviors birth and is commemorated on December 25). (Source: rongolini) Apolytikion: Ἡ γέννησίς σου Χριστὲ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, ἀνέτειλε τῷ κόσμῳ, τὸ φῶς τὸ τῆς γνώσεως· ἐν αὐτῇ γὰρ οἱ τοῖς ἄστροις λατρεύοντες, ὑπὸ ἀστέρος ἐδιδάσκοντο, σὲ προσκυνεῖν, τὸν Ἥλιον τῆς δικαιοσύνης, καὶ σὲ γινώσκειν ἐξ ὕψους ἀνατολήν, Κύριε δόξα σοι. https://youtube/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jOpr70ClwUg#t=6
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:05:34 +0000
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