The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ is a Christian celebration of the circumcision of Jesus in accordance with Jewish tradition, eight days (according to the Semitic and southern European calculation of intervals of days)[1] after his birth, the occasion on which the child was formally given his name.[2][3]
The circumcision of Jesus has traditionally been seen, as explained in the popular 14th century work the Golden Legend, as the first time the blood of Christ was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of man, and a demonstration that Christ was fully human, and of his obedience to Biblical law.
The feast day appears on 1 January in the liturgical calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church[4]. It also appears in the pre-1960 General Roman Calendar,[5] and is celebrated by some churches of the Anglican Communion and virtually all Lutheran churches.
Contents |
The feast is celebrated with an All-Night Vigil, beginning the evening of December 31. The hymns of the feast are combined with those for Saint Basil the Great. After the Divine Liturgy the next morning, Russian Orthodox churches often celebrate a New Year Molieben (service of intercession) to pray for God's blessing for the beginning of the civil New Year (Orthodox commemorate the Indiction, or Ecclesiastical New Year, on September 1).
On the Julian calendar, 1 January will correspond, until 2100, to 14 January on the Gregorian Calendar.[6] Accordingly, in Russia, 14 January in the civil calendar is known as "The Old New Year", since it corresponds to 1 January in the Julian Calendar, still used by the Church.
Until the 15th century the Catholic Church celebrated the Circumcision and what is now the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus together. The emphasis on the latter in the preaching of Saint Bernardino of Siena appears to be the origin of the de-coupling. Until 1960, the General Roman Calendar gave 1 January as the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord and the Octave of the Nativity. In the 1960 rubrical and calendrical revision under Pope John XXIII, incorporated into his 1962 Roman Missal (whose continued use is authorized by the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum), 1 January is called simply the Octave of the Nativity. Since 1969, the General Roman Calendar celebrates 1 January as the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, referring to it also as the Octave of the Nativity. Pope Paul VI designated the day as a World Day of Peace in 1974.[7]
The Anglican communion's Book of Common Prayer liturgy celebrates this day as the Circumcision of Christ. Since 2000, the Common Worship of the Church of England lists this day as the "The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus Christ."
Since it was a feast of Christ and related directly to Scriptural passages (notably Luke 2:21), the Feast of Circumcision was retained by churches of the Lutheran Reformation. It remains on most Lutheran liturgical calendars to this day, although there has been a general move to call it "The Name of Jesus."[8] Martin Luther preached at least one notable sermon on this feast day which is still available in his Church Postils, and up until the late 1970s, Lutheran hymnbooks would contain several hymns relating to this subject.