The Season of Epiphanies:
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Jan. 1 Circumcision of Christ; the Feast of St. Basil the Great
On the eighth day after Christmas, we commemorate the revelation of the Lord as fully human as well as divine, emphasized by his full incorporation into his own people -- the Jewish people -- and into the Law, by the ritual shedding of his blood.

On this same day, we celebrate St. Basil the Great, and use the Liturgy ascribed to him. This is the anniversary of the death of the great teacher and Hierarch of the 4th Century. St. Basil, together with his friends celebrated on the 30th of January, is one of the greatest examples of the combination of scholarship, holiness and oratory.

January 1, although the first day of the civil new year, has no other ecclesiastical significance than these in the Byzantine Calendar (the first day of the Church year is September 1). For communities of the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus), the feast of the Circumcision is their "titular feast," since it was on this day that the divine child was given the name, Jesus, through which we are saved.

Jan. 2 St. Seraphim of Sarov
In 1833, this wonder-worker of Russia fell asleep in the Lord. St. Seraphim is celebrated by all as a great spiritual father, confessor, and priest, encouraging frequent communion and prayer.

Jan. 6  Theophany
The great feast of the Theophany ranks third among the feasts of the Lord, after Pascha and Pentecost. It was at his baptism that the Savior, in performing all things in righteousness, revealed the mystery of the Holy Trinity to us, thus showing us the life that is promised in theosis ("divinization").

At vigil the night before the feast, we serve the great blessing of water, sanctifying holy water, praying the magnificent anaphora of St. Sophronios of Jerusalem as our invocation of the Holy Spirit over the water. After it has been sanctified, we sprinkle the water in our homes, and drink of it. It is Byzantine custom to have the priest come to bless each home with theophany water every year. On the day of the feast, it is customary to bless the nearest large body of water.

The theophany is the central epiphany of the Lord, around which this season turns. It is here that Christ is revealed most clearly as both human and divine, and as one of the Holy Trinity, that has saved us!

Jan. 7 Synaxis of St. John the Forerunner
As on December 26, today we commemorate the "second character" in the drama of the preceding great feast, this time, the Forerunner and Baptist John. St. John ranks second among the saints, after the holy Theotokos herself. He is our example and guide, in his dictum "I must decrease, so that He (Christ) might increase."

Both he and our blessed Lady teach us this, for their whole lives, both earthly and heavenly, have no other goal but Christ, and bringing all men and women to the Holy Trinity.
St. John is also an important sign of the necessity, so well understood by the Cappadocian Fathers and others, of actively speaking out and opposing figures in authority when they go against the clear teachings of the Gospel.

Jan. 10 St. Gregory of Nyssa
The brother of St. Basil, he was a great teacher and writer, helping to formulate the ending of the creed at the second ecumenical council (Constantinople -- AD 381). A bishop who suffered for his refusal to accept the Arian heresy, he is undeservedly less read than the other Cappadocian Fathers, for his writing is unique, especially his work on death and the afterlife, which he ascribes to deathbed conversations with his sister, St. Macrina, and his teachings on Salvation ("apocatastasis").

Jan. 17 St. Anthony the Great
St. Anthony the Great was a hermit in the wilderness of Egypt in the third Century, and the founder of the eremetical way of life, with its descendants, cœnobiticism and monasticism.

Jan. 18 St. Athanasius and Cyril, Popes of Alexandria
These two great hierarchs of Alexandria each fought the major heresy of his day. St. Athanasius (4th C) stood almost alone against the forces of Arianism, which claimed that Christ was "almost but not quite divine like the Father." St. Cyril (5th C), struggled against the Nestorians, who tried to artificially separate the divine and human natures of Christ.
Both saints understood well the vital necessity for our salvation of a correct ("orthodox") understanding of the divine and human in Christ: "Without confusion or mixture, without division or separation."

The title "pope" (meaning "father") has been used from antiquity by two of the five great patriarchal sees: Rome and Alexandria.

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