IN THIS ISSUE, which will cover both December and January, we have included a piece about the Shepherds at the Manger because the whole month of December is taken up with the celebration of the Saviour’s Nativity, and a piece on the Blessing of Houses, because this is a tradition closely associated with the Great Feast of Theophany, the principal celebration in January.

Usually both of these Great Feasts, which were originally one, are celebrated with the same order of services, but this year that uniformity is somewhat broken, because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday. Therefore, the Royal Hours, which are usually read and chanted on the day before Christmas, are put back a further day and we have them on the Friday. They are not followed by a Liturgy and (even though it is Fr Niphon’s nameday!) no Liturgy is appointed for this day. On the Saturday, the services are celebrated in the usual order, and in the evening the Festal Vigil Service begins, not as it usually does on Christmas with Great Compline, but with Vespers (except among the Russians). This is because, even in Great Lent, we do not have Great Compline on a Saturday. In fact this may be a help and comfort to many people who live far from a church and cannot come to all the services, because this year within the Vigil Service itself we have the eight Old Testament prohesies concerning the Nativity, which normally would only be heard if one were able come to church both in the morning and the evening of the day before Christmas.

The Sunday after Christmas will fall on 1st / 14th January, the Feast of the Circumcision and of St Basil the Great, and so the Synaxis of the Kinsmen of the Saviour, which is usually celebrated on that Sunday, is transferred to the second day of the festival and kept along with the Synaxis of the Most Holy Mother of God.