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| The cover |
The Orthodox Study Bible, New Testament and Psalms, (1993) Saint Athanasius Orthodox Academy,Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee.
Purchased from my employer, the Canadian Bible Society @ Cafe Logos, Vancouver.
Epiphany
I came across this Christian celebration on my mobile phone and related, a work friend mentioned it was celebrated at the Roman Catholic Church. So, I did a little research to see any difference between the Eastern and Western Church on this issue.
It is also celebrated in some Protestant churches...
BBC Religions
Cited
For many Protestant church traditions, the season of Epiphany extends from 6 January until Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent leading to Easter.
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New Advent
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| Catholic Encyclopedia |
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| Catholic Encyclopedia |
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| Catholic Encyclopedia |
Holy Cross Orthodox Church
Cited
The Eastern And Western Traditions.
The Eastern Epiphany celebrates the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan by John the Baptist or “Forerunner” (in Greek Prodromos) as the event of the manifestation of Christ as the Son of God and its corollary, the manifestation of God in Trinity, and also as the event that marks the beginning of Christ’s saving mission. This is particularly revealed in the service of the Great Sanctification of the Waters (Megas Agiasmos), which is reminiscent of Christ’s Baptism and constitutes a conspicuous feature of the Eastern celebration.
The Western Epiphany celebrates the veneration of the newborn Christ by the wise Oriental Magi as the event that marks the manifestation of the divinity of Christ to the “nations.” Especially since medieval times, Western Christianity developed an elaborate tradition around these Oriental figures – fixing their number to three and identifying them with three kings, called Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar – a tradition that included the re-discovery of their bodies at the Church of St. Eustorgio in Milan (1158), where they had been transferred from Constantinople in the 4th century, and their re-transference and deposition in Cologne Cathedral by Frederick Barbarossa (1164).
Reasonably, based on this documentation, Western mainline Protestant churches, when epiphany is celebrated, classically (as opposed to exhaustively) would follow closer to the Roman Catholic model than Eastern Orthodox model.
