Christmas Music from the Byzantine Tradition

Cappella Romana’s recording for Christmas and Epiphany, this album features both contemporary a cappella choral works and medieval chant for the feasts of the Nativity and Epiphany (known as Theophany in the East). Compositions by Peter Michaelides, Frank Desby, Tikey Zes, and Cappella Romana singer and composer John Vergin.

In the third and early fourth centuries A.D. the Christian Orient celebrated a single feast of God’s incarnation entitled ‘Epiphany’ (Greek ejpifavneia, ‘manifestation’). Placed on 6 January, it commemorated Christ’s Nativity and Baptism. A similar commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ was celebrated in the West during the same period on 25 December, the date of another pagan sun festival. By the end of the fourth century, the East and West had adopted each other’s winter celebration, thus laying the foundations for the familiar cycle of Christmas and Epiphany, followed later by the dependent feasts of the Circumcision (1 January), the Meeting or Presentation in the Temple (2 February), and the Annunciation (25 March).

Even after the harmonisation of the Eastern and Western calendars, a number of regional differences persisted. In the East, the Adoration of the Magi was incorporated into the new feast of Christmas, whilst Epiphany became exclusively a celebration of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan by John. The latter was renamed “Theophany” (“manifestation of God”) by the Cappadocian Fathers in a time of theological controversy, in order to emphasise its Trinitarian significance—i.e. the voice of the Father and the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

Although separated from Theophany, Christmas in the Christian East continued to be coloured by the original concept of Divine Epiphany, emphasising God’s condescension in taking on human nature. The picturesque details of the Baby Jesus lying in a manger were not ignored, but placed in the cosmic context of the Incarnation:

Today He who holds the whole creation in the hollow of His hand is born of the Virgin. He whom in essence none can touch is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a mortal. God who in the beginning founded the heavens lies in a manger…
— Sticheron doxastikon, from the Ninth ‘Great’ Hour of Christmas