On Theophany days, the Church prays and asks for grace so that the lives of believers do not turn into continuous broken promises
Augustin Sokolowski, Doctor of Theology, Priest
The Feast of the Theophany, which is also called the Baptism of the Lord, is celebrated by the Russian Orthodox Church on January 19. On the same day, Epiphany is celebrated by the Serbian, Georgian, Jerusalem, Polish Orthodox Churches, as well as on Mount Athos. All of them adhere to the Julian calendar in their liturgical practice. Therefore, the preliminary celebration of this holiday, which in the language of the liturgical charter is called forefeast, begins already on January 15. The day before the holiday, the Eve of the Baptism of the Lord, or Theophany Eve, has a special solemnity. Second only to Easter in its duration, the Feast of the Theophany lasts for nine whole days and ends on January 27 with the Leavetaking. Such details often go unnoticed by believers. However, it is precisely they that allow us to understand the meaning and importance of this or that holiday for the life of the Church.
Figuratively speaking, we can say that the Lord gave His Church, as a Society of Believers, the Feast of the Theophany. In deep Christian antiquity, this was the first holiday after Easter that united all the celebrations and meanings, except for the events of the Glory of the Cross and the Resurrection.
After all, neither the Nativity of Christ nor other great days of remembrance of the Lord’s deeds, except for the “little Easter” of Sundays, were celebrated yet. The fact is that the early Christians called the days of remembrance, that is, the martyrdom of martyrs, “birthdays”. In this context, the true “Nativity of Jesus” would be “Good Friday”! So, it was Epiphany that united everything that God revealed for our salvation in Christ Jesus in history. The Lord appeared, revealing a multitude of meanings. All of them, some more obviously, some less, are celebrated and continue to be celebrated in Epiphany.
“Today You have shown forth to the world, O Lord, and the light of Your countenance has been marked on us. Knowing You, we sing Your praises. You have come and revealed Yourself, O unapproachable Light,” – is sung in one of the main hymns of this holiday, its kontakion. It is interesting that the Fathers of the Church and their contemporaries literally called the Roman Empire the “ecumene,” or “the Universe”, with which they then identified the inhabited civilized world. The manifestation of light, reason, the gift of the ability to praise and sing to God, whom we know through Revelation, became an important component of the Epiphany celebration. Over time, with the advent of Christmas and other celebrations, one of the most important themes of the Epiphany in Orthodoxy became the baptism of the Lord Jesus by John in the Jordan, His coming out to preach, while in Western Christianity the main theme was the adoration of the Magi.
“When You, O Lord were baptized in the Jordan the worship of the Trinity was made manifest, for the voice of the Father bore witness to You and called You His beloved Son. And the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed the truthfulness of His word. O Christ, our God, You have revealed Yourself and have enlightened the world, glory to You,” is sung in the main hymn of the holiday, the troparion. It is important that in ancient times the holiday was also called Enlightenment, or the Day of Lights. At the Liturgy, instead of the Trisagion hymn, another hymn is sung, which is a short early Christian confession of faith, cited in the Epistle to the Galatians by Apostle Paul: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ” (Gal. 3:26). Obviously, in ancient times, when the Nativity of Christ was not yet celebrated, but only the Day of the Theophany, baptism of those coming to baptism was performed. Hence the name of the holiday, associated with light.
Knowledge of God in Orthodox Christianity was divided into theology and economy. Theology is the science or reflection on God in Himself. Oikonomia, or, literally, reasoned about the action of God in the world for salvation in history. Over time, this division was largely erased, so that the word “theology” became a general term for the science of divine things. However, at the time when the celebration of the Theology was in the process of being established, the division into theology and economy was very relevant. Therefore, this holiday became the personification of divine oikonomia, that is, of God’s economy and care for the world, and one of the poles of the liturgical year of the Church, the other has always been Easter.
An important calling of theology, especially in the contemporary context of almost total secularization, is to reveal the hidden theological meanings of familiar things. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. But John held him back, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, let it be so now: for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness. Then John allows him,” – this is how the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus in the Jordan by John (Matt. 3:13–15). One of such meanings of the event of the Epiphany is the submission of the Lord Jesus to human religiosity.
The words of the Gospel will be the subject of reflection and interpretation until the end of history. The Lord appeared on the Jordan. He approached John and asked, perhaps demanded, that he be baptized. Apparently, John intended to refuse. He saw that the Messiah was before him. Baptism was a sign of repentance, renewal of the Covenant, and as such, it signified humility and was not a messianic gesture. But the Lord Jesus stopped John’s doubt. He submitted Himself to human religiosity.
The Bible, the biblical law and biblical times are a great gift of revelation. Many prophets and righteous men, from generation to generation, from century to century, created this divine house of religion, which we call the Old Testament and the biblical faith. Many saints left behind scriptures. But, unlike, for example, Islam, which perceives the Koran as a divine word given to people without human intervention or mediation, the Bible is written by human hands.
Of course, the Scripture is inspired by God. “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who spoke through the prophets,” says the Creed. By the Holy Spirit, prophets, righteous men, and believers created the biblical religion, which consisted of written and unwritten words. This religion was created like an amazing book with many great stories, commands, narratives. This happened by the Holy Spirit and the creativity of people.
But human creativity is always imperfect. It is deficient. It always lacks something or has a lot of unnecessary things. Therefore, when the Lord came into the world, the biblical religion formed a law, which became a huge set of rules, which, in the end, people turned against Himself. It became a sentence that fell on His head.
“They will put you out of the synagogues, yea, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think that he is doing God a service,” said the Lord in the Gospel of John, predicting what would happen to Himself and to His disciples and Apostles (John 16:2). He was crucified on the Cross on false charges. But before that, the Lord was pleased to save not only humanity, but also human religiosity. Having been baptized by John in the Jordan, He submitted Himself to the biblical religion and religious law. Submitting Himself in this way in baptism, He began to transform this religiosity. From that moment on, the entire history of the world became a path of transforming the religious and filling it with the presence of the Spirit until the Second Coming of the Lord.
In everyday life, in the social sphere and even in politics, we often encounter different religions. Sometimes it seems to us that in them, to use the famous formulation of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), there is too much that is too human. Human, All Too Human was the title of this famous philosophical work. Moreover, it seems that God Himself confines Himself to the framework of human logic, dictating through the mouths of people what is in no way inherent in God. After all, God is love, mercy, forgiveness, salvation. “Let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was revealed to us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him,” writes Apostle John in his Epistle (1 John 4:7-9). But in religions, this is often not the case. Because people are not ready to be transformed with God, human religions lack, simply do not have, that supernatural power that was revealed in Christ Jesus.
The correct way of celebrating the Epiphany is revealed in the grateful joy of participation in the true Orthodox Christian faith. At the same time, the real participation in this faith begins and is revealed in the active transformation of human religion, which continues in history. So that the Christian tradition does not fade away in human fantasies, which, in fact, are strife, schisms, heresies, a worldview not built on biblical words. “Let us lift up our hearts!” begin the words of the Eucharistic prayer. Opening the mind and heart to God makes the heartbeat of true religion a force for the transformation of the world.
“We magnify You, O Christ, the Giver of Life, for our sake you now baptized in the flesh by John in the river Jordan,” is sung in another of the most important hymns of the feast, called the Magnification. The celebration of the Epiphany brings together many traditions. This includes the baptism of those coming to faith, which was performed in ancient times and which we have already mentioned. This is the practice of immersing oneself in water in various bodies of water, springs, rivers, seas and oceans. This custom has spread with extraordinary force in modern times in our Church. Like any reality in which the sacred, that is, the holy, encounters the profane, the everyday and the human, this custom requires correct interpretation. “The Church is a community of interpreters,” is one of the definitions of the community of believers. Correct interpretation transforms understanding.
The tradition of immersion in holy water reminds us of the vows of baptism. “Do you renounce Satan, all his works, all his service and all his pride?” – this question, which the priest asks the person being baptized or his godparents, represents three vows. Renunciation of demons, the devil and evil people precede the sacrament of baptism. These promises are extremely serious, these are tragic vows that no person can fulfil perfectly.
“I believe in one baptism for the remission of sins,” – says the Creed. Baptism is not repeated, it is performed once and for all, once in a lifetime. At the same time, baptism is mutually recognized in various Christian denominations. Therefore, baptismal vows are not subject to repetition, but they are renewed through remembrance with the lips, mind and heart.
The rite of blessing water on Theophany is called the Great Blessing. During the year, it is performed only on the Feast of the Theophany itself. It is extremely important that the content of the text of the prayer for the blessing of water coincides with the prayer that is read for the blessing of water before the sacrament of baptism. If there are those who wish to be baptized, then such a blessing the water for baptism is performed in churches everywhere constantly, and even daily. Attentive presence at the sacrament of baptism allows one to see with one’s own eyes the identity of both texts.
The prayer for the blessing of water is a liturgical text of incredible power. It has amazing dogmatic clarity, biblical meaning and, at the same time, rare poetic dynamics. Unlike many other liturgical prayers of the Orthodox liturgical rite, this prayer is always pronounced aloud by the priest, which allows believers to spiritually enjoy the depth of prayerful appeal to God given to man in Christ Jesus. It begins with the proclamation of the greatness of God: “Great are You, Lord, and marvellous are Your works, and no word can fully glorify the greatness of Your miracles.”
These words, inspired by the biblical psalms (Psalm 47; 95; 103; 144; 146), which glorify God’s creation of the world, also remind us of the introduction to one of the greatest literary works in the history of mankind, the Confessions, authored by the Father of the Church, Saint Augustine (354–430). “Great are You, Lord, and worthy of all praise; great is Your power and immeasurable is Your wisdom.” And man, a part of Your creation, wants to glorify You; man, who carries his mortality with him everywhere, carries with him the testimony of his sin and the testimony that You “resist the proud.” Thus, the collective historical memory of the Church, based on the Bible, which the ancient Christians knew by heart, spoke of itself in the individual genius of the ancient church authors and the literary works they created.
The praise of God in the prayer for the blessing of water is transformed from the very beginning into a hymn to the divine creation. “The sun sings of You, the moon praises You, the stars rejoice before You, the light listens to You, the depths tremble before You. The springs serve You.” At the same time, the world created by God is not praised in itself, as is often proclaimed in non-biblical religiosity and modern green ideologies. But, in the mouths of the authors of prayer texts, it becomes a place of gratitude, a topos of praise, which, in response to the original creative act of God, constantly rises in an appeal to the Creator, but, in a sad paradoxical way, often remains unnoticed, or, better, voluntary unheard by man himself. The forces acting in this process of glory are truly grandiose and amazing. “You stretched out the heavens like a tent, You established the earth upon the waters, You fenced the sea with sand, You poured out the air for the breath of the living” the prayer says.
The heavens, waters, sea and air – these are our companions in the daily existence of man on earth, usually perceived as categories of conquest. Prayer presents them as images of praise and wonder. From the visible world it passes to the angelic world. “The angelic forces serve You, the assemblies of archangels worship You, You are surrounded by standing and flying many-eyed cherubim and six-winged seraphim, covering themselves in fear from Your unapproachable glory.” The emphasized biblical awe of the angelic forces before God is very important. Angels in the Holy Scripture and Orthodox Christianity are not independent autonomous forces, but executors exclusively of His will. As our contemporary, the great Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) writes about them, “angels are the bureaucrats of God.”
At the same time, and this is one of the important components of the spirituality of Orthodoxy, angels are an image of monasticism. As one of the important ancient patristic sayings says: “For monks, the light is the Angels, and for laymen, the light is the monks.” Here we move from the categories of ethics, which, in its evangelical dimension, is obligatory for every believer, to the world of asceticism.
Indeed, the Orthodox Church is characterized by special attention and respect for monasticism. The central point of monastic dedication is the vows. What is their origin? There are different explanations. In the context of the Feast of the Theophany, one of them is especially relevant.
One of the founders of monasticism in the Christian Orthodox tradition was Saint Pachomius the Great (292–348). The life of the saint tells us that even before his conversion to faith, he was forcibly recruited into the ranks of the pagan Roman Army in Egypt. Good Christians learned about this and saved him from this fate of actual captivity and involuntary calling.
In gratitude, already a Christian, Pachomius founded monasteries whose organization of life was remarkably reminiscent of a military organization. Over time, thousands joined him, wishing to live like monks. Among them were many who had not yet been baptized. At Easter, they were baptized and solemnly pronounced vows. These were not some additional promises, but precisely the vows of baptism. This is the origin of monastic vows. An amazing “shifting of horizons”, as philosophical thinking would call this phenomenon.
Over time, believers began to forget about this genuine, unique and unrepeatable character of baptismal promises. The blessing of water on Theophany, immersion in bodies of water, and any other contact with the water element during the festive days of January are called to become a genuine renewal of the vows of holy baptism. By the way, in the Catholic tradition, such a “renewal of vows” is solemnly performed in the service of Easter night. It turns out that in Orthodoxy such renewal has been preserved in the liturgical celebration of the Theophany.
God did not demand vows from believers. We ourselves brought them to God. Testaments Betrayed – as our contemporary, writer Milan Kundera (1929–2023) called his essay. The Ancient Church called fidelity to the Christian calling even until the last moment of a person’s existence “perseverance in goodness”. On Theophany days, the Church, as the Society of Believers, and, most importantly, as the intercessory lips of Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 8:34), especially prays and asks for grace so that the lives of believers do not turn into continuous broken promises.
