{"id":176,"date":"2024-01-06T11:23:35","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T09:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skafidia.net\/epiphany-in-skafidia\/"},"modified":"2024-01-06T11:23:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T09:23:35","slug":"epiphany-in-skafidia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/epiphany-in-skafidia\/","title":{"rendered":"Epiphany in Skafidia"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the sixth of January, the Christmas holidays in Greece officially come to an end with the \u2018festival of light\u2019 (\u2018ton foton\u2019 in Greek), also known as Epiphany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feast day in the Greek Orthodox Church is known as \u2018Theophania\u2019 which means \u2018a vision of God\u2019 or \u2018Christ shining through\u2019. It is considered a very important day for The Greek Orthodox Church. January 6th is also known as \u2018Three Kings Day\u2019 in the Western Church, a celebration of  the three magi visiting the Christ child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Greek Orthodox Church, Epiphany is celebrated as the revelation of Christ as the messiah and second person of the trinity, at his baptism, by John the Baptist, in the River Jordan. \u2028\u2028Another cause for celebration in the Greek Orthodox Church on this day is that Christ\u2019s baptism was only one of two occasions when all three persons of the trinity revealed themselves, at the same time, to humanity:\u2028\u2028 God the Father, speaking from the clouds, God the Son, being baptized in the River Jordan, and God the Holy Spirit, revealed as a dove, descending from heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Epiphany, the Greek Orthodox Church performs\u2028\u2028 the \u2018Great Blessing of the Waters\u2019.\u2028 This ceremony is usually performed twice, once on the eve of Epiphany which is performed in the church, and then again on the actual day outdoors with priests blessing large bodies of water, sea, rivers, lakes etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tradition is that

a priest, surrounded by brave young men and boys, throws a cross into the sea, either from the harbour or from a boat at sea; the minute the cross leaves the priest\u2019s hand, the divers jump into the freezing water to catch the cross. The lucky one who finds and returns the cross is blessed by the priest. As the cross is victoriously brought back, the priest releases a white dove, as a symbol of the holy spirit.
This tradition is carried out to commemorate the baptism of Christ and to bless the waters<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the sixth of January, the Christmas holidays in Greece officially come to an end with the \u2018festival of light\u2019 (\u2018ton foton\u2019 in Greek), also known as Epiphany. This feast day in the Greek Orthodox Church is known as \u2018Theophania\u2019 which means \u2018a vision of God\u2019 or \u2018Christ shining through\u2019. It is considered a very…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-skafidia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skafidia.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}