Nativity-to-Theophany Fast-Free Period

The setting apart of the days between the Nativity and Theophany as a non-fasting festal season is rooted in the early development of both feasts and in early conciliar acts that recognized the sanctity of the Christmas season. The Nativity's December 25 observance spread gradually: at Rome it was kept before the year 354, while in the East, at Constantinople, it was not observed before 379.

Early Western councils treated the Christmas season as a time exempt from fasting and marked by festal sanctity. The Council of Braga (563) forbade fasting on Christmas Day itself, indicating that the feast was designated from early on as a non-fasting celebration, and the Second Council of Tours (566 or 567) proclaimed the sanctity of the 'twelve days' from Christmas to Epiphany while establishing fasting requirements for the Advent season that precedes it. The Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries likewise grant a dispensation from abstinence on the feast itself. These early decisions about the sanctity of the Christmas season are a shared inheritance of Western and Eastern Christianity.

In the Byzantine tradition the season took shape as an uninterrupted festal period of roughly twelve days during which no one in the Church fasts, even on the Wednesdays and Fridays that are ordinary fast days for the rest of the year. This celebration runs from the days of the Nativity's afterfeast through the forefeast of Theophany, so that the two feasts of Christ's manifestation frame a single continuous season of liturgical festivity without fasting requirements.

The season closes when fasting resumes on the Eve of Theophany, January 5, called the Paramony ('preparation'). On that day strict fasting is observed, with the faithful who are able refraining from food until the first star appears in the evening, after which a meal with wine and oil may be taken. The Royal Hours are celebrated and the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil is served combined with Vespers, during which Old Testament lections foreshadowing the Baptism of Christ are read. The Feast of Theophany that follows is itself kept with an eight-day afterfeast on which the normal fasting laws are again suspended.

The fast-free character of these days expresses the Church's teaching that the Incarnation is cause for unmixed rejoicing. As the OCA teaches, the period of Christmas rejoicing extends to Epiphany, during which the Christmas hymns are sung and neither fasting nor kneeling in prayer is called for by the Church. The suspension of fasting is thus not a mere relaxation but a positive proclamation that God has come in the flesh.

The season binds together the Nativity and Theophany because the essence of both feasts is the same: the manifestation of Christ to the world, whether as an infant in Bethlehem or as the one baptized in the Jordan. The two great feasts of the Incarnation and the Baptism stand at either end of the festal days as complementary revelations of the same mystery, and the Church keeps the intervening time as a single celebration of that self-disclosure of God.

The joy of these days is deliberately joined to the Cross. The Byzantine services of the preceding Christmas Eve intentionally parallel the liturgy of Good Friday, illustrating that the purpose of the Incarnation was to make possible the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Eastern Christian iconography reinforces this by depicting the Christ Child wrapped in swaddling that recalls burial cloths and laid upon stone, foreshadowing His entombment. The festal rest from fasting therefore carries within it the whole arc of salvation, from the manger to the empty tomb.

The celebration also bears fruit in works of love. During the season the faithful attend the services, sing the festal hymns, visit relatives and friends, and perform works of mercy such as visiting the sick, the elderly, and orphans, and giving generous alms. The season's rejoicing is thus meant to overflow into charity as an extension of the mercy shown in the Incarnation.

The defining feature of this season is that fasting is set aside altogether. The Church's practice is to keep no fast during the days between the Nativity and the Eve of Theophany, including on the Wednesdays and Fridays that are ordinary fast days for the rest of the year, in celebration of the Nativity of Christ.

This fast-free season is bounded on both sides by fasting. It follows the Nativity Fast, whose concluding day is the strict Christmas Eve (Paramony), and it ends before the strict fast kept on the Eve of Theophany, January 5, on which those who are able refrain from food until the first star appears. The anchor of this entry reckons the fast-free days as December 25 through January 4; some reckonings run the days through January 4 and treat the Eve of Theophany separately. Typikon reckonings vary in detail, and the faithful should consult their priest.

In Slavic practice the season is known as Svyatki, the 'Holy Days'; homes and communities keep festal celebration between the feasts of the Incarnation and the Baptism.

The faithful attend the church services and sing Christmas carols and spiritual hymns throughout the period.

The days are marked by visiting relatives and friends and by works of mercy — visiting the sick, the elderly, and orphans, and giving generous alms.

The day after the Nativity the Church celebrates the Synaxis of the Theotokos, and the days immediately following honor the Theotokos and, in the OCA's account, Saint Stephen.

The fast-free season ends with the Paramony of Theophany on January 5, whose name means 'preparation.' It is kept as a strict fast day on which the faithful who are physically able refrain from food until the first star is observed in the evening, when a meal with wine and oil may be taken.

On this day the Royal Hours are celebrated, followed by the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil combined with Vespers. During Vespers fifteen Old Testament lections that foreshadow the Baptism of Christ are read. As on the Eve of the Nativity, the Royal Hours tie the feast together with the Nativity and with Good Friday, creating a theological continuity among the three through shared liturgical elements. The Feast of Theophany itself is then followed by an eight-day afterfeast on which the normal fasting laws are again suspended.