Sunday before the Theophany

The observance belongs to the wider development of the Theophany feast, which originated in the Eastern Church. The earliest verifiable reference appears in Clement of Alexandria's Stromata (c. 200), which records that the followers of Basilides celebrated 'the day of His Baptism' on dates corresponding to January 6–10. In its earliest form the feast commemorated Christ's baptism predominantly, as the Apostolic Constitutions and early Coptic calendars attest, the latter naming it the Dies baptismi sanctificati, the Day of sanctified baptism. Jerome likewise asserted that it was for the baptism and the opening of the heavens that the dies Epiphaniorum remained venerable.

Originally there was a single Christian feast of the shining forth of God to the world, gathering the celebration of Christ's birth, the events of his childhood, and his baptism into one commemoration. As the Nativity and the Theophany came to be kept as distinct feasts, each acquired its own forefeast and its own cycle of preparation, and the Sunday before Theophany took its place within that structure.

By the late fourth century the observances of Theophany could be elaborate. Etheria's pilgrimage account (c. 385) describes an octave-long celebration at Jerusalem beginning January 5, with processions between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The water-blessing custom associated with the feast is likewise early in the East: John Chrysostom described how the faithful of Antioch collected baptismal water consecrated on the night of the festival, which was said to remain a year without corruption.

In its present Orthodox form the Sunday before Theophany falls within the Forefeast that begins on January 2 and ends with the Paramony on January 5. Its liturgical function is to prepare the faithful through fixed Scripture readings and forefeast hymns for the Great Feast that follows, in a pattern deliberately parallel to the Sunday before the Nativity.

On this Sunday the Church reads the opening of the Gospel of Mark, which begins, 'The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,' and recounts John the Baptist's proclamation in the wilderness that one mightier than he would come to baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Epistle, from Paul's second letter to Timothy, contains the charge to 'do the work of an evangelist.' Together these readings direct the faithful toward the Jordan and toward John's preparatory role as forerunner.

The season the Sunday introduces looks to the Theophany itself, the feast that reveals the Most Holy Trinity to the world through the Baptism of the Lord. At Christ's baptism the Father's voice is heard from heaven, the incarnate Son stands in the Jordan, and the Holy Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove, a simultaneous manifestation of all three persons that Orthodox tradition regards as paralleled only by the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

The theological emphasis of the forefeast presents Christ as the Light that shines in the darkness and begins, in this season, to overcome that darkness. The forefeast hymns invite the faithful to go in spirit to the Jordan, where the Creator comes to be baptized, and draw an explicit parallel between the two winter feasts of the Lord's manifestation: at Bethlehem the shepherds saw the Child and were amazed; at the Jordan the voice of the Father proclaims the only-begotten Son.

John the Baptist frames the whole festal sequence. On this Sunday his preparatory preaching is heard, the voice crying in the wilderness that calls to repentance; on January 7, the day after the feast, the Synaxis of the Forerunner honors him as the one who directly participated in the Theophany by baptizing the Messiah whose coming he had foretold.

The forefeast hymns sung during this period call the faithful to journey in spirit to the Jordan River, where the Creator comes to be baptized, and they draw a sustained parallel between the Nativity and the Theophany as the two winter feasts of the Lord's manifestation. As with the hymns for the Nativity, many of the hymns of this season are patterned closely on the hymns of Holy Week, so that the preparation for Theophany echoes the Church's greatest paschal texts.

• Mark 1:1-8 — The Gospel of this Sunday: the beginning of the Gospel and the preaching of John the Baptist in the wilderness.
• 2 Timothy 4:5-8 — The Epistle of this Sunday: Paul's charge to do the work of an evangelist.
• Matthew 3:13-17 — The Baptism of the Lord, read at the Theophany services toward which this Sunday prepares.
• Mark 1:9-11 — The Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan.
• Luke 3:21-22 — The Baptism of the Lord and the descent of the Spirit.

The Sunday before Theophany falls within the Forefeast that runs from January 2 to the Paramony on January 5. On the Paramony, kept as a strict fast until the first star appears, fifteen Old Testament lections foreshadowing the Baptism of Christ are read with special antiphons, after which the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great is celebrated. The feast itself, on January 6, includes the Great Blessing of Water, after which the priest visits the homes of the faithful for their annual house blessing. In Eastern Orthodox reckoning Theophany ranks among the Great Feasts, and its liturgical structure, with Royal Hours and the Liturgy of Saint Basil, mirrors that of the Nativity.