Our Church, as does all the Eastern Christian churches, presents three theophanies as part of a winter cycle of feasts. This cycle includes: Christmas, Theophany and, finally the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. The Presentation, which is celebrated on February 2, is the fortieth day after the Lord’s birth. This final feast is closely connected to the Nativity of Christ and, in some ways, returns us back to the time when Jesus as a child.

While the sequence of this presentation of these various theophanies of God may seem inappropriate to some, it is important to remember the chronological sequence in which these feasts were established. The unique sequence of feasts as we celebrate them is due to how they were established.

The first Theophany that was recognized by the early Church was the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. This signaled the beginning of His ministry. It also set the stage for Jesus being     recognized by the Church as both God and Man. We saw in the prayers that we offered, that the Trinity was seen in the Lord’s Baptism. The revelation of God as Three-In-One made it     possible for the Church to see Jesus as the God-Man. This, inspiration then, led to the Church to gradually establish other feasts which could replace pagan and Jewish feasts.

For example, the feast of the Presentation originated in Jerusalem in the second half of the fourth century. It was established after the feast of the Lord’s Nativity since it wasn’t until the     fortieth day that any woman who gave birth to a male child was readmitted to the Temple. The forty days were called “days of purification”. When this period was ended, the mother of the child went to the temple and offered, if she was poor, a pair of turtle doves. In addition to this, another rite was performed over the firstborn male on the fortieth day – the rite of offering him up to God.

The Church began to recognize all of these events in the life of Jesus as theophanies, that is events wherein God made Himself know to mankind. They are thought of as theophanies because, after the Church declared that Jesus was the God-Man, they also manifested God present in Creation. The Resurrection of Jesus was feast from the beginning of the Church. That feast alone did not signal Jesus as the God-Man