Just as Christmas Day is ‘fixed’ to 25 December, Epiphany is ‘fixed’ to 6 January. The Epiphany glue is not so strong, though. Epiphany can be celebrated on the preceding Sunday when 6 January is a weekday. This is a festival day and is the culmination of the Christmas season – a final celebratory fling before the decorations come down.

In the Western Church, Epiphany marks the visit of the wise men / astrologers / Magi to celebrate Jesus’ birth. An epiphany is a pine revelation. The visit of the wise men alerts King Herod, the chief priests and scribes of the people, and ‘all Jerusalem’ to the birth of ‘the king of the Jews’, the Messiah. The Jewish establishment find this epiphany an unnerving revelation. By contrast, the wise men (Gentiles ‘from the East’) kneel and pay homage to Jesus as King, and from their treasure-chests they offer Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church this is when Christ’s birth and baptism are celebrated.