Christmas C – Three Kings booklet

CHRISTMAS 

We Three Kings

The Feast of the Three Kings on 6 January is an important celebration in the Christmas season. In some cultures it is known as the third Christmas. It is also known as the epiphany or the manifestation of Jesus Christ and in Slovenia is associated in particular with the tradition of New Year’s well-wishers or carol singers, which has its roots in medieval worship and the customs of schoolchildren in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and is once again becoming widespread in towns and villages around the country. Groups dressed as the Three Kings go from house to house singing Epiphany carols and other Christmas songs and collecting gifts. The Feast of the Three Kings was originally the central (and only) Christian holiday of Christmastide. It was not until 300 years after the birth of Christ that the Church introduced a holiday to mark his nativity or birth on 25 December. The Eastern Church has maintained Christ’s birthday on 6 January, which is when the Orthodox churches celebrate their Christmas. The Feast of the Three Kings also marks the end of Christmastide.

The stamp shows the Three Kings with gifts for the infant Jesus in a painting on glass of the kind that our ancestors used to hang in a corner (known as the “holy corner”) of their main living space.

Janez Bogataj