Tuesday 6 January 2009

The Cities Hostile And The Towns Unfriendly And The Villages Dirty

Unable to attend the Extraordinary Form today, I will miss the Epiphany for the first time in my life, even though I did not become a Catholic until two thirds of the way through my BA.

There are, however, those in England who will still be keeping it on the same day as the Pope.

In the Church of England.

Quite a senior member of which recently asked me in all seriousness whether or not we were still keeping Christmas Day on 25th December rather than moving it to the nearest Sunday.

This borderline schismatic act by the "Catholic" Bishops' Conference of England and Wales must be reversed immediately.

And the Epiphany should be made a public holiday in place of the pointless celebration of a mere change in the date (which happens every day), with the New Year's Eve revelries transferred back to Twelfth Night, which is too long after Christmas for the whole country to shut down between the two.

2 comments:

  1. Abolish New Year's Day? I am not even sure if the Saudi's have gone that far?

    Anyway if you want to celebrate Epiphany emmigrate to Eritrea, Ethiopia or Armenia as they celebrate it as their "Christmas Day" rather than birthday of Christ.

    (Eastern Orthodox of course celebrate Christmas Day tommorrow due to the Julian calendar thing).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, yes, I'll have a post about that tomorrow.

    New Year's Day is not very ancient in Scotland, and dates only from the early 1970s in England. Furthermore, it celebrates something so mundane that it happens every day, and always at the same time every day.

    The Epiphany is a public holiday in several Western European countries, and people from them are often baffled that it isn't here, especially since Shakespeare wrote a play both about and to be performed on Twelfth Night, which some people now even think is the same thing as the Epiphany!

    I sometimes wonder why it isn't a bigger thing on Saint Helena, and indeed why Holy Cross Day isn't as well, not least in view of the very Anglo-Catholic character of the clergy, at least, of the predominant Anglican church there.

    In that vein, do they do much for it (and, again, for Holy Cross Day) in Colchester, in accordance with their coat of arms? If not, why not?

    ReplyDelete