Circumcision of Christ January 1

The circumcision of Jesus has traditionally been seen, as the popular 14th-century work The Golden Legend explains, as the first time Christ's blood was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of human redemption, and a demonstration of Christ's full human nature and obedience to biblical law.

The feast day appears on January 1 in the liturgical calendar of the Byzantine Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. In the General Roman Calendar, the feast of January 1, which from 1568 to 1960 was called "The Circumcision of the Lord and the Octave of the Nativity," is now called the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord. It is celebrated by some churches of the Anglican Communion and virtually all Lutheran churches. In these latter Western Christian denominations, the feast of the denomination and circumcision of Jesus Christ marks the eighth day (octave day) of Christmas.

At an early stage, the Church of Rome celebrated on January 1 a feast which it called the birthday (Natale) of the Mother of God. When this was eclipsed by the feasts of the Annunciation and the Assumption, adopted from Constantinople in the early 7th century, January 1 began to be celebrated simply as the octave of Christmas, the "eighth day" on which, according to Luke 2:21, the child was circumcised and given the name Jesus (hence the name circumcision of Christ).

In the 13th or 14th century, January 1st began to be celebrated in Rome, as already in Spain and in Gaul, as the feast of the Circumcision of Christ the Lord and the Octave of the Nativity, while still being oriented towards Mary and Christmas. The emphasis placed by Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380–1444) on the name of Jesus in his preaching led in 1721 to the institution of a separate feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Pope John XXIII's 1960 rubric and calendar revision called January 1 simply the Octave of the Nativity.

The 1969 revision states: "January 1, the octave of the Nativity of the Lord, is the solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, and also the commemoration of the giving of the Most Holy Name of Jesus." However, this does not apply to traditionalists, who do not follow the majority, if any, of the post-Vatican II changes, where it remains a holy day of obligation.

For the Orthodox, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ is celebrated with an all-night vigil, beginning on the evening of December 31. The hymns of the feast are combined with those of St. Basil the Great. After the Divine Liturgy the next morning, Russian churches often celebrate a New Year Molieben (intercessory service) to pray for God's blessing for the beginning of the new civil year (Byzantine Christians commemorate the Indiction, or ecclesiastical New Year, on September 1).

On the Julian calendar, January 1 will correspond, until 2100, to January 14 on the Gregorian calendar. Thus, in Russia, January 14 of the civil calendar is known as the "Old New Year", because it corresponds to January 1 of the Julian calendar, still used by the Church.