Blessing the sea

In an otherwise fascinating survey of Old Calendar Christmas customs [ FT349:38-41], Ted Harrison misunderstands the significance of the Blessing of the Sea as practised by the Orthodox Church in Margate on 6 January each year. In the Orthodox Church, Epiphany marks not the visit of the Three Wise Men to the infant Jesus, but the Baptism of Christ as an adult in the River Jordan: it is for this reason that the custom of blessing the sea, lakes and rivers on the Feast of Epiphany has arisen in the various Orthodox Churches. This is not evidence of the confusion of Old Christmas celebrations with the Twelfth Night traditions of the new calendar.

His Eminence Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain follows the new calendar and is therefore practising an Epiphany tradition with no connection to Old Christmas, beyond its taking place on the 19th century date of Old Christmas. Old Calendar Christmas for those Orthodox Churches still rigorously following the unreformed Julian Calendar now falls on 7 January, as Mr Harrison correctly points out earlier in his article. Alasdair Cross St Peter Port, Guernsey