When the candles thus go out, it symbolises the end of Christmas. However, the previous evening, Twelfth Night, is celebrated in some homes by burning a special Twelfth Night candle with three wicks. In Denmark, Epiphany was abolished as an official church festival in 1770. In the morning, the grass would be strewn across the floor, meaning that the Three Wise Men, and their respective camels, had come in the night to deliver gifts. On the eve of Three Kings Day, children may go outside and pick up grass and put it in a shoebox under their beds, and then to sleep with the hope that presents would replace the vegetation. Armenian Orthodox Christians still celebrate the birth of Christ on January 6th as their Church was established before Rome made the date change. However, by the 4th century AD, the various calendar reforms had moved the birth of Christ to December 25th and the church in Rome began celebrating January 6th as Epiphany. The celebration of the Epiphany began in the Eastern Church and included a celebration of Christ's birth. In religious use, the term means the appearance of an invisible divine being in a visible form. The distinct lack of Biblical detail hasn't stopped the Magi being counted, coronated, and christened - the traditional names of the threes kings are Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar, who are said to represent Europe, Arabia, and Africa respectively.Įpiphany is derived from the Greek word 'epiphaneia' and means manifestation. In 2004, a report by the general synod of the church of England concluded that 'magi' gives no indication as to number, or gender, or even to the level of wisdom. To further complicate matters, the wise men may not even have been men or wise. It wasn't until about 500AD that three was accepted to be the standard number of wise men - the reasoning simply due to the number of gifts. They were likely to have been Zoroastrian Priests. The common consensus is that there were between two and twenty wise men.
Interestingly, the bible doesn't mention how many wise men there were - just that three gifts were given and that they came from the east. In some countries, it may be known as ' Three Kings Day'. It is always celebrated on January 6th and commemorates the presentation of the infant Jesus to the Magi or the three wise men. Though overshadowed by falling so soon after Christmas, Epiphany is one of the three major Christian celebrations along with Christmas and Easter.
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