The New Murrey and Blue blog

St Nicholas and the commencement of the Christmas season….

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Chi-Rho page of the Lindisfarne Gospels

It seems the Bible didn’t actually specify a birth date for Christ. The Church decided on various dates, and today we observe the event on 25th December, but many of us regard the season itself (as distinct from the birth date) as commencing on 6th December, the Feast of St Nicholas, who has now evolved into Father Christmas.

This link discusses how these dates came about, and included in it is a wonderful close-up image of the Chi-Ro page from Lindisfarne Gospels. See above, but the link allows you to get much, much closer. It’s so beautiful and detailed that I hope you can all see it. Wonderful. The article itself is excellent and informative. Recommended.

To see the entire Lindisfarne Gospels go to the British Library website.

 

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    Thank you. Very interesting! A Ukrainian icon can be very funny 🙂

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