A missed opportunity to see the Despenser Reredos, but seeing other treasures in Norwich Cathedral

The Despenser Reredos in Saint Luke’s Chapel in Norwich Cathedral (Photograph: Wikipedia/CCL)

Patrick Comerford
When we were staying in Norwich last month, I visited Norwich Cathedral once again, and still managed to miss one of the great mediaeval treasures of the cathedral – the Despenser Reredos above the altar in Saint Luke’s Chapel.

When I visited Norwich Cathedral last year, the Despenser Reredos was covered in Lenten array, so that perhaps explains why I missed seeing it once again last month, not just once, but twice.

However, I managed to see a number of other mediaeval treasures this time round, including: the reredos in the Chapel of Saint Saviour, made with panels recovered from old mediaeval rood screens; the Adoration of the Magi by Martin Schwarz in the Jesus Chapel; and the old baptismal font and the statue of Saint Felix in Saint Luke’s Chapel; as well as another modern treasure in Saint Luke’s Chapel – the Hanging Chrismatory.

Norwich Cathedral is best known for its two-storey cloisters (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Norwich Cathedral is best known for its two-storey cloisters. But the Despenser Reredos, dating from ca 1380, is one of the cathedral’s greatest treasures, its most important work of art and the only surviving mediaeval English altarpiece with scenes of Christ’s Passion.

The Despenser Reredos, also known as the Despenser Retable, was saved from destruction over the centuries because it was hidden as the underside of a table until 1847. It depicts five scenes from the life of Christ: his scourging at the pillar, Christ carrying his cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The scenes are painted in vivid colours on wood, and are surrounded by a rectangular frame.

The original reredos may have been located at the High Altar originally. It was probably commissioned in 1382 by Henry le Despenser, the Bishop of Norwich, after the defeat of the Peasants’ Revolt at the Battle of North Walsham in 1381. Heraldic shields around the frame may represent the families involved in suppressing the Peasants’ Revolt in East Anglia, or who contributed to the cost of producing the piece.

An alternative theory suggests it was commissioned to mark the visit to Norwich by King Richard II and his queen Anne of Bohemia in 1383.

Albert Way, a local historian, and the art historian Matthew Digby Wyatt believed the altarpiece came from Italy. However, its origins remain uncertain. At first, experts thought it was of Italian or German origin, but later specialists believed it was influenced by French or Bohemian craftsmen. The English antiquarian William Henry St John Hope in 1898 described it as an example of ‘genuine English art’, and suggested it had been made in Norwich, was commissioned by Bishop Despenser at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt.

The panels are similar to those in another church in Norwich, Saint Michael-at-Plea, but experts have not been able to conclude from this that it was made locally. The historian David King concludes that the origin of the reredos cannot be ascertained by the style of the panels. On the other hand, the mediaeval art historian Pamela Tudor-Craig wrote that there is evidence that the reredos was ‘executed by local craftsmen’.

The mediaevalist Sarah Beckwith has argued that the commission was directly related to the insurrection in the manner of an object lesson, suggesting that ‘the peasants who had dared, albeit abortively, to contest their ordained position in the social hierarchy and whose revolutionary gestures were based on an identification with Christ, are once again shown a story, a story they already know very well.’

Early morning at Norwich Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

During the English Civil war, many religious works of art were kept secret to save them from the Puritan armies and the reredos was removed, turned upside down and used as a tabletop, with the paintings concealed underneath. The upper part, including part of the central figure of Jesus, was sawn off by carpenters who made the table top, and the four corners were cut out to allow table legs to be inserted.

The converted table was kept for years in an upper room, with the altarpiece paintings hidden underneath. The reredos remained lost until 1847, when it was accidentally rediscovered, supposedly when someone dropped something that rolled underneath the table. After its discovery, the reredos was displayed in a glass case in the south ambulatory.

The panels and frame and the vibrant colours were restored by Pauline Plummer in 1958, and since then the reredos has been used once again as an altarpiece in Saint Luke’s Chapel.

The reredos in Saint Saviour’s Chapel is made with panels recovered from mediaeval rood screens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Another reredos in Norwich Cathedral is to be seen in Saint Saviour’s Chapel, the chapel of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and Royal Anglian Regiment. This memorial space at the east end of the cathedral is on the site of the 13th century Lady Chapel that was demolished in the late 16th century.

The architect Sir Charles Nicholson (1867-1949) designed Saint Saviour’s Chapel in 1930-1932. The reredos in the chapel is made with panels recovered from old mediaeval rood screens.

Nicholson’s other work on Anglican cathedrals includes the west front of Saint Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, where he was the cathedral architect in 1924-1948), additions to Chelmsford Cathedral, and the reconstruction of Portsmouth Cathedral. His internal restorations were carried out at Brecon, Carlisle, Exeter, Leicester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff, Manchester, Salisbury, Wakefield, Wells and Winchester.

Martin Schwarz’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’ … a late mediaeval painting in the Jesus Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Martin Schwarz’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’ is a late mediaeval painting in the Jesus Chapel. The painting may have been created in the late 15th or early 16th century as part of a triptych and shows the three Magi brining their gifts to the Christ Child. The figures may have been modelled on contemporary merchants and noblemen who commissioned the work, while the gifts of the Magi are depicted as intricate gold and silver pieces.

Modern wooden panels on either side of the painting quote Latin texts from the Epiphany service: Omnes de saba venient (‘They will all come from the East’, Isaiah 60: 6) … the passage continues: ‘They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord; and Omnis Terra Adoret Te (‘All the earth worships you’, Psalm 66: 4).

The Hanging Chrismatory in Saint Luke’s Chapel was designed by Henry Freeland and Rupert Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Luke’s Chapel, where the Despenser Reredos now stands behind the altar, was formerly dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and has served as the parish church of Saint-Mary-in-the-Marsh since the 16th century.

The 15th century baptismal font in Saint Luke’s Chapel is a Seven Sacrament font, although the details and figures are difficult to make out due to the destructive and damage actions of iconoclasts and neglect over the centuries.

The Hanging Chrismatory in Saint Luke’s Chapel hangs directly above the baptismal font. It is a silver-gilt and glass vessel that holds the three holy oils and designed by Henry Freeland, the cathedral architect, and Rupert Harris, a conservator and restorer. Norwich Cathedral is believed to be unique in having the oils suspended in the manner of a ‘hanging pyx’ for the Blessed Sacrament.

Each vessel has its own distinctive marking that indicates the oil’s particular use:

IO, Oleum Infirmorum: the oil for anointing the sick and the dying. This oil is used to invoke God’s healing of body, mind and spirit.

OC, Oleum Catechumenorum: the oil for signing with the cross at Baptism. This oil is used immediately after Baptism to invoke God’s protection and to affirm our belonging to Christ.

SC, Sacrum Chrisma: the oil of chrism. This oil is used immediately after Baptism, at Confirmation, at the ordination of priests and at the consecration of bishops, to invoke God’s blessing on our life and work as faithful disciples in God’s kingdom.

The stone effigy outside Saint Luke’s Chapel is now said to represent Saint Felix, who brought Christianity to East Anglia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A stone effigy on the wall just outside Saint Luke’s Chapel was originally thought to depict Bishop Herbert de Lonsinga, the founder of the cathedral. But experts now suggest although it was commissioned by Bishop Herbert de Lonsinga it represents Saint Felix, who is said to have brought Christianity to East Anglia.

Saint Felix was the first bishop of the Kingdom of the East Angles when England was divided into several kingdoms. He is credited with introducing Christianity to the East Angles and so freeing ‘the whole kingdom from long-standing evil and unhappiness’, according to the Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Initially, the statue stood in a niche outside the bishop’s door in the north transept, and was brought to its present location in 1969.

Lent begins next week on Ash Wednesday, and the Despenser Reredos will be covered in Lenten array again until Easter. It may be some time before I have another opportunity to see the most important work of art in Norwich Cathedral and the only surviving mediaeval English altarpiece.

Saint Saviour’s Chapel was designed by the architect Sir Charles Nicholson in 1930-1932 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A mention of Thomas Merton brings back memories of one personal ‘Epiphany moment’ on the London Underground

Thomas Merton … ‘I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs’

Patrick Comerford

The Christmas trees are down in most homes, and many of them have been collected in the last few days in the Milton Keynes area in a fundraiser for Willen Hospice. The Christmas decorations have gone from most of the shop windows in Stony Stratford and the Christmas lights along the High Street are due to come down any day now.

The liturgical purists among us want to insist that the Christmas season continues until Candlemas or the Feast of Presentation. But for many, Christmas is well and truly over, last week’s New Year celebrations have been forgotten, along with those half-hearted New Year resolutions we made, and Epiphany – whether we celebrated it on Sunday (4 January) or yesterday (6 January) – has been and gone.

My Epiphany-themed postings in recent days have returned to reading TS Eliot’s poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’, written in 1927 published in his Ariel Poems in 1930, and looked at the differences in Greek and in the Orthodox Church between Epiphany (ἐπιφάνεια, epipháneia) and Theophany (θεοφάνεια, theopháneia).

But over the last few days I have returned to reading about another ‘Epiphany’ moment, prompted by reference by Canon Alan Hodgetts in his Epiphany sermon on Sunday in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

Alan quoted the poem ‘The Work of Christmas’ by Howard Thurman (1899-1981), an African-American theologian, which I cited in my prayer diary posting early yesterday (6 January 2026). He also told of Thomas Merton’s well-known epiphany and mystical revelation in Louisville, Kentucky. In his journal about the world of the 1960s, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966), Thomas Merton wrote:

‘In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness …

‘This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud … I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed … But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.’

Thomas Merton … ‘I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts … the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes’

Thomas Merton had been a Trappist monk for 17 years and he was on an errand for his monastery in the middle of an ordinary day on 18 March 1958 when he had this ‘Epiphany moment’. It changed his life and has influenced countless other people.

The experience became a turning point in Merton’s life, breaking down the barriers of monastic isolation to show that spiritual encounters can occur in the most mundane settings. It underscored his belief in the universal connectedness and unity of all people, transcending social, cultural, and religious divides.

His biographer William H Shannon says that by the time of this experience, Merton had become a very different kind of monk than the man who wrote The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948). ‘One of the things going on in him was the maturing realisation, born of this contemplation, that it is not possible to leave the world in any real sense,’ Shannon writes. ‘There is simply no place else to go … The experience challenged the concept of a separate ‘holy’ existence lived in a monastery. He experienced the glorious destiny that comes simply from being a human person and from being united with, not separated from, the rest of the human race.’

Thomas Merton turned from the world-denying monk who wrote The Seven Storey Mountain to the world-embracing monk of the 1960s as he began addressing many of the major issues of the day and to reflect on a theology of inclusivity and compassion, addressing broader issues such as social justice, racism, war and peace, the nuclear arms race and the Cold War.

When he was silenced from writing on issues of war and peace and was banned from publishing his recently completed book Peace in a Post-Christian Era, he started to circulate mimeographed copies of these banned writings, including his Cold War Letters.

After his experience in Louisville, Thomas Merton wrote to James Baldwin: ‘I am therefore not completely human until I have found myself in my African and Asian and Indonesian brother because he has the part of humanity which I lack.’

His vision has democratised the notion of mystical experience, affirming that the sacred can be found in secular, urban environments. It is a story that has since become a cornerstone in discussions of Christian mysticism, inspiring a spirituality that embraces both contemplation and active engagement in the world.

The story became so famous that the city of Louisville erected a plaque at the site in 2008 to mark the 50th anniversary of this experience. It is probably with a historical marker in the US that marks a mystical experience. A constant flow of visitors, from ordinary people to popes, continues to visit the corner of Fifth and Walnut that was life-changing for Merton and for all who read his works.

Passenger etiquette often demands ‘eyes down’ and ‘avoid eye contact’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But, as I was reminded of Thomas Merton’s ‘epiphany moment’ on Sunday morning, memories came back too of one of my own minor ‘epiphany moments.’

I have written and spoken many times about my principal ‘Epiphany moment’ when I was 19, when I visited the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, and had a life-changing experience that has remained with me ever since, one that I have described as a ‘Self-Defining Moment’. Some time after, still in my late teens or early 20s, I had another experience on the London Underground in the early 1970s that can only be understood in terms of another ‘Epiphany moment’. Although it was less dramatic than that experience in Lichfield in 1971, it was still a moving one, and memories of it came back on Sunday morning as I listened to Alan Hodgetts.

I was still naïve and not long out of school, studying through sponsorship from Jones Lang Wootton for a BSc at the College of Estate Management, then part of Reading University, but really taking the first steps in a career in journalism with freelance features in the Lichfield Mercury and the Tamworth Herald. On my own, I could only afford to hitchhike around England and stay in youth hostels. But Jones Lang once sent me to conference in London. I can remember little about the conference apart from staying in the Berners Hotel, now known as the London Edition, off Oxford Street.

London at the time was overpowering for someone as young and as naïve as I was then, and I was overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle involved in negotiating my way through the Underground.

On one of those furtive visits to London more than half a century ago, standing in a crowded carriage, I had already learned the passenger etiquette that usually demands ‘eyes down’ and ‘avoid eye contact’.

But in one moment I became aware of two sensations. I looked around at everyone in the carriage, and felt alone in a seething and throbbing mass, all seeming to ignore me, and feeling they were one corporate collective of humanity, and I was an atomised, lone and isolated individual. I blinked, and in that moment realised that were all the same, all paradoxically alone and together, with the same feelings of both isolation and belonging, with similar feelings of hope and anxiety, joy and fear, gathered together by accident and about to scatter separately into the streets above, yet accidentally at one with one another and part of humanity.

There was no ‘me’ and ‘them’ – there could only be ‘us’ sharing the one journey through life, each and everyone of us made in God’s own image and likeness. And I was already on that journey.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, …
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation
– TS Eliot, ‘The Journey of the Magi’

The Underground was the venue for a personal, minor ‘Epiphany’ moment more than half a century ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘The Journey of the Magi’: reading TS Eliot’s Epiphany poem once again in ‘the very dead of winter’

The visit of the Magi in the sixth century Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Although the Christmas season continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on 2 February, for many the Christmas season comes to an end today with the Feast of the Epiphany. Traditionally, the Epiphany celebrates three events in the life of Christ: the Adoration of the Christ Child by the Magi; the Baptism of Christ by John in the River Jordan; and the Wedding Feast of Cana.

On this Feast of the Epiphany, I find myself once again reading TS Eliot’s the poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’. Eliot wrote this poem almost 100 years ago after his conversion to Christianity and his confirmation in the Church of England on 29 June 1927, and it was published in his Ariel Poems in 1930. Later, Eliot became a churchwarden at Saint Stephen’s in Gloucester Road, London, and he remained a lifelong Anglo-Catholic.

This poem is truly a sermon in poem, and one year in the chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, when term began earlier, instead of preaching a sermon on this day, I read this poem instead.

Eliot’s poem recalls ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), with the rhythm of journey and also Arnold’s recollection of how

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

Or where Arnold writes:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The poem also shows some influences of the earlier poem ‘The Magi’ by WB Yeats. But, unlike Yeats, Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’ is a truly Anglican poem, for the first five lines are based on the ‘Nativity Sermon’ delivered in 1622 by Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester, who first summarised Anglicanism in the dictum ‘One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries and the series of Fathers in that period … determine the boundary of our faith.’

The tomb of Lancelot Andrewes in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Eliot’s poem recalls the journey of Magi to Bethlehem from the point of view of one of the Wise Men. In this way, the poem continues Eliot’s use of the dramatic monologue – a form adapted from Robert Browning. In this poem, Eliot chooses an elderly speaker who is world weary, reflective and sad – he works in a similar way in ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock,’ ‘Gerontion,’ and with Tiresias, the narrator of ‘The Waste Land,’ and possibly also with the narrator of ‘The Hollow Men.’

In this poem, Eliot’s narrator is a witness to momentous historical change who seeks to rise above that historical moment, a man who, despite material wealth and prestige, has lost his spiritual bearings. The speaker is agitated, his revelations are accidental and born out of his emotional distress, and he speaks to the reader directly.

Instead of celebrating the wonders of the journey, the wise man recalls a journey that was painful and tedious. He remembers how a tempting, distracting voice was constantly whispering in their ears on that journey that “this was all folly.”

The poem picks up Eliot’s persistent theme of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed.

Instead of celebrating the wonders of his journey, the surviving Magi complains about a journey that was painful, tedious, and seemingly pointless. The speaker says that a voice was always whispering in their ears as they went that ‘this was all folly.’ The magus may have been unimpressed by the new-born infant, but he realises that the incarnation changes everything, and he asks:

… were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?

The birth of the Christ was the death of the old religions. Now in his in old age, he realises that with this birth his world had died, and he has little left to do but to wait for his own death.

‘And three trees on the low sky’ (TS Eliot, ‘The Journey of the Magi’) … three trees against the winter sky on Cross in Hand Lane, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On their journey, the Magi see ‘three trees against a low sky’ – a vision of the future Crucifixion on Calvary. The Incarnation points to the Cross. Without Good Friday and Easter Day, Christmas has no significance for us at all. The birth of Christ leads to the death of old superstitions and old orders.

The ‘running stream’ may refer to the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, which is also an Epiphany moment.

The ‘six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver’, with their 30 fingers and thumbs, recall both the betrayal of Christ by Judas for 30 pieces of silver, and the six-sided dice thrown for Christ’s garment at the foot of the cross.

The empty wineskins recall the miracle at the Wedding in Cana, which is also recalled at Epiphany time.

The early morning descent into a ‘temperate valley’ evokes three significant Christian events: the nativity and the dawning of a new era; the empty tomb of Easter; and the Second Coming and the return of Christ from the East, dispelling darkness as the Sun of Righteousness.

In his old age, as he recalls these events, has the now-elderly Wise Man little left to do apart from waiting for his own death?

He is a witness of historical change, does he manage to rise above his historical moment?

With his material wealth and prestige, has he lost his spiritual bearings?

Or has he had spiritual insights before his time?

‘… were we led all that way for / Birth or Death?’ (TS Eliot, ‘The Journey of the Magi’) … the Magi on their way to the crib in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Journey of the Magi, by TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

‘… were we led all that way for / Birth or Death?’ (TS Eliot, ‘The Journey of the Magi’) … the journey of the Magi in the right-hand scene in the Nativity window in the chapel of Westminster College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Christmas Cards from Patrick Comerford: 13, 6 January 2026

The Adoration of the Magi depicted in the reredos in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, near Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on image for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

I sent out very few Christmas cards this year. Instead, at noon each day throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, I offered an image or two as my virtual Christmas cards, without comment.

This is the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January 2026), and yesterday was the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and tomorrow. I conclude this noon-time, daily series of Christmas Cards today with the image of the Adoration of the Three Wise Men or Magi depicted on the reredos in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, near Stony Stratford.

The Greeks have a word – or two – for it: 58, ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), θεοφάνεια, (theopháneia),Epiphany and Theophany

The Blessing of the Water at the Venetian harbour in Rethymnon … a Theophany or Epiphany tradition that brings the Christmas celebrations to a close (Photograph: Municipality of Rethymno, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Tomorrow (6 January) is the Feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates three Epiphanies of Theophanies, when God is seen as present among us in the person of Christ:

1, The visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12);

2, The Baptism of Christ (Matthew 3: 13-17; Mark 1: 9-11; Luke 3: 15-22; John 1: 29-33);

3, The Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11).

Alternative names for the feast in Greek include τα Θεοφάνια (ta Theophánia), ‘Theophany’, a neuter plural rather than feminine singular; η Ημέρα των Φώτων (i Iméra ton Fóton), ‘The Day of the Lights’, and τα Φώτα (ta Fóta), ‘The Lights’.

We often describe the moment when something enlightens us or dawns on us as an Epiphany moment. But in theological terms, an Epiphany or Theophany is a moment when God becomes manifest, when people realise who Christ truly is.

In Greece and among Greek speakers, tomorrow (6 January) is Θεοφάνεια (Theophania) and brings the Christmas celebrations to a conclusion. People are going to gather at the nearest seaside, lake or river, where the priest blesses a cross, throws it into the water, and young men dive in to retrieve the cross.

The Feast of the Holy Epiphany or Holy Theophany (Γιορτή των Αγίων Θεοφανείων) is being marked tomorrow (6 January) by the Greek Orthodox Community in Stony Stratford with Orthros (9 am), the Divine Liturgy, the Great Anointing, and the Blessing of the Great Ouse.

But what is the difference between Epiphany and Theophany, in theology, language and culture?

An icon of the Baptism of Christ, worked on a cut of olive wood by Eleftheria Syrianoglou, in an exhibition in the Fortezza in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The word Epiphany, from the Koine Greek ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), means a manifestation or appearance. It is derived from the verb φαίνειν (phainein), meaning ‘to appear’. In classical Greek it was used for the appearance of dawn or of an enemy in war, for example, but especially of a manifestation of a deity to a worshipper.

In the Septuagint, the word is used of a manifestation of the God of Israel (II Maccabees 15: 27). In the New Testament, the word is used in II Timothy 1: 10 to refer either to the birth of Christ or to his appearance after his resurrection, and five times to refer to his Second Coming.

Epiphanies, or visions of gods, were reported and believed in many cities in ancient Greece. They were most commonly reported on the battlefields and, during moments of crisis, when citizens were most eager to believe that the gods of their poliswere coming to assist them.

An alleged visitation or manifestation of a god was known as an epiphaneia (ἡ ἐπιφάνεια). Sometimes the gods who appeared were prominent deities, but more often, they were minor figures, whose shrines were linked to the location of a particular event or battle. The gods did not always reveal themselves to mortals, but could indicate their presence through physical signs or unusual phenomena.

They could also appear to individuals, particularly in dreams. But epiphanies tend to have been reported more frequently at times of extreme danger, such as the Persian Wars. For example, at the Battle of Marathon in 490 it was said that Pan, Theseus and others fought against the Persians. It was widely said that on the eve of the battle of Marathon the runner Pheidippides met Pan on Mount Parthenion, where the god promised to support the Athenians. After their unexpected victory, the Athenians introduced the cult of Pan to their city.

At the Battle of Salamis, visions of the sons of Aias were reported. Themistokles said that the Greek victory over the Persian fleet at Salamis was aided by gods and heroes.

Accounts of attacks on Delphi, the most sacred Panhellenic sanctuary, attracted reports of battlefield epiphanies. Herodotos says that when the forces of Xerxes attacked the sanctuary in 480 BCE, two giant heroes were seen repelling the Persians. But not all epiphanies were believed. Dionysios of Halikarnassos said that many accounts of epiphanies were ridiculed.

The name Epiphanes was used by the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties who ruled in Hellenised Egypt and in the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire in Syria, both successors to Alexander the Great’s broken empire. In their vanity, they adopted the divine-sounding epithet Epiphanes, meaning ‘god manifest’, to enhance their royal image.

Ptolemy V Epiphanes reigned in 204-181 BCE and took this title in a display of a Hellenistic trend of divine self-presentation.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes reigned as the Seleucid king in Syria from 175 to 164 BCE. He seized power, aggressively promoted Hellenisation, attempted to suppress Judaism, and sparked the Maccabean revolt, recalled in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. He became a major villain in Jewish history and has been described as ‘the Bible’s most notoriously forgotten villain; equalling Pharaoh of the Exodus and King Nebuchadnezzar, or some of the Israelite monarchs, such as Saul and Ahab, or the great villains in the New Testament, including King Herod the Great and the Roman emperors Nero and Domitian.

By calling himself Epiphanes, Antiochus also claimed to be Zeus incarnate. According to the books of Maccabees and the Jewish historian Josephus, Antiochus plundered the Jerusalem Temple and carried off the sacred vessels to help finance his campaigns.

When Antiochus arrived in Jerusalem, he slaying many innocents and brutally enforcing his cultural and religious policies on the population, outlawing circumcision, burning sacred scriptures, and imposing brutally punishments, including death. Antiochus built a new fortress known as the Acra or ‘the Citadel’ and proceeded to profane the Temple by erecting idols and sacrificing pigs to Zeus on the altar.

The Jewish revolt led by the Maccabees is celebrated at Hanukkah. Soon after, the Seleucid kingdom crumbled as well. The Greek historian Polybius, in a pun in Greek, referred to Antiochus as Ἐπιμανής (Epimanes), ‘the Insane One’.

The Adoration of the Magi, by Mikhail Damaskinos (ca 1585-1591) in the Museum of Christian Art in the Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai, Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The word epiphany does not appear in the Greek Orthodox liturgical texts for the feast of the Theophany on 6 January.

The word theophany derives from the Ancient Greek θεοφάνεια (theopháneia), meaning ‘appearance of a god’ from θεός (theós), ‘divinity’, and φαίνειν (phainein), ‘to show’ or ‘to appear’. A theophany was an ‘appearance of a deity’, or an encounter with a deity that manifests in a visible, observable and tangible form. But they are not considered theophanies unless the deity reveals itself in a visible form.

While the Iliad is the earliest source for descriptions of theophanies in classical antiquity, the first description appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

These appearances of deities to humans could be in anthropomorphic form or as other phenomena, such as light, fire, or cloud, and often served to affirm the deity’s favour, deliver a message, or enact divine will. In the Hebrew Bible and related literature, theophanies are often characterised by awe-inspiring phenomena such as thunder, fire, clouds, or bright light.

In ancient Greek religion, theophanies typically occurred through visions or dreams, either spontaneously or as the result of ritual preparation. Although rare in historical accounts, mythological literature contains numerous examples of gods appearing to mortals in anthropomorphic form. These include Zeus appearing to Semele, Athena guiding Odysseus, or Apollo communicating with seers and prophets.

In cult practices, theophanies were reenacted and commemorated in ritual settings. The theophania (θεοφάνια) at Delphi was an annual spring festival celebrating the return of Apollo from his winter sojourn.

The Theophany is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, celebrated on 6 January. This feast recalls the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist or Saint John the Forerunner in the River Jordan, marking the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry and revealing God as Trinity: the Father’s voice is heard above, the Son is incarnate and standing physically in the Jordan, and the Holy Spirit descends on him.

On this day, the day before Theophania, children go house-to-house singing kalanta (carols) and are given coins or sweets in return. In churches, on the eve of the feast, the Mikros Agiasmos (the Lesser Blessing of the Waters) is celebrated, where a bowl of water is blessed and distributed among people.

The Feast of the Theophany tomorrow is the culmination of the Christmas Season, starting on 25 December and ending on 6 January. The traditional celebrations include the Great Blessing of Water, Μέγας Αγιασμός (Megas Agiasmos). In Rethymnon, the ceremony takes place at the Venetian Harbour, with hundreds of people lining the harbour front to see the celebrations.

After the final prayer, the priest raises his arm and throws a wooden crucifix out across the water. As he does this, swimmers dive headfirst, and thrash frantically to find where the cross has landed. Stretching out to grab the holy prize, the winner clutches the cross before kissing it, and holding it high above their head. One man is said to have retrieved the cross in Rethymnon on 11 consecutive years.

Retrieving the cross was traditionally reserved for men. But in 2018 in the village of Platanias, west of Chania, Maria Varouxaki became the first woman in Crete to take part and beat her all-male competitors.

‘We three kings of Orient’ … the Adoration of the Magi in a Christmas card from the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge

Previous words in this series:

1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.

2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.

3, Bread, Ψωμί.

4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.

5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.

6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.

7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.

8,Theology, Θεολογία.

9, Icon, Εἰκών.

10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.

11, Chaos, Χάος.

12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.

13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.

14, Mañana, Αύριο.

15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.

16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.

17, The missing words.

18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.

19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.

20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.

21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.

22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.

23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.

24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.

25, Asthma, Ασθμα.

26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.

27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.

28, School, Σχολείο.

29, Muse, Μούσα.

30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.

31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.

32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.

33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.

34, Cinema, Κινημα.

35, autopsy and biopsy

36, Exodus, ἔξοδος

37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος

38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς

39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια

40, Practice, πρᾶξις

41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός

42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή

43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή

44, catastrophe, καταστροφή

45, democracy, δημοκρατία

46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end

47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse

48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha

49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric

50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις

51, Bimah, βῆμα

52, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari), fish.

53, Τὰ Βιβλία (Ta Biblia), The Bible

54, Φῐλοξενῐ́ᾱ (Philoxenia), true hospitality

55, εκκλησία (ekklesia), the Church

56, ναός (naos) and ἱερός (ieros), a church

57, Χριστούγεννα (Christougenna), Christmas

58, ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), θεοφάνεια, (theopháneia),
Epiphany and Theophany

59, Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros), the West Wind

60, Αύριο (Avrio), Tomorrow.

61, καλημέρα (κaliméra), ‘Good Morning’, and καλαμάρι, κalamári, ‘squid’.

Series to be continued

An icon of the Baptism of Christ in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Updated: 6 January 2026 with a photograph of the day’s celebrations in Rethymnon

Christmas Cards from Patrick Comerford: 12, 5 January 2026

Three Magi on a shelf waiting to visit the crib in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, near Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I sent out very few Christmas cards this year. Instead, at noon each day throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, I am offering an image or two as my virtual Christmas cards, without comment.

Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January 2026). My images for my Christmas Card at noon today (5 January 2026) are of the Three Wise Men or Magi in Buckinghamshire churches preparing for the Epiphany visit: Three Magi on a shelf waiting to visit the crib in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, near Stony Stratford; and the Three Magi on a window ledge waiting to visit the crib in Saint Mary’s Church, Padbury, near Buckingham.

Three Magi on a window ledge waiting to visit the crib in Saint Mary’s Church, Padbury, near Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 12, Monday 5 January 2026

‘Twelve drummer drumming’ … drummers in a religious parade in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.

We are still in the season of Christmas, which is a 40-day season and lasts not until Epiphany tomorrow (6 January 2026), but until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February 2026).

The week began yesterday with the Second Sunday of Christmas (Christmas II), and many parishes and churches transferred their celebrations of Epiphany from tomorrow to yesterday.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas is 5 January, and our celebrations of Christmas traditionally end tonight, on the Twelfth Night, which is then followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. The Twelve Days of Christmas are a festive period linking together these two Great Feasts of the Nativity and Theophany, so that one celebration leads into another.

Nowadays, the Twelfth Day is the last day for many to take down the decorations. Some folk traditions say it is bad luck to take decorations down after this date. But in Elizabethan England, the decorations were left up until Candelmas, and this remains the tradition in Germany and many other European countries.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Twelve drummers drumming’ … drummers waiting for a religious procession to begin in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 1: 43-51 (NRSVA):

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46 Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48 Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49 Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50 Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51 And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

‘Twelve drummer drumming’ … folk dancers and drummers on the streets of Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Christian interpretation of the ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ often sees the 12 drummers drumming as figurative representations of the 12 points of the Apostles’ Creed. But what does it mean to share the faith and discipleship of the Apostles? The great Epiphany themes include the visit of the three Wise Men, the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the Miracle at the Wedding in Cana. The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 1: 43-51) continues those Epiphany themes, asking us to consider our own call to discipleship, challenging us to think about who is the Christ who calls us to follow him.

God’s call comes to a variety of people, and in a variety of surprising ways. The Church in its ministry, its membership and its life, should reflect the diversity of skills and talents and personalities that God gives to the Church both as gift and as blessing. That diversity is emphasised in the Gospel story of the call of Philip and Nathanael, which comes immediately after the story of the call of Andrew and Peter.

The back story is that immediately after his baptism by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, Christ begins calling his first disciples. First, he calls Andrew and Simon Peter. Andrew is called first, but before responding to that call, he goes back and fetches his brother Simon and brings him to Jesus (John 1: 35-42).

Andrew and Peter are brothers, but their names indicate the early differences and divisions in the Church. Andrew’s name is Greek ('Ανδρέας, Andreas), meaning ‘manly’ or ‘valorous,’ while Peter’s original name, Simon (שמעון‎, Shimon), meaning ‘hearing,’ is so obviously Jewish.

It is the same again with Philip and Nathanael: Philip is a strong Greek name – everyone in the region knew Philip of Macedon was the father of Alexander the Great; while Nathanael’s name is a Hebrew compound meaning ‘the Gift of God.’

So, from the very beginning of the story of the call of the disciples, the diversity and divisions within the Church are represented, even in the names that show they are Jews and Greeks, the Hebrew-speakers and those who are culturally Hellenised.

In reacting to false divisions in the early Church, the Apostle Paul tells us: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3: 28; see Colossians 3: 11).

Christ’s call came to the first disciples as a diverse group of people, from a wide variety of backgrounds, often – as with Philip and Nathanael – when they were least expecting it.

But they responded to that call faithfully. Andrew went and fetched Simon Peter, Philip found Nathanael.

How do we keep that call to follow Christ so fresh in our minds that it still inspires infectious enthusiasm?

Are we inspired with enough infectious enthusiasm to want to go back like Andrew to call Peter, to go back like Philip and find Nathanael?

Because, despite what popular preachers and tele-evangelists may say, Christianity is never just about a personal relationship with Christ. It is about a life in relationship with God as Trinity; and it is about a life in relationship with others.

There are no individual Christians. Christianity and Christian discipleship are experiences in community, experiences we share with others.

And sharing with others, sharing in community, moves us from the tolerance of diversity to the respect for diversity and then on to the point of speaking up for diversity as a gift in the Church, so that truly, as the Apostle Paul tells us: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’

Later, this Philip who goes back for Nathanael is the first of the apostles to bring Samaritans into the Church (see Acts 8: 4-13), much to the surprise of the other disciples, who had not yet agreed to bring the Gospel to people who were not Jews.

This Philip goes on to baptise an Ethiopian court official (see Acts 8: 26-40), who is an outsider in so many ways, as an Ethiopian and as a eunuch. Before the conversion of Saint Paul, Saint Philip, who is called in this morning’s Gospel reading, is the great missionary in the Apostolic Church, bringing the Good News to those who are seen as outsiders in terms of religion, ethnicity, nationality and sexuality.

The mission of the Church is founded not just on respect for diversity, but on loving and embracing diversity. This is not a matter of tolerance – it is a matter of knowing what the Kingdom of God is like, and knowing how that should be reflected in our values in the Church today.

‘We have found him’ (John 1: 45) … the calling of Philip and Nathanael depicted in a window in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Dromcollogher, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 5 January 2026):

The theme this week (4-10 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Hidden Histories’ (pp 16-17). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Matthew Anns, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager at USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 5 January 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we thank you for the increasing global commitment to reparative justice and for all committed to healing the wounds of the past.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in the birth of your Son
you have poured on us the new light of your incarnate Word,
and shown us the fullness of your love:
help us to walk in his light and dwell in his love
that we may know the fullness of his joy;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

All praise to you,
almighty God and heavenly king,
who sent your Son into the world
to take our nature upon him
and to be born of a pure virgin:
grant that, as we are born again in him,
so he may continually dwell in us
and reign on earth as he reigns in heaven,
now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God our Father,
in love you sent your Son
that the world may have life:
lead us to seek him among the outcast
and to find him in those in need,
for Jesus Christ’s sake.

Collect on the Eve of Epiphany:

O God,
who by the leading of a star
manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’ (John 1: 51) … angels ascending and descending, the front door of Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

George Seferis and ‘Epiphany, 1937’: the poem that Mikis Theodorakis made a song of resistance to the colonels

Giorgos Seferis is a major figure in Greek literature and in 1963 became the first Greek Nobel laureate for literature

Patrick Comerford

TS Eliot’s poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’, which I was discussing yesterday, was written in 1927 after he joined the Church of England and is one of the five poems in his Ariel Poems published in 1930. The poem is truly a sermon in poem, and is one of the great works of English poetry in the 20th century.

Another Epiphany poem that comes to mind at this time of year is ‘Epiphany, 1937’, is a poem written in 1937 by Giorgos Seferis, a major figure in Greek literature who became the first Greek Nobel laureate for literature in 1963.

Seferis’s poem ‘Epiphany, 1937’ has had a lasting influence on Greek culture and identity. It was part of Epiphany, a collection that inspired the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis 30 years later to write a cantata, with songs that are still popular in Greece. When the poem was set to music as an cantata or choral work by Theodorakis, ‘I Kept Hold of My Life’, it became an expression of resistance to the colonels’ junta from 1967 to 1974.

Seferis’s poem ‘Epiphany, 1937’ and its setting by Theodorakis, continue to be major important and influential cultural works in Greece, and Theodorakis has ensured that the lyrics are widely-known and are regularly performed, in his choral adaptation or setting Κράτησα τη ζωή μου (Kratêsa tê zôê mou, ‘I Kept Hold of My Life’. One of the most moving performances brings together the voice of Maria Farantouri and the jazz instrumentation of Charles Lloyd.



A diplomatic assignment in London for George Seferis influenced the direction of his poetic creativity and marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship between Eliot and Seferis, who translated the works of both Eliot and Ezra Pound into Greek.

George Seferis (1900-1971) was born Giorgos Seferiadis (Γεώργιος Σεφεριάδης) in Smyrna (now Izmir) in Asia Minor in 1900. He went to school in Smyrna and then to the Gymnasium in Athens. When his family moved to Paris in 1918, he studied law at the University of Paris and became interested in literature. He returned to Athens in 1925 and joined the Foreign Ministry the following year. He had a long and successful diplomatic career, that began with postings in England (1931-1934), where he was introduced to Eliot and Pound, and Albania (1936-1938), where he wrote ‘Epiphany, 1937.’

Seferis moved to Crete with the Free Greek Government during World War II, and then into exile in Egypt, South Africa and Italy. Meanwhile, in 1941 he married Marika Zannou, the mother of two young daughters from her previous marriage to Andreas Londos.

He returned to liberated Athens in 1944. He continued to work in the Foreign Ministry, followed by diplomatic postings in Ankara (1948-1950), London (1951-1953) and Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq (1953-1956). He was back in London again as the Greek Ambassador from 1957 to 1961, his last post before he retired to Athens.

After the colonels’ coup in 1967, he went into voluntary seclusion and many of his poems were banned, including the musical versions written and arranged by the composer Mikis Theodorakis.

His poem ‘Denial’ (Άρνηση), first published in 1931 in his collection Turning Point (Στροφή, Strophe), became an anthem of resistance to the colonels. He died on 20 September 1971 and ‘Denial’ (Άρνηση) was sung by the crowds lining the streets of Athens at his funeral. He had become a popular hero for his resistance to the regime. His widow Marika cut off her hair and flung it into his grave.

Seferis’s exclusive use of demotic, or common, Greek as his language of choice earned him a privileged place among his generation of Greek poets, while his wide travels provide the backdrop and colour for much of Seferis’s writing.

As well as Strophe (1931), his early poetry includes E Sterna (The Cistern, 1932), and Mythistorema (1935). Later collections include Tetradio Gymnasmaton (Book of Exercises, 1940), Emerologio Katastromatos (Logbook I, 1940), Emerologio Katastromatos B (Logbook II, 1944), Kihle (Thrush, 1947), Emerologio Katastromatos Γ (Logbook III, 1955) and Tria Krypha Poiemata (Three Secret Poems, 1966).

Seferis first became acquainted with Eliot in London in Christmas 1931, when he found a copy of the poem ‘Marina’ in a bookshop on Oxford Street and was struck by its Mediterranean feeling. He published his translation of Eliot’s poetry in 1936 in The Waste Land and Other Poems, prefaced by his first essay in print, ‘Introduction to TS Eliot’, itself a major event in modern Greek literature. Seferis also translated WB Yeats, DH Lawrence, Ezra Pound and WH Auden.

In 1963, Seferis became the first Greek to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He received several honorary doctorates from Cambridge (1960), Oxford (1964), the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1964), and Princeton (1965).

The icon of the Baptism of Christ in the new iconostasis in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford … the Baptism of Christ is the main Epiphany theme in the Orthodox Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

I believe his poem ‘Epiphany, 1937’ shows strong influence from Eliot’s Epiphany poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’. In the Orthodox Church, the Baptism of Christ is principal theme in celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany. While Eliot’s poem draws on the Epiphany theme of the Visit of Magi, these two poems share similar imagery, although Seferis is writing in a secular, non-religious way.

The poem starts by addressing a second-person singular, as a shared reminiscence of a locus amoenus, with the sea flowering and the mountains in the moon’s waning (verses1-5).

As the reader proceeds from this introductory section to the main part of the poem, summer’s eutopia gradually yields to an icier landscape, culminating with the terse third-person closure: ‘The snow and the water frozen in the hoofmarks of the horses.’

The whole poem can be read as the personal, almost internal, voice of a lone walker, traveller, or hiker who at times encounters other, equally lonely, walking figures during his journey. The speaker is travelling among yellow trees, climbing the mountains, his road having no end, having no relief, at times meeting a woman bent as she walks giving her child the breast, or a man who walks blindly across the snows of silence.

A second-person singular shows up at key positions of this main section, following or preceding the recurring phrase ‘I’ve kept a rein on my life.’ Who is this second-person singular? The identity seems to fluctuate along the flow of the poem, at times appearing as the distant nostalgic memory of the beloved, at other times as an alternative to the speaker’s own persona, now addressing himself in the second person

One eventually realises that even if the whole poem is nothing but the utterance of a first-person speaker in love, this is love experienced in sheer loneliness.

With the date 1937, Seferis offers a landmark in his own life. In that year, he was the Greek consul in Korçë (Κορυτσά, Korytsa) in south-east Albania, near the border with Greece. It had once been one of the wealthiest communities in northern Epirus, Greek had remained the language of business and trade, and it was briefly held by Greece during the opening years of World War I.

During the summer before his posting to Korçë, Seferis had fallen deeply in love with Marika Zannou, the wife of Andreas Londos, a former naval officer, and the mother of two girls. Their affair began during mutual holidays on the island of Aegina, but was cut short when Seferis returned to Athens in September 1936 and found he had been appointed to Albania. He endured the winter of 1936-1937 in isolation, writing several times a week to his beloved Maro, then still unhappily attached to Andreas Londos back in Greece.

Perhaps ‘Epiphany, 1937’ marks an epiphanic landmark in the writer’s his own poetic itinerary. The word epiphany (ἐπιφάνεια, epiphania) has very specific reference points too. Epiphanies are moments of revelation. But linking this noun with the year in the title ‘Epiphany, 1937’ also seems to refer to the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January, when the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the baptism of Jesus by Saint John in the Jordan.

The continuing presence of water in Epiphany evokes this feast, where immersion in water is combined with bestowing identity on the person being baptised. January also provides the setting for the ice-covered landscape of the main part of the poem.

In classical Greek literature, epiphanies are associated with acquiring an authoritative poetic identity. In Hesiod’s Theogony, for example, the anonymous shepherd pasturing his flock on Mount Helicon appears in his own poem with the name Hesiod only at the moment when the Muses’ epiphany to him is being narrated.



In January 1968, 31 years after Seferis completed ‘Epiphany, 1937’, the composer Mikis Theodorakis conceived of it as a choral piece, Επιφάνια-Αβέρωφ (Epiphania-Averof), naming the cantata after the prison in central in Athens. He had been detained there since August 1967, after the colonels right-wing junta had seized power on 21 April 1967, and was denied the Christmas amnesty extended to many other political prisoners in December 1967.

Gail Holst’s book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (Amsterdam, 1980), shows that for Theodorakis setting the entire ‘Epiphany, 1937’ to music was a tour de force, his own epiphanic moment in the junta’s jail cells.

Theodorakis worked on the poem as a cantata to be performed with the help of his fellow prisoners. Each evening, while other prisoners listened to the radio in a communal hall from 7:30 to 8:30, Theodorakis used the hour to train his choir of 10 prisoners.

The poem’s first-person-singular refrain Κράτησα τη ζωή μου (Kratêsa tê zôê mou) is translated into English by Keeley and Sherrard as ‘I’ve kept a rein on my life’. It could also be translated as ‘I’ve kept a hold on my life’. In this refrain, Theodorakis heard a multiplicity of voices, the universality of their utterance further enhanced by the composer’s preference for a mixed chorus of both men and women.

This recurring phrase throughout the main part of the poem struck Theodorakis’s sensitivity and curiosity. Seferis’ refrain creates a sense of monotony and repetition and at the same time the sense of one carrying something heavy.

Epiphany, 1937, by George Seferis, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard:

The flowering sea and the mountains in the moon’s waning
the great stone close to the Barbary figs and the asphodels
the jar that refused to go dry at the end of day
and the closed bed by the cypress trees and your hair
golden; the stars of the Swan and that other star, Aldebaran.

I’ve kept a rein on my life, kept a rein on my life, travelling
among yellow trees in driving rain
on silent slopes loaded with beech leaves,
no fire on their peaks; it’s getting dark.

I’ve kept a rein on my life; on your left hand a line
a scar at your knee, perhaps they exist
on the sand of the past summer perhaps
they remain there where the north wind blew as I hear
an alien voice around the frozen lake.
The faces I see do not ask questions nor does the woman
bent as she walks giving her child the breast.

I climb the mountains; dark ravines; the snow-covered
plain, into the distance stretches the snow-covered plain, they ask nothing
neither time shut up in dumb chapels nor
hands outstretched to beg, nor the roads.

I’ve kept a rein on my life whispering in a boundless silence
I no longer know how to speak nor how to think; whispers
like the breathing of the cypress tree that night
like the human voice of the night sea on pebbles
like the memory of your voice saying ‘happiness’.

I close my eyes looking for the secret meeting-place of the waters
under the ice the sea’s smile, the closed wells
groping with my veins for those veins that escape me
there where the water-lilies end and that man
who walks blindly across the snows of silence.

I’ve kept a rein on my life, with him, looking for the water that touches you
heavy drops on green leaves, on your face
in the empty garden, drops in the motionless reservoir
striking a swan dead in its white wings
living trees and your eyes riveted.

This road has no end, has no relief, however hard you try
to recall your childhood years, those who left, those
lost in sleep, in the graves of the sea,
however much you ask bodies you’ve loved to stoop
under the harsh branches of the plane trees there
where a ray of the sun, naked, stood still
and a dog leapt and your heart shuddered,
the road has no relief;
I’ve kept a rein on my life.

The snow
and the water frozen in the hoofmarks of the horses.



Κρατησα Τη Ζωη Μου, Γιωργοσ Σεφερησ: Επιφανια

Τ' ανθισμένο πέλαγο και τα βουνά στη χάση του φεγγαριού
η μεγάλη πέτρα κοντά στις αραποσυκιές και τ' ασφοδίλια
το σταμνί πού δεν ήθελε να στερέψει στο τέλος της μέρας
και το κλειστό κρεββάτι κοντά στα κυπαρίσσια και τα μαλλιά σου
χρυσά· τ' άστρα του Κύκνου κι εκείνο τ' άστρο ο Αλδεβαράν.

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου,
κράτησα τη ζωή μου ταξιδεύοντας
ανάμεσα σε κίτρινα δέντρα κατά το πλάγιασμα της βροχής
σε σιωπηλές πλαγιές φορτωμένες με τα φύλλα της οξυάς,
καμμιά φωτιά στην κορυφή τους· βραδυάζει.

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου· στ' αριστερό σου χέρι μια γραμμή
μια χαρακιά στο γόνατό σου, τάχα να υπάρχουν
στην άμμο τού περασμένου καλοκαιριού τάχα
να μένουν εκεί πού φύσηξε ό βοριάς καθώς ακούω
γύρω στην παγωμένη λίμνη την ξένη φωνή.

Τα πρόσωπα πού βλέπω δε ρωτούν, μήτε η γυναίκα
περπατώντας σκυφτή, βυζαίνοντας το παιδί της.

Ανεβαίνω τα βουνά· μελανιασμένες λαγκαδιές· o χιονισμένος
κάμπος, ώς πέρα ο χιονισμένος κάμπος, τίποτε δε ρωτούν,
μήτε o καιρός κλειστός σε βουβά ερμοκκλήσια, μήτε
τα χέρια που απλώνονται για να γυρέψουν, κι οι δρόμοι.

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου ψιθυριστά μέσα στην απέραντη σιωπή,
δεν ξέρω πια να μιλήσω, μήτε να συλλογιστώ· ψίθυροι
σαν την ανάσα του κυπαρισσιού τη νύχτα εκείνη
σαν την ανθρώπινη φωνή της νυχτερινής θάλασσας στα χαλίκια
σαν την ανάμνηση της φωνής σου λέγοντας «ευτυχία».

Κλείνω τα μάτια γυρεύοντας το μυστικό συναπάντημα των νερών
κάτω απ τον πάγο το χαμογέλιο τής θάλασσας τα κλειστά πηγάδια
ψηλαφώντας με τις δικές μου φλέβες τις φλέβες εκείνες πού μου ξεφεύγουν
εκεί πού τελειώνουν τα νερολούλουδα κι αυτός ό άνθρωπος
πού βηματίζει τυφλός πάνω στο χιόνι τής σιωπής.

Κρατησα τη Ζωη Μου -Β

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου, μαζί του, γυρεύοντας το νερό πού σ' αγγίζει
στάλες βαρειές πάνω στα πράσινα φύλλα, στο πρόσωπό σου,
μέσα στον άδειο κήπο, στάλες στην ακίνητη δεξαμενή,
βρίσκοντας έναν κύκνο νεκρό μέσα στα κάτασπρα φτερά του,
δέντρα ζωντανά και τα μάτια σου προσηλωμένα.

Ο δρόμος αυτός δεν τελειώνει, δεν έχει αλλαγή, όσο γυρεύεις
να θυμηθείς τα παιδικά σου χρόνια, εκείνους πού έφυγαν, εκείνους
πού χάθηκαν μέσα στον ύπνο· τους πελαγίσιους τάφους,
όσο ζητάς τα σώματα πού αγάπησες να σκύψουν
κάτω από τα σκληρά κλωνάρια τών πλατάνων εκεί
πού στάθηκε μια αχτίδα τού ήλιου γυμνωμένη
και σκίρτησε ένας σκύλος και φτεροκόπησε ή καρδιά σου,
ο δρόμος δεν έχει αλλαγή·

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου.

Το χιόνι και το νερό παγωμένο στα πατήματα των αλόγων.



• Copyright acknowledgement: George Seferis, ‘Epiphany, 1937’ from Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (trans and edit), George Seferis, Collected Poems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, revised ed, 1995).