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Earlier the Christians in the east celebrated Christmas that is the birthday of Christ on the 6th of January. On the 6th of January Christians also celebrate epiphany. But like Christmas is the festival which is celebrated because it is the day on which Jesus was born, similarly Epiphany is the day when people are busy celebrating the baptism of Jesus Christ. In 378, there was revival of Catholicism. This revival of Catholicism took place after a war was waged. The battle was Battle of Adrianpole. In this battle there was the death of the emperor Valens.
The emperor Valens was a pro Arian. After his death there was revival of Catholicism in the east. The basic thing to revive this was by the promotion of Christmas in the east. The promotion of the festival of Christmas brought a new feeling of joy among everyone, Christians as well as non – Christians. There was a fresh air of relief, joy and love all around. The customs and traditions of the festival of Christmas were first brought to Antioch around 380 and it was also introduced in Constantinopole in 379. But there was sad news. In 381, Gregory of Nazianzus resigned from the post of bishop. His resignation caused a lot of hue and cry and the celebration of the festive season of Christmas was abolished. Christmas was no longer celebrated there. People were very unhappy about the way things were going. But after around twenty years things came back to the way they were. The feast and the festive season of Christmas were again celebrated with equal fervour and happiness as before. This custom and tradition was again introduced by John Chrysostom. People were very thankful to him for what he did and they didn’t get tired of thanking him for his contribution in their lives when it came to the celebration of the festival season of Christmas. But there was another problem as well. Earlier that is during the early Middle Ages, the festival of epiphany gained more importance and it started to overshadow the celebration of the Christmas festival.
All this happened in the west. But the holidays related to Christmas dominated the calendar of the medieval times. The 11th of November was celebrated as the festival of St. Martin of Tours, who was also popularly and commonly known as Advent. A special festival was celebrated known as the forty days of St. Martin which started forty days just before the day of Christmas. Some old saturnalian traditions are believed to be attached and connected to advent. This happened in Italy. The traditions and customs of Christmas again came back to the old traditions. During the twelth century, the traditions and customs were shifted back to the celebration of the twelve days of chrisstmas. The twelve days of Christmas starts from the day of Christmas itself that is 25th of December to 5th of January. This time period in many calendars is referred to as twelve holy days or Christmastide.
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