Feast of the Circumcision of Christ Communion and virtually all Lutheran churches. In these latter Western Christian denominations, the Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus Christ marks the eighth day (octave day) of Christmastide. The feast is celebrated with an All-Night Vigil, beginning the evening of December 31. The hymns of the feast are combined with those for Saint Basil the Great. After the Divine Liturgy the next morning, Russian Orthodox churches often celebrate a New Year Molieben (service of intercession) to pray for God's blessing for the beginning of the civil New Year (Orthodox commemorate the Indiction, or Ecclesiastical New Year, on September
Feast of Christ the King no longer our own property, for Christ has purchased us "with a great price"; our very bodies are the "members of Christ." A third ground of sovereignty is that God bestowed upon Christ the nations of the world as His special possession and dominion. "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me." (Matthew 28:18) The Feast of Christ the King has an eschatological dimension pointing to the end of time when the kingdom of Jesus will be established in all its fullness to the ends of the earth. It leads into Advent, when the Church anticipates