Christ is born, glorify Him: the Christmas hymn and greeting

When it is said

It opens the canon at Matins, the morning service, on Christmas Day. A canon is a chain of nine songs, or odes. Each opens with a model verse, the irmos, and this is the first.

It is heard weeks before the feast. It is first sung on 21 November, the feast of the Mother of God’s entry into the Temple. It returns at the vigils, the long services on the eves of Sundays and feasts, until Christmas.

Where it comes from

Author by tradition

Words from a Christmas sermon

Its first lines come from St Gregory the Theologian, who lived in the 300s and was a friend of St Basil the Great. He preached a sermon on the birth of Christ on 25 December 380, or on 6 January 381. It begins: “Christ is born, glorify Him. Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him. Christ on earth; be exalted.”

St Gregory the Theologian, Oration 38, On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ; Thomas Hopko, The Winter Pascha, on the St Sophia Cathedral site

St Cosmas and a hidden line

The Greek books name St Cosmas as the canon’s author. He grew up in Jerusalem beside St John of Damascus, and in AD 743 he became bishop of Maiuma. The first letters of the canon’s stanzas spell a line in Greek: “Christ, made mortal, remains what He was: God.” This hymn gives the first letter.

The Greek Menaion, 25 December; Orthodox Church in America, St Cosmas the Hymnographer