By St. Dimitri of Rostov
The celebration of the Reception of the Lord was established in the reign of Justinian,1 but earlier, although the Reception of the Lord was commemorated in the Church,2 it was not solemnly celebrated. The pious Emperor Justinian established that this feast should be celebrated as a feast of the Lord and the Theotokos, along with other great feasts. Special circumstances motivated the establishment of this festival. During the reign of Justinian in Byzantium and its environs, for three months, starting from the last days of October, there was a strong plague, so that at first five thousand people died a day, and then ten thousand; the bodies of even rich and high-ranking people were left without burial, for the servants and slaves all died and there was no one to bury the masters themselves.
