If you have listened to Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ you will know that winter, for all its downpours, snowfalls and icy pavements, has its own quiet beauty.

For Christians, among whom the author ranks as a Bishop in the Orthodox Church, Christmas is the inauguration of the new creation, ‘The Son of God becomes the Son of Man’ - Jesus Christ, Who was born humbly in a cave in Bethlehem and later crucified, rising gloriously from the dead the third day.

Christmas is always a time of joy for those who see, as well as the turning of the year, the pattern behind Jesus’ miraculous birth, and His wonderful message for humanity. It is a message not of division and exclusivity, but of all-encompassing love and joy.

And joy flows through Bishop Paul’s poems, as he reflects on the short days and their theological impact. Writing in the clear English verse so familiar to his readers, he gives us sharp yet sensitive reminders of what the Feast of Christ’s Nativity can mean to us all.

Bishop Paul of Tracheia has already published three volumes of Practical Theology in Verse (Athena Press, 2004 & 2005), as well as the inspirational Fifty Sonnets for Pentecost (2005). Born in East Anglia during the war years, he has served the Orthodox Church (Oecumenical Patriarchate) as priest, then as bishop. He retired in 2001 to a small monastic athonite community in the French Vercors where he now lives a secluded life, rarely leaving the monastic territory.