The Orthodox Church carefully prepares each and every feast. This preparation includes o forefeast period, and, sometimes, fasting. Among the feasts during the liturgical year, the Nativity of Christ has the longer and the most developed preparation: the Nativity Fast. This preparation culminates with the ‘Holy Week’ of the Nativity (December 20th- 24th), a spiritual journey God towards Bethlehem along with the Mother of. The ‘Holy Week’ of Nativity has the same structure and similar hymnography with the Great and Holy Week. Though the duration of this liturgical period is the same in the Greek, Slavonic and Romanian traditions, the distribution of the hymns is different in the contemporary Greek and Slavonic Typikon, as well as between the various editions of the Romanian Menaion.
