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Welcome to the Quillette podcast, hosted on alternate weeks by me, Jonathan K.

And by Iona Italia.

Quillette is where Freethought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary. You are about to hear a free preview of this

week's episode. To hear the full episode, and to get access to all our podcasts and articles,

visit us at quillette.com and click the subscribe button. This week, it's time for our annual

Christmas podcast. And in keeping with recent Quillette tradition, it's going to have a historical

theme. Specifically, we'll be talking about the Christmas

tradition, and much else besides, in the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire,

also known to us, by the lovely name of Byzantium. This was the continuation of the original

Roman Empire that survived the fall of Rome in the 5th century AD.

And this Eastern Byzantine Greek-speaking empire, though more obscure to many of us as compared

...