Epiphany
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40 free Epiphany trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Epiphany is one of the oldest feasts in the Christian calendar, and one of the most varied. In Western churches it centers on the Magi, the travelers who followed a star to honor the infant Jesus. In Eastern churches the same feast looks to the start of his public life instead. Around both meanings a remarkable set of customs has grown up, from special cakes with a surprise baked inside to blessings of homes, rivers and the sea. This quiz covers the story as the Gospel tells it, including a few details that nativity plays tend to get wrong, along with the names and legends later attached to the visitors. It also covers what the feast means in church, with its date, its vestments and its place at the end of the Christmas season, and the ways people keep the day in Italy, France, Mexico, Ireland, Russia, Puerto Rico, the United States and beyond. The questions start easy, so they suit families, classrooms and parish groups, and many are pitched for Catholic children learning about the feast. Later rounds add harder questions on history, art and language for anyone who wants a challenge. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Bible never says how many Magi visited Jesus, so what gave rise to the tradition of three?
The number of gifts
The number of gifts fixed the count at three in the West, but Syriac Christians often picture a far larger party of twelve visitors.
Q 02According to the Gospel account read at Epiphany, the Magi found the child Jesus in what kind of place?
A house
A house is where the visitors enter in the Gospel text; the manger of nativity scenes belongs to the shepherds' story in Luke.
Q 03Which gift of the Magi, a resin used in ancient embalming, is taken as a sign of Jesus's death?
Myrrh
Myrrh returns at the end of the story: John's Gospel says a mixture of it with aloes was brought to wrap the body of Jesus for burial.
Q 04In Italian folklore, which soot-covered figure flies on a broomstick to bring children presents on Epiphany Eve?
La Befana
La Befana comes down the chimney, which explains the soot, and her name is popularly said to be a worn-down form of Epifania.
Q 05Which Shakespeare comedy takes its title from the eve of Epiphany, the close of the Christmas season?
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night was probably written as an entertainment for that very evening, and its revels are opposed by the killjoy steward Malvolio.
Q 06Giotto painted the Magi's star as which returning visitor to the sky, later met by a spacecraft named for him?
Halley's Comet
Halley's Comet blazed over Italy in 1301, and Giotto's fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel gives the Christmas star a long fiery tail.
Q 07In Mexico, whoever finds the baby figurine in the Epiphany rosca de reyes must later supply which food?
Tamales
Tamales are served on February 2, the day Mexican families dress a figure of the infant Jesus and take it to church to be blessed.
Q 08Which German city's cathedral was built around a gilded shrine said to contain the bones of the three Magi?
Cologne
Cologne began its present cathedral in 1248 to shelter the relics, and the shrine ranks among the largest reliquaries in the Western world.
Q 09Which ruler asked the Magi to report back to him once they had found the newborn child in Judea?
King Herod
King Herod claimed he wanted to worship the child too, but when the visitors slipped away he ordered the killing of the town's infant boys.
Q 10At a Greek Orthodox Epiphany blessing of the sea, what does the priest throw in for swimmers to retrieve?
A cross
A cross is cast into the water to recall the baptism of Jesus, and the swimmer who brings it back to the priest receives a special blessing.
Q 11On which fixed date do Western churches traditionally keep Epiphany, though many now move it to a Sunday?
January 6
January 6 on the old Julian calendar now falls thirteen days later, which is why many Orthodox churches keep the feast on January 19.
Q 12Which New Testament book is the only one to tell the story of the Magi following a star?
Matthew
Matthew tells the birth story from Joseph's side and has no shepherds, while Luke has the shepherds and the manger but no visitors from afar.
Q 13How were the Magi warned not to go back to the king in Jerusalem after visiting the child Jesus?
By a dream
In a dream the visitors were told to stay away, so they left by another road, and the same chapter has Joseph guided the same way three times.
Q 21In New Orleans, Epiphany opens the Carnival season of king cakes and parades, which ends on which day?
Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, and whoever finds the tiny plastic baby hidden in a king cake is expected to buy the next one.
Q 22In France, whoever finds the charm hidden in an Epiphany galette des rois gets to wear what?
A paper crown
A paper crown is sold with the cake, and to keep the sharing fair the youngest child hides under the table and calls out who gets each slice.
Q 23In Puerto Rico, what do children leave in a box under the bed on Epiphany Eve for the Three Kings' animals?
Fresh grass
Fresh grass is left for the Kings' camels or horses, depending on the household, and Puerto Rican carvers often show the Magi arriving on horseback.
Q 14After asking for the newborn king in Jerusalem, the Magi were sent to which town named by the prophet Micah?
Bethlehem
Bethlehem was King David's home town, which is why the scribes consulted in Jerusalem expected a future ruler of Israel to come from there.
Q 15Eastern Orthodox churches use Epiphany to celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John in which river?
The Jordan
The Jordan even names the feast in Bulgaria, where the day is known as Yordanovden, and pilgrims gather on its east bank for the feast each year.
Q 16Epiphany also recalls Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in which village in Galilee?
Cana
Cana is where John's Gospel places the first miracle of Jesus, which the Western feast remembers alongside the Magi and the baptism.
Q 17Which blessed item do many Catholics use at Epiphany to write the initials C, M and B above their front doors?
Chalk
Chalk marks stand for the traditional names of the Magi and for a short Latin prayer, and they are framed by the digits of the new year.
Q 18Which name does Western tradition give to one of the Magi, alongside Caspar and Melchior?
Balthazar
Balthazar and his companions are never named in the Bible, and other churches use quite different names: Syrian Christians call one of them Larvandad.
Q 19At the baptism of Jesus, recalled at Epiphany, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of which bird?
A dove
A dove descends as a voice speaks from heaven, a scene Orthodox teaching counts as one of only two where all three persons of the Trinity appear together.
Q 20What color vestments does a Catholic priest wear at Epiphany Mass, as throughout the Christmas and Easter seasons?
White
White is kept for feasts of the Lord and of saints who were not martyrs, while red is worn for martyrs, Pentecost and Good Friday.
Q 24What does Italy's Epiphany gift-bringer traditionally leave in the stockings of children who have behaved badly?
Coal
Coal is the classic penalty, though in poorer parts of rural Sicily a stick was once left instead, and well-behaved children get toys and sweets.
Q 25In Ireland, Epiphany is nicknamed Little Christmas, a day of rest traditionally given to whom?
Women
Women handed the cooking and cleaning to the men for the day, a custom kept up most strongly in Cork and Kerry as an evening out with friends.
Q 26In Germany and Austria, children dressed as the Magi go from door to door at Epiphany doing what for charity?
Singing songs
Singing songs earns donations for children in poorer countries, and the young visitors carry a star on a pole as they go.
Q 27In which African country is Epiphany kept as Timkat, with models of the Ark of the Covenant carried in procession?
Ethiopia
Ethiopia keeps a replica of the Ark, called a tabot, on every church altar, and at Timkat a priest carries it wrapped in rich cloth on his head.
Q 28In Russia, where do many Orthodox believers take a ritual plunge on the midwinter feast of Epiphany?
An ice hole
An ice hole is cut in a frozen lake or river, and some Russians hold that all water turns holy that day, even what runs from the kitchen tap.
Q 29Which Florida city, nicknamed Epiphany City, is known for a Greek Orthodox dive by teenage boys each year?
Tarpon Springs
Tarpon Springs owes its Greek community to sponge divers recruited from Greece from 1905, after which sponging became the town's main business.
Q 30Outside church, the word epiphany is now most often used for which kind of everyday experience?
A sudden realization
A sudden realization is the modern sense, the kind credited to Archimedes in his bath and to Newton watching an apple fall.