In Kiev, the celebration of Christmas on January 7 was called a mistake. They have been calling to celebrate one of the main Christian holidays according to the Gregorian calendar since 2017, advertising this decision as a “vaccine against the Russian world.” However, parishioners refuse to change traditions. Izvestia examined the details of the conflict between the OCU and Orthodox Ukrainians.
Calendar questions
Ukrainians began to be taught to celebrate Christmas on December 25 in 2017. The authorities made this date a public holiday, which implies an additional day off on a par with January 7.
In December 2018, the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was announced, which became the main lobbyist for the transition to the new calendar. On January 5, 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople handed over the Tomos of autocephaly to the head of the OCU Epiphany (Dumenko). The document is not recognized by the majority of Orthodox churches in the world, including the Jerusalem and Moscow Patriarchates.
Soon Epiphanius came up with a proposal to postpone the celebration of Christmas on December 25, referring to the fact that many Orthodox churches have already switched to the Gregorian calendar. He then left the decisive word in making the appropriate decision to the flock: “We can do this in the future, if the Ukrainian people perceive it.”
However, in December 2021, Epiphanius drastically changed his tone. Now he calls the celebration of Christmas according to the Julian calendar a mistake. The head of the OCU assigns ten years to “correct the error”…
In Ukraine, an aggressive campaign was launched to discredit the Julian calendar, combined with offensive attacks on the Russians… In the videos published on the network, native speakers of the Russian language are portrayed as marginal, always drunk people celebrating Christmas on January 7th. Russophobic propaganda goes under the slogans “We celebrate Christmas together with the whole world on December 25!” and “Christmas with the whole world – a vaccine against the“ Russian world ”.
“Reform is not related to the needs of the Church”
– We need to make a reservation right away that we are talking not just about the date of the celebration of Christmas, but about the transition to another calendar, which will affect all other church holidays. The transition to the new system will lead to the emergence of problems that have not previously existed in the church environment in Ukraine– said the religious scholar Alexander Voznesensky to Izvestia.
An expert on church-political issues focused on the fact that, on the one hand, some local Orthodox churches (among them the Russian Orthodox Church, the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the Georgian Patriarchate and others) use the Julian calendar to calculate fixed holidays. Others are New Julian, which came into use only in the early 1920s.
– Almost all Churches that have carried out calendar reforms have faced the problem of schism. – the so-called old calendarists. Therefore, it is quite natural that Epiphany Dumenko, knowing about such an experience, seriously fears the same in his structure, which is already experiencing stagnation, and in some places even decline. Even the hierarchs of the OCU declare that every year fewer students are recruited to the seminary. There are fewer and fewer people in society who want to connect their lives with this organization. In such conditions, the emergence of a split can lead to the complete collapse of the OCU. Therefore, Epiphany Dumenko laid down 10 years for the calendar reform…
On the other hand, the religious scholar believes, it should be borne in mind that in Ukrainian realities, the initiative for calendar reform belongs to non-Orthodox Christians. Initially, this idea was promoted by Uniate Catholics through the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). Several years ago, the UGCC carried out pilot projects for the transfer of certain foreign dioceses to the New Julian calendar. After that, in 2017, it was possible to achieve the appointment of December 25 as a day off in the country.
– Now both the UGCC, and the OCU, and Patriarch Bartholomew and the Pope say that in the foreseeable future they are all striving for some kind of unity. But the unification of the OCU with the Uniates cannot take place before the rapprochement of the Vatican and Constantinople. Everyone understands that in order to unite such structures, some kind of unification of different spheres of activity, including the church calendar, is needed. Therefore, for Dumenko, this is a forced and necessary step.
As Voznesensky notes, not only Orthodox, but also Ukrainian Uniates are used to celebrating Christmas on January 7.
– In December, Christmas in Ukraine has always been celebrated only by Roman Catholics, who make up about 2% of the population, and a small percentage of Protestants, who have never been an authority for the Orthodox. Therefore, December 25 in Ukraine is often called “Catholic Christmas”. And for many Orthodox Christians, such an initiative looks like something alien and imposed from the outside.…
An expert on church-political issues expressed the opinion that calendar reform is very often presented in society as a political action.
– For those who go to church twice a year – on Christmas and Easter – this can still be an argument. But for believers who regularly attend church, this is a kind of marker, signaling that the reform is not related to the needs of the Church, but imposed by politicians.
77% of Ukrainians want to celebrate Christmas on January 7
According to a sociological survey of the Ukrainian group “Rating”, 77% of respondents celebrate Christmas only on January 7th. Twice a year – both December 25 and January 7 – 15% of the respondents do it. 5% of Ukrainians do not celebrate the holiday. Only on December 25, 3% of the country’s inhabitants join the service – 25 times less than in the Julian style. The study does not specify what denominations the respondents belonged to.
Epiphanius noted that knows about this trend… He does not hide that in 2021 during the holidays “The temples on the 25th will be empty, and on the 7th they will be full”…
– Most Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7th. And there is a certain stratum of citizens – especially those who are oriented towards the West – who are trying to celebrate December 25, ”Ukrainian political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko told Izvestia.
In his opinion, the holidays are also a matter of fashion.
– If further Christmas at the end of December is planted (as, for example, Halloween and Valentine’s Day came), presented as a kind of innovation as opposed to ossified traditions, then with a change of generations, a change in the calendar may come…
UOC: “No one can forbid us to praise Christ”
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church told Izvestia that the celebration of Christmas according to the Julian calendar is beyond doubt.
– The Julian calendar remained in the Church. But the state replaced it with the Gregorian, “so that it was like in Europe”… That is, it is not the Churches, but the state that needs to change the calendar, but this will not happen, so we just live in peace and celebrate Christmas, ” said Archpriest Alexander Ovcharenko, press secretary of the Zaporozhye diocese of the UOC.
According to the clergyman, Ukrainians are persistently told that “in order to break away from Moscow, we must celebrate Christmas together with Europe.”
– Those who promote the new date do not think about theology and not about people, it is obvious. This is pure politics. As, for example, the ban on studying the Russian language in schools or the translation of the Ukrainian language from Cyrillic to Latin.
Archpriest Alexander Ovcharenko also drew attention to the fact that the most ancient Jerusalem Orthodox Church also celebrates the Nativity of Christ on January 7th. “Epiphanius and others like him, let them change what they want,” the priest remarked sarcastically.
– All the same, they will not succeed. Believers and sane people are against it, even statistics speaks about it. It means that people will celebrate the Great Feast according to the old date and our temples will be open. No one can forbid us to praise Christas our love, conscience, canons and common sense dictate. The only thing they can take from us is a day off. But this is not the meaning of the Nativity of Christ!
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