Ukraine will celebrate Christmas on December 25 and not on January 7, as it used to be, after a law signed this Friday by President Volodimir Zelenski.
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“Ukrainian people have long been subject to Russian ideology in almost all spheres of life, including with the Julian calendar and the celebration of Christmas on January 7,” says the explanatory note to the bill passed by parliamentarians in mid-July.
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However, the text continues, “the powerful renaissance of the Ukrainian nation continues. The continuous and fruitful struggle for their identity contributes to the awareness and desire of every Ukrainian to live their own life, with their own traditions, their own holidays.“.
The decision to move the date of the Christmas celebration is the latest in a series of steps Ukraine has taken in recent years to distance itself from Moscow. It had already started to do so with the renaming of streets and towns that evoke the Soviet era.
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The mighty renaissance of the Ukrainian nation continues.
The law illustrates the rift that has grown between the Ukrainian and Russian churches for several years, further reinforced by the Russian invasion launched in February 2022.
Located for several centuries under the religious tutelage of Russia, The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was declared independent from the Moscow Patriarchate in 2019 and ‘autocephalous’.
In May 2022, the Ukrainian Church loyal to Moscow also declared its independence in reaction to Russian Patriarch Cyril’s support for the war.
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A handful of Orthodox churches around the world, including those in Russia and Serbia, still use the Julian calendar for their religious celebrations. and not the Gregorian calendar, conceived at the end of the 16th century.
The latest on the war
Russia announced this Friday that it shot down two Ukrainian missiles over the southwest of its territory and that the fall of the debris from the first caused at least 15 minor injuries in a town near the border with Ukraine.
“The Kiev regime carried out a terrorist attack against residential infrastructure in the city of Taganrog using an S-200 air defense missile converted to an attack version,” the Russian defense ministry said on Telegram.
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“Russian air defense systems detected the Ukrainian missile and intercepted it in flight,” the ministry added, adding that the debris “fell in Taganrog territory.”
According to Vasili Golubev, governor of the Rostov-on-Don region, where this city of 250,000 is located, at least 15 people were injured next to a cafe in the Russian city of Taganrog, near Ukraine.
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“At this time, 15 people (…) have been slightly injured by receiving glass splinters,” the governor added on Telegram. He had initially said that a rocket “probably exploded in the center of Taganrog.”
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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