When do orthodox christians celebrate christmas

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. People dressed in traditional costumes sing Christmas carols in Kiev, Ukraine. Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on 7 January. Julius Caesar introduced a calendar in 46BC based on the advice of Egyptian astronomer Sosigene, who had calculated the lunar year. But his measurements were wrong by about 11 minutes, and over the centuries the dates of major Christian holidays had drifted so much it became an issue.

To fix this, the Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in , and this is the one we still use today. This means that there is a day gap between the two calendars, so Christmas Day in those nations falls on what we now know as 7 January.

States including Greece, Cyprus, and Romania agreed to move to the new calendar, but other Orthodox churches, like those of Russia and Egypt, refused. They make holes in the ice to bless the water if it is frozen. Little importance is given to gift exchanges and the commercialized Christmas.

Some Orthodox Christians observe the Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds those who visited baby Jesus on January 6, followed by the Adoration of the Magi three wise men or kings on January 7. Church liturgies on Orthodox Christmas Eve January 6 may be longer than usual but many people find them inspiring.

Some countries, such as Armenia, observe Christmas Day on January 6. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, who many Christians believe is the son of God. His birth date is unknown because there is little information about his early life. Herod, who was a king of Judaea, died in 4 BCE. Christmas on January 7 is also known as Old Christmas Day. Eleven days were dropped to make up for the calendar discrepancy that accumulated with Julian calendar when England and Scotland switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in The origins of the split over when to officially recognize the birth of Jesus Christ stretch back all the way to A.

To do so, they decided to base it on the Julian calendar , a solar calendar which Roman ruler Julius Caesar had adopted in 46 B. As a result, the calendar and the solar year became increasingly out of sync as the centuries progressed. He convened another group of astronomers and proposed a new calendar , known as the Gregorian calendar. The new calendar solved a number of tricky issues that had accumulated over the years, and the majority of the Christian world adopted it.

But the Orthodox Church , which had split into its own arm of Christianity during the Great Schism of after centuries of increasing conflict, objected to the change. So the Orthodox Church rejected the Gregorian calendar and continued to rely on the Julian calendar.

It stayed that way for centuries, and the calendar drift continued for Orthodox churches. By , there was a day difference between the two calendars, putting Orthodox Christmas 13 days after December That explains the existence of two Christmases, but the calendar crisis continued for Orthodox churches. In May , a group of Orthodox leaders met to hash out the issue.

Discussion was heated: Historian Aram Sarkisian writes that the Church of Russia had been pressured to adopt the Gregorian calendar by the Bolsheviks, who abandoned the Julian calendar shortly after the Russian Revolution began. Known as the revised Julian calendar, it was adopted by several Orthodox churches after the council, including the churches of Greece, Cyprus, and Romania.