11/29/2017
Since December 2017 Ukraine people including men and women of all ages will celebrate Christmas twice and the country gets December 25 as a day off. Till now Christmas was celebrated only once January 7 according to the Julian calendar, the date when all Orthodox Christians celebrate it.
At the moment, almost 11,000 Catholic and Protestant Ukrainian communities celebrate Christmas on the Gregorian calendar (December 25), while 23,000 Orthodox communities follow the Julian calendar adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate. Catholics account for 30% of Christians in Ukraine.
Of course, the majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, and for them, Christmas is still January 7.
At the same time, the Catholic Church (just under a million parishioners) does not hide the joy because the Catholic parishioners won't have to ask the employers for the day off for Christmas.
We believe this is the greatest event because from now you're welcome to plan your Christmas holidays for December with your beloved if she is Catholic and during the holidays you will feel Christmas spirit of the same kind.
The conflict around the calendar is rooted in the Soviet period. In 1923, when the Russian Orthodox Church was brutally suppressed and controlled by Bolshevik power, it refused to follow the recommendations of the world Orthodox cathedral, which established the date of Christmas on December 25 instead of January 7. "And only the countries that were under the considerable influence of the Soviet Union did not agree to carry out the decisions of the council.
