In the early fourth century, the church fixed the date as 25 December, the date of the winter solstice in the Roman Empire. It is nine months after Annunciation on 25 March, also the Roman date of the spring equinox. The Catholics adopted this immediately and it spread into Protestant faiths.
Orthodox uses a date from the Julian calendar from 46 AD.
Their brand is more uncorrupted by the Roman Empire.
And no, nobody here a decade ago gave a moment’s though to getting the Orthodox Christians to coordinate with western churches. (Except the Pope of course)
Many Orthodox use December 25th and in the past FR Christians would be fine with that, I don’t think if we dig up those old threads that the FR Christians would be shown to be angry at more Orthodox joining us as we see now, now that it is considered as rather than embracing a more American and Western Christian tradition as instead moving away from Russia.
I remember how, back in the olden golden days of FR on the old Balkans threads, Orthodox Freepers wished Catholic and Protestant Freepers a merry Christmas on December 25, then the Catholics and Protestants wished their Orthodox brethren a happy Christmas on January 7.
I also remember how, back in the 1990s in former Yugoslavia, even during the conflicts there, normal Croats and Serbs reminisced about the good old days when Serbs would visit their Croat friends to join in their celebration of Christmas on December 25, and Croats would visit their Serb friends to celebrate Orthodox Christmas on January 7. Both seemed to genuinely regret the loss of those happy times when, as they said, they got to have “two Christmases”.
I don’t recall anyone on FR trying to push the Orthodox into switching to December 25 — although Catholics and Protestants sometimes half-jokingly said they were a bit jealous of the Orthodox because they got to shop the after-Christmas sales before their Christmas. It was all very friendly and fun. I miss those days.