Orthodox Christian Christmas: Russia, Ukraine, Serbia among countries celebrating on January 7

Greek City Times ^ | Jan 7, 2022

[CondoleezzaProtege]

In some Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries, Christmas is officially celebrated on January 7.

That is because numerous Orthodox Christian churches follow the Julian calendar for religious celebrations.

The Julian calendar runs 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, the standard international calendar in use today.

The Julian calendar took effect under the reign of Julius Caesar in 45BC.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII created a new calendar to correct the discrepancy between calendar time and calculated astronomical time. It became known as the Gregorian calendar.

But to begin with, only Catholic countries adopted the changes and Orthodox Christian countries remained on the Julian calendar.

Over time, those countries adopted the Gregorian calendar for secular use but the Orthodox churches continued to base their liturgical calendar on the Julian timetable.

In 1923 a revised version of the Julian calendar was introduced bringing Christmas Day in line with the Gregorian calendar, but it was only adopted by some of the Orthodox Christian countries including Greece, Cyprus and Romania.

[KC_Lion]

Merry Christmas~! ❄❄⛪

[chajin]

С Рождеством

[JoanSmith]

Correction:

We do not celebrate Nativity on January 7th, we celebrate Nativity on December 25th. The Roman pope changed the calendar in the 1500s, skipping ahead 13 days. Since all other Christian faiths came out of Rome, all protestant faiths also celebrate on the “new calendar.”

We celebrate Nativity on December 25th, according to the old calendar, which appears to be January 7th according to the secular calendar.

Christ is Born!

[BeauBo]

Once Christmas is over, we’ll see if the invasion of Ukraine is on.

Probably take a few weeks for everyone to come back from leave and get ready.

[Campion]

The Roman pope changed the calendar in the 1500s, skipping ahead 13 days

It's 13 days now. In 1582 it was only 10 days.

Someone is going to read this and suppose that it's just another case of gross Papal hubris and overreach. In fact, God -- not the Pope -- made the solar year 365 days, 5 hours, and about 47 minutes. The Julian calendar assumes a solar year of 365 days and 6 hours, exactly.

Between Nicaea and 1582, that 13 minute per year difference added up such that the observed astronomical vernal equinox was occurring 10 days earlier than Nicaea put it. (More accurate observations have Nicaea being about a day late, to boot, but we still use the Nicaean date of 21 March.)

The Gregorian calendar adjusted things back to where they were at the time of Nicaea. The Julian calendar had already slipped 4 days between the Our Lord's birth and Nicaea. Christmas, at December 25th, originally fell at or almost on the winter solstice. By Nicaea, the winter solstice was more like December 21, where it is (on the Gregorian calendar) today.

[OldCorps]

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

[Petrosius]

We should not deify the old calendar. It was produced by the then pagan Pontifex Maximus, Julius Caesar. He had attempted to replace the older Roman lunar calendar with a purely solar one. Unfortunately, his math was a little off. Pope Gregory just adjusted it so that the calendar year matched the actual solar year, which is what Caesar had attempted with the calendar in the first place.

The calendar is neither Scripture nor revelation. I have never really understood why the Orthodox have wanted to stick with a flawed pagan civil calendar that is mathematically incorrect.

[delchiante]

Quote
Someone is going to read this and suppose that it’s just another case of gross Papal hubris and overreach.

It’s prophecy Campion.
Its just Daniel’s 4th Beast, and the Julian, and the Antichrist, The Papacy and Pope, doing what they were predicted to do..

Change times and law.

The very first protesters of Rome never had to live under the Antichrist Pope Gregory calendar..

The very first protesters were unapologetic about leveling the Antichrist charge against the Papacy and Pope..

Maybe they were born at the wrong time.
They should have been born today to see the fruit of the Antichrist’s calendar on time and law..

Especially the first/chief importance of the gospel.

But that’s why it says Satan deceives the whole world..

The whole world thinks today is the Father’s 6th work day.

It isn’t.
But hey,Islam and Judaism wander after Daniel’s 4th Beast and Antichrist (Papacy/Pope) too..

Awaiting the day the Light comes on and Israel relearns that Passover is the Father’s 6th work day.
And Passover is always the 14th Day.He changes not.
And the 15th is always His Sabbath.
And the 16th is always the First Work Day of the 3rd week in the Father’s calendar.
Paul’s first/chief importance of the gospel..
Passover,Unleavened Bread,First Fruits.
Instead of Satan’s false goddess frigg day, false God saturn day, and false God sun day.

Those days,the Father’s 14th,15th,16th, will be the Roman Beast and Antichrist’s false God moon day 1/17,false God tiws day 1/18, and false God woden’s day 1/19..

He changes not.
But times and law have.

Thanks to Satan, a Roman Beast and Antichrist Papacy/Pope.

And most won’t buy gold, refined by fire..

They are forced to buy and sell what Satan, the Beast and Antichrist peddle..

Prophetic..

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

[MomwithHope]

Still celebrate both Christmases. I still have orthodox relatives plus our foster daughter and husband in Belarus.

[Honorary Serb]

Indeed He is Born!!!!

Merry Christmas to all Old Calendar Orthodox Christians!!!!

[Campion]

That's ridiculous. Why is there anything sacred about a calendar devised by a pagan Roman emperor? Why is it somehow wrong to fix that calendar to keep the Date of the Christian Passover close to that of the Jewish Passover.

Jews in Our Lord's time used the Jewish calendar for sacred things and the Babylonian calendar for profane (= business transactions) things. Christian at and before Nicaea picked the Julian calendar over either of those. Take up your quarrel with them, not with a Pope who merely adjusted the calendar he was given to correspond better to the architecture God gave the heavens.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Same here.

[Campion]

The whole world thinks today is the Father’s 6th work day.

And, BTW, as I've tried to explain to you several times, the Gregorian calendar reform had absolutely nothing -- nothing at all -- to do with the days of the week. It went from Thursday*, September 4, 1582 to Friday*, September 15, 1582. If the world is wrong about today being "the Father's 6th work day," they were just as wrong before Gregory as they were after.

*And, as I've also pointed out to you before, the names "Thursday" and "Friday" came from English people speaking the English language. The official Vatican-endorsed names of those days are "Feria V" ("Weekday 5") and "Feria VI" ("Weekday 6").

[MomwithHope]

Dad went to the Serbian Orthodox xhurch St Michael on the East Side, blocks away from our home I guess that church moved to Indiana.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Actually, our adherence to the Old Calendar has less to do with Pope Gregory (who could change whatever he wanted, we just weren't under his authority), and more to with Lenin changing the civil Russian Calendar from Julian to Gregorian in 1918, and the faithful Orthodox resisting him and all his works and refusing to accept for God's Church a new calendar imposed by the greatest tyranny the world has ever known, Communism. Just let us be.

Christos Razhdajetsja! Slavite Jeho!

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

[Campion]

Well, you certainly won't get any argument from me there, LOL !!

(I'm a big fan of Russian history & culture, and very definitely _NOT_ a fan of Marxist communism in any form.)

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Amen! Alleluia!

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Thanks!

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

That’s my wife’s family’s church. They built a new church in Lansing and sold the old one to Ethiopians.