Traditionally Ukrainians celebrated Christmas on 7 January, but for the last few years both 25 December and 7 January have been set as public holidays. For 2020 both dates will remain public holidays, but there are talks about cancelling the day off on 7 January.
Ukrainians celebrate Christmas twice: On 25 December and 7 January
The date of 25 December as the celebration of Christmas, as you are probably used to, had been added to the list of public holidays in Ukraine recently. It is marked as “Catholic Christmas” in the calendar, while 7 January is the Orthodox Christmas.
The Russian Orthodox Church refused to change dates to the more widely adopted Gregorian calendar, thus the dates of holidays are 13 days apart: Such is the astronomical error between the Gregorian and Julian calendars.
The reasons for that are explained in the post here.
- In fact, 1 in 2 Ukrainians would prefer to celebrate Christmas on 25 December (whether it’s called “New Julian” or “Gregorian” calendar, both would give the same date), a recent online poll by Segodnya
- However, 39% of respondents, or 4 out of 10, still feel more inclined towards 7 January.
- For the remaining 14% of respondents it doesn’t matter when they have a holiday.
In 2020 both dates are still marked as public holidays in the calendar. But it could be only a matter of time until the date 7 January is scrapped from the list of days off.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church recently “divorced” the Russian Orthodox Church and went its own way, so it’s the matter for their leaders to make the move.
Share this article
CommentsКомментарии ( 0 )