Orthodox Christmas Day

Orthodox Christmas is recognized thirteen days later than other Christian churches because they follow the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian version of the Western calendar.

Why is it important?

Nearly 12 percent of the world's Christians wait until January 7 to celebrate Christmas, due to many Orthodox churches' decision to adhere to a nearly 2,000-year-old calendar that differs from the one used by most of the world today.

History

Origin

The origins of the split over when to officially recognize the birth of Jesus Christ stretch back all the way to A.D. 325, when a group of Christian bishops convened the religion's first ecumenical conference. One of the First Council of Nicaea's most important agenda items was to standardize Easter's date. 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.C. on the advice of Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes in an attempt to clean up Rome's own messy lunar calendar.

The issue

But Sosigenes' calculations overestimated the length of the solar year by about 11 minutes. As a result, the calendar and the solar year became increasingly out of sync as the centuries progressed.

By 1582, the dates of important Christian holidays had drifted so much that Pope Gregory XIII was concerned. He convened another group of astronomers and proposed a new calendar, known as the Gregorian calendar.

source: nationalgeographic.com

The Schism

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 1054 after centuries of increasing conflict, objected to the change. Following Pope Gregory's course correction would mean accepting an occasional overlap between Passover and Easter—a move that went against holy texts of Orthodox Christianity. So the Orthodox Church rejected the Gregorian calendar and continued to rely on the Julian calendar.

The drift

The calendar drift continued for Orthodox churches. By 1923, there was a 13-day difference between the two calendars, putting Orthodox Christmas 13 days after December 25.

In May 1923, a group of Orthodox leaders met to hash out the issue, at the Pan-Orthodox Congress held in Constantinople. Some countries adopted a revised Julian Calendar.

The Revised Julian Calendar

This new version of the Julian calendar shares its dates with the Gregorian calendar, though it doesn't share every leap year. Known as the revised Julian calendar, it was adopted by several Orthodox churches after the council, including the churches of Greece, Cyprus, and Romania. Those churches now celebrate Christmas on December 25.

Julian Calendar

The Church of Russia had been pressured to adopt the Gregorian calendar by the Bolsheviks, who abandoned the Julian calendar at the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Revising the calendar wasn't just a matter of religion: to Churches threatened under Communism, a calendar adjustment was a matter of survival. Both Russia and Egypt refused. Ohers, like Poland, adopted a revised calendar, then dropped it later.

Celebrations

Whether you celebrate on December 25 or January 7, Christmas has evolved from a pagan holiday to a Christian celebration to a time for everyone, no matter their religion, climes, or associations.

It is a time for everyone to make merry and engage in traditions and customs like organizing and attending Christmas carols and concerts, putting up Christmas trees and lights, making beautiful Christmas cookies, and more.