Another Christmas and New Year, a question of calendars

Most Christians in the world celebrate the birthday of Jesus on 25 December, but there are also those who stick to tradition, celebrating Old Christmas, or rather, Orthodox Christmas.

Calling 7 January Orthodox Christmas is not so unusual. While many Orthodox Christians in Greece, Romania and Bulgaria have been celebrating Christmas on 25 December for over a hundred years, at the same time, a significant number of Orthodox Christians celebrate it on or around 7 January, following the Julian calendar.

The ancient church set its religious holidays according to the Julian calendar, but after more than a millennium, this calendar deviated more and more from the solar year. So in the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII approved a revised, more astronomically accurate calendar that has borne his name ever since.

Over time, Protestant churches, as well as secular governments, followed the example of Catholics and switched to this calendar. For example, England accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. About 170 years later all Eastern Orthodox churches raised the issue of changing the calendar.

In 1923, an inter-Orthodox meeting adopted a revised Julian calendar, which essentially mirrors the Gregorian calendar. The Greek Orthodox Church as well as churches in Romania and Bulgaria moved Christmas to 25 December. The Russian Orthodox Church, along with the Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as Serbian and Georgian churches, nevertheless remained on the old calendar, continuing celebrating Christmas on 7 January. It was 2017 when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church started celebrating Christmas on 25 December.

“I moved to the coast of Malaga almost 20 years ago and immediately absorbed the local traditions, starting to celebrate Spanish ‘Navidad’ on 25 December. Since my relatives in Ukraine celebrated Christmas on 7 January, things just doubled for me. For several years now, Ukraine has officially celebrated Christmas on 25 December. It's not really a new date! All Eastern Orthodox agree that 25 December is the date of Christmas. The question is whether ‘25 December’ falls on 25 December or 7 January. As for the change, it always takes time for any new things to really take hold. I know many Ukrainians who will celebrate Christmas here on 7 January, even if some of them will already be celebrating it for the second time. It doesn't seem so strange to us because we still, for more than a hundred years, have been celebrating the so-called Old New Year quite widely," Oleksiy, a Poltava native living in Torremolinos, told SUR in English.

Old New Year is an unofficial traditional holiday (after the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted by the Soviet government after the October Revolution), which is celebrated as the beginning of the new year, but according to the Julian calendar and that's why it falls on 14 January.

Both Russian and Ukrainian diasporas have Orthodox churches on the Costa del Sol. Recently, the number of refugees from both countries has increased. After the Russian invasion began in February 2022, millions of Ukrainian citizens were forced to flee the country. Hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens had to escape Putin's regime and mobilisations. Not surprisingly, after the new wave of immigration (from Georgia as well), more people settled on the Costa del Sol and celebrate Christmas in January.