Orthodox Christmas

When it falls

7 January on the civil calendar, which is 25 December on the Julian calendar the Russian, Serbian, Georgian, Ethiopian and Jerusalem churches keep. The Julian calendar runs thirteen days behind the Gregorian.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The same Nativity, kept on the older calendar. When Pope Gregory reformed the calendar in 1582 the Orthodox churches stayed with the Julian year, and the gap has grown to thirteen days. Russia's civil calendar changed in 1918 but the Church did not, so Christmas falls after the secular New Year, and the Soviet years moved the tree and the presents to New Year's Eve, where they have stayed; Christmas itself became a public holiday again in 1991.

Ethiopia keeps the day as Genna, and at Lalibela the pilgrims in white fill the rock-hewn churches for the night; in Serbia the family brings an oak branch (badnjak) into the house on the eve and burns it.

How the day is kept

• The forty-day Nativity fast before, no meat, dairy or eggs, ending with the Christmas Eve supper (Sochelnik) of twelve meatless dishes after the first star is seen.
• The all-night vigil and the Divine Liturgy at midnight; the Patriarch's service at Christ the Saviour in Moscow is broadcast across Russia.
• Carolling (kolyadki) in the villages of Russia and Ukraine, and the Svyatki, the twelve holy days of visiting and fortune-telling that follow to Epiphany.
• Genna in Ethiopia: the night in church and the game of genna, a hockey played with a wooden ball, on the day.

At the table

Kutya (wheat with honey and poppy seed) opens the Eve supper; roast goose or pork on the day; in Serbia the česnica, a bread with a coin baked in it, broken among the family.

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