When you "ban" Christmas and go to celebrate it
Putin and Poroshenko. Photo: Kommersant
In other words, the same people who publicly voted to ban the UOC and cancel the public holiday on 7 January, the day of "Moscow" Christmas, went to celebrate it quietly. Or rather, they probably remembered that during church feasts "working is a sin".
And this all feels strangely familiar.
The same Bolsheviks who publicly opposed the Church and even shut down temples, secretly took their children to baptise and receive communions with priests hiding in distant villages.
The same thing was done by the "patriotic" officials and even the "priests" of Filaret during the UOC-KP era: publicly, they fiercely criticized the "Moscow Church" but privately, "just in case," they performed Sacraments in it to make sure everything was "as it should be".
Times change, but not the rulers.
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