On Christmas, politics, calendars and feuds
Before the 1917 Revolution, Christmas was celebrated on December 25th, but after that, it was moved to 7th January. Now, the OCU and UGCC have returned to December 25th. Did they get rid of the Soviet past or, on the contrary, embrace it?
Against the backdrop of President Zelensky's triumphant reports, as if all Ukrainians have, for the second year in a row, uniformly switched to celebrating Christmas according to the new style (along with similar statements from the leadership of the OCU and UGCC), pictures of early 20th-century calendars began circulating online, showing Christmas marked precisely on 25th December. Based on these calendars, propagandists started pushing the narrative that Christmas was originally celebrated on 25th December, but then the Bolsheviks moved it to 7th January, and now, at last, we are finally getting rid of the Soviet past the Soviet past and returning the holiday to 25th December. This is, of course, amusing, but the gullible consumer of propaganda begins to believe that the OCU, together with the UGCC, is indeed restoring the original Christmas date, while the UOC stubbornly clings to Soviet heritage.
In fact, the Church has always celebrated Christmas on 25th December – but according to the Julian calendar, which our ancestors followed until 1918. You can take a modern church liturgical calendar and verify that Christmas falls on 25th December according to the old style. The date 7th January came about because in 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic (following the Bolsheviks) introduced the new Gregorian calendar, shifting all dates back by 13 days. Since the Church refused to adopt this change and move Christmas (along with other holidays), it turned out that according to the new style, Christmas now falls on 7th January.
Calendar issues
The Ukrainian authorities have decided to move Christmas in the Bolshevik style – forcibly, rudely, without considering the opinion of millions of Ukrainian citizens. What to say if Zelensky even cancelled the 7th January as a day off? But if we dig into history, this is precisely how the introduction of the Gregorian calendar took place in both the 16th and 20th centuries. It is likely that even its authors, a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigenes, were aware of the imperfections of the Julian calendar.
Under this calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, the year consists of 365.25 days. The tropical (solar) year, i.e. the time it takes the Sun to complete one full cycle of the seasons, is a variable amount, although only very slightly. For instance, at noon on 1st January 2000, the tropical year was 365.2421897 days. This discrepancy meant that the Julian year lasted 11 minutes and 15 seconds longer than the tropical year, so every 128 years an extra day would accumulate. As a result, the Christmas holiday, which in the 4th century almost coincided with the winter solstice, gradually shifted towards spring. However, this discrepancy posed the greatest problem for the calculation of Easter. In 325, when the First Council of Nicaea approved (albeit indirectly) the Paschalion, the vernal equinox was conventionally set as 21st March. But every 128 years it shifted by one day, and by the 16th century, this shift had already amounted to 10 days.
Both the East and the West recognized this issue a long time ago. For instance, in 1324, the Byzantine scholar Niсephorus Gregoras suggested to Emperor Andronicus II Palaiologos that the Julian calendar be corrected. However, the emperor rejected the proposal, as he saw no way to harmonize a calendar reform with all the Local Churches. Similarly, in the 14th century, the Byzantine scholar and canonist Matthew Blastares also pointed out the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar. Yet, he not only did not consider the practical implementation of the reform possible but also saw no particular need for it. In 1373, the Byzantine scholar Isaac Argyros also wrote about the calendar’s inaccuracy but likewise suggested leaving things as they were and taking no practical steps to change it.
How the calendar reform was carried out in the West
In the West, the need to correct the Julian calendar was discussed far more actively than in the East. In the 14th century, Pope Clement VI declared that a reform was necessary. In 1414, Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly initiated what we would now call hearings on this issue at the Vatican. The problem was discussed at the Council of Basel in 1437. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1461), an outstanding Catholic theologian, philosopher, and scholar, presented his version of the reform. In 1475, Pope Sixtus IV began the practical preparations for the calendar reform. For this purpose, he invited the German astronomer and mathematician Wolfgang Müller (1436–1476), also known as Regiomontanus, to Rome. Incidentally, he was the first to compile printed astronomical tables, which were used by Columbus and Vasco da Gama.
In 1514, a calendar commission was established at the Lateran Council of the Catholic Church, tasked with developing a proposal for correcting the calendar. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), who by that time had already earned a reputation as a leading scientist, was invited to participate in the commission's work. Copernicus refused to take part in it but presented his opinion in writing. His view was that a calendar reform was premature and could cause problems in the future.
The reform was further developed by the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and later by Popes Pius IV and Pius V. Finally, in 1582, a commission was formed that presented the final proposal for the reform. On 24th February 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued the bull “Inter gravissimas” (English: "Among the most serious..."), which introduced the new calendar, later known as the Gregorian calendar. Under the reform, calendar dates were shifted by 10 days; in October 1582, after the 4th, instead of the 5th, the 15th followed.
In essence, the Gregorian calendar is also not entirely accurate. According to it, the year lasts 365.2425 days, which is closer to the tropical year, but still does not match it exactly. Even when the Gregorian calendar was created, it was assumed that every 400 years, three excess days would be removed. Under the Julian calendar, there were 100 leap years in 400 years, but under the Gregorian, there are only 97. While in the 16th century the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was 10 days, today it is 13. And from 2101, Christmas, which still falls on 25th December according to the Julian calendar, will be celebrated on 8th January, not 7th, according to the Gregorian calendar.
After the calendar reform of 1582, the majority of scholars and nearly all European universities opposed it. Protests, including violent ones, began. Many Catholic countries only accepted the reform after the Pope threatened excommunication for those who disagreed with it. The main argument against the new calendar was that it did not solve all the problems of the old calendar but instead created many new ones, the most significant of which was the disruption of the Paschalion, as established by the First Ecumenical Council.
It is highly likely that Pope Gregory XIII was well aware of the imperfections of his calendar. But why then did he decide to force his reform through, even if it meant bending everyone to his will? After all, the decision on this issue could have been postponed indefinitely. One of the reasons was that, in the same 16th century, events took place that we now know as the Reformation. Vast territories in Europe broke away from the authority of the Catholic Church. The Reformation gave rise to the Counter-Reformation, a struggle to restore the prestige and power of the papacy. Pope Gregory XIII's calendar reform was, in fact, one of the elements of the Counter-Reformation. The Vatican simply wanted to assert its authority in the battle against the Protestants, especially as Gregory XIII was strongly opposed to the Reformation. For example, after Catholics carried out the massacre of the Huguenots on the night of 23rd-24th August 1572 (the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre), in which 30,000 people were brutally killed, the Pope ordered a thanksgiving service.
Protestants already realized then that it was not a question of whether the calendar was right or wrong, but whether they obeyed the papal bull or not. A typical Protestant saying of the time was: Better to disagree with the sun than to agree with the Pope.” In 1583, the famous Protestant theologian Lucas Osiander called the calendar reform godless and labelled the Pope as the Antichrist, who "presumptuously desired to command the stars, as if he were God". Until around 1700, Protestant countries did not adopt the new calendar.
Reaction of the Orthodox Church to the reform
The Orthodox response to the papal calendar reform was much the same. In 1583, Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople (Tranos) convened a synod in Constantinople to address the issue, and they decided the following: "Whosoever does not follow the customs of the Church which the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils have decreed, and the Holy Pascha and calendar which they enacted well for us to follow, but wants to follow the newly invented Paschalion and the new calendar of the atheist astronomers of the Pope; and, opposing the Councils, wishes to overthrow and destroy the doctrines and customs of the Church, which we have inherited from our Fathers, let any such have the anathema and let him be outside the Church and the assembly of the faithful. As for you, Orthodox and pious Christians, remain in what you have learned, in what you were born and raised, and when the need arises, even shed your own blood to preserve the ancestral faith and confession."
Subsequently, the anathema on the Gregorian calendar was actually reaffirmed in an encyclical by Patriarch Cyril V of Constantinople in 1756 and again in an encyclical by the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem in 1848.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the debate over the calendar issue became more active in Orthodox countries. In 1902, Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople (Devedzis), together with a Synod of 12 metropolitans, addressed the Local Orthodox Churches with "the most important and worthy questions requiring careful consideration and study" on the regulation of relations between Orthodoxy and the Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity, "with the aim of bringing them closer to Orthodoxy in the spirit of Christian love". Among these "most important questions" was the calendar reform. The responses essentially boiled down to the view that changing one imperfect calendar for another imperfect one was impractical. The common opinion of the Orthodox Churches was phrased as follows: "We consider it premature and altogether unnecessary to reform the Julian calendar, as it is scientifically inaccurate, in order to bring the civil year more into line with the tropical year. For, from the ecclesiastical point of view we have no need to change the calendar, and science, as experts affirm, has not yet made a definitive statement on the accuracy with which the tropical year is calculated."
At the same time, representatives of the Catholic Church, who were lobbying for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the Orthodox, did not hide the fact that the issue was not about the calendar's correctness but about acknowledging the supremacy of the Roman Pope. For example, Catholic abbot Tondini de Quarenghi, who was travelling through Orthodox countries giving lectures and advocating for the transition to the new style, declared in 1905 that the root of the issue regarding the adoption of the Gregorian calendar was the acceptance or rejection of the Roman Pontiff as "the sole source of ecclesiastical jurisdiction".
Orthodox hierarchs also understood this. For example, the Jerusalem Church, in its response to the letter from Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople, stated: "Under the present conditions in which the Orthodox Church in the East finds itself, constantly subjected to missionary efforts from the adherents and servants of the Catholic and Protestant churches, any decree to reform the prevailing calendar, and especially in favour of the Gregorian one, would be detrimental to Orthodoxy."
Why the Bolsheviks immediately adopted the new style
However, unlike the Church, the secular authorities were guided by entirely different motives. For them, the key considerations were not the correctness of the calendar or even the unity of the faithful, but political expediency. Shortly after the Bolsheviks seized power, they adopted the Gregorian calendar. On 24th January 1918, the Soviet Council of People's Commissars issued a decree that after Wednesday, 31st January 1918, Thursday, 14th February 1918, should follow. Similarly, the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic took the same step. The law "On the Establishment of the New Style Calendar and the Transition to Central European Time in Ukraine" was passed on 12th February 1918 in Korosten.
One might wonder why the Bolsheviks were in such a rush. They had only just come to power, which was still very unstable, with numerous enemies threatening to seize power from them. Why tackle such a large-scale reform, one that the previous tsarist government had been unwilling to implement for decades? The reason lies in the fact that negotiations were underway for Russia to exit World War I, something the Bolsheviks urgently needed. The decree of the People's Commissars explicitly stated: "In order to establish in Russia a timekeeping system that is nearly the same as that of all other civilized nations." The transition to the new style was necessary as a diplomatic argument to create a favorable background for negotiations. Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3rd March 1918, and the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) signed it even earlier, on 9th February 1918. Under the treaty, Germany and Austria-Hungary recognized the sovereignty of the UPR, and the UPR agreed to supply food and raw materials to these states, as well as refrain from entering military alliances directed against them.
An interesting situation arose in the territories of modern Ukraine that had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Secular authorities introduced the Gregorian calendar there as early as the 16th century. However, the Orthodox Church, and later the Greek Catholic Church, continued to follow the old Julian calendar for their liturgical life.
The New Julian Calendar
In the early 1920s, there was an attempt to convert the Orthodox Churches to the new style. In 1923, Patriarch Meletius IV (Metaxakis) of Constantinople held an event in Constantinople, which was presented as a Council of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. In reality, it was a "Pan-Orthodox Congress", which was attended by only nine bishops, many of whom lacked the authority to represent their Local Churches, such as Archbishop Alexander (Nemolovsky) and Archbishop Anastasius (Gribanovsky). Nevertheless, the Congress decided to develop a new calendar, different from the Gregorian one, in order to formally bypass the anathemas imposed on supporters of the Gregorian calendar. The task was entrusted to Serbian mathematician and astronomer Milutin Milanković, who created the New Julian Calendar. Without going into technical details, this calendar is, to this day, identical to the Gregorian calendar and will remain so for almost 800 more years.
To understand what personalities promoted the transition to the new style in Orthodoxy and the nature of the Congress that made this decision, it is worth noting that Patriarch Meletius IV (Metaxakis) was an active supporter of ecumenism and modernism, a member of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Greece, and the founder of the theory of subordination of all Orthodox communities in the diaspora to the Patriarch of Constantinople. According to one Greek hierarch of the time, "A fugitive from the holy places, from Kition, from Athens, from Constantinople, Meletius Metaxakis was an unstable and restless power-loving spirit, a wicked demon."
The 1923 "Pan-Orthodox Congress", which consisted of just nine attendees, not only discussed the calendar reform but also declared the permissibility of clerics to marry after ordination, including remarriage for widowers. The Congress also passed a number of resolutions aimed at establishing union with the Anglican Church.
There is another interesting episode in this calendar epic. Amid the transition of several Local Orthodox Churches to the new style (i.e., the New Julian calendar), the Russian Church also decided to adopt the new calendar and did so on 2nd October 1923 (15th October by the new style). Interestingly, the Renovationist Church did so three months earlier. While Moscow parishes accepted this without objection, the Ukrainian communities, who were acutely aware of the Catholic expansion, strongly resisted the change. The Russian provinces also opposed the shift. The new style lasted in the Russian Orthodox Church for only 24 days, and by 8th November 1923, Patriarch Tikhon ordered the "temporary suspension of the universal and mandatory adoption of the new style for liturgical purposes".
Thus, history makes it clear: So, history says unequivocally: the transition to a new style is not a Ukrainian topic but a Bolshevik one. The Ukrainian people consistently opposed the shifting of Christmas and other holidays, both in the 16th century and in later periods. Even when the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow took this step, the Church in Ukraine did not agree.
Today’s transition of the OCU and the UGCC to the new calendar by order of the secular authorities is similarly not motivated by religious or even astronomical considerations. It is purely a political move.
The Ukrainian authorities simply need to show that "we are not like the Muscovites", that "we are with Europe". This is exactly the same reasoning as in the Bolshevik decree of 1918: "In order to establish <…> a timekeeping system almost identical to that of all cultural nations." And just like in the 16th century and the early 20th century, the question of switching to the new style is fundamentally about recognizing the authority of the Pope and consenting to ecumenical fraternization with Catholicism. The OCU agrees to this while the UOC does not.
Postscript
And finally, a dialogue between an Orthodox believer and an OCU representative:
– We’ve moved Christmas to December 25th, just like all Western countries.
– And have you moved your own birthday too?
– What do you mean? Why?
– Well, you moved Christ’s birthday, so why not move yours?
– Hmmm...
