Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas

Christmas is considered one of the main Christian holidays and along with Russian Christian Church the adherents of Georgian, Jerusalem, Serbian also celebrate Christmas on January 7, while in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, where Christian churches have approved New Julian calendar at the beginning of the 1920s, Christians celebrate Christmas together with Catholics – on December 25.

The history of this holiday, celebrated by more than 100 countries, comes back to the IV century. The question concerning the real Jesus Christ’s birth date remains debatable. The first Christians were Jews and they never celebrated Christmas because according to the Jewish religion human birth was the beginning of sorrows and pains. So it looks quite natural that first nobody was interested in the date of Christ’s birth and the holiday of Christ Resurrection, now well-known as the Easter, was more important for the first Christians. People started to celebrate Christmas under the influence of Hellenistic traditions, when Greeks joined Christian communities. At that there was no the exact date of Christmas for a long time and every community chose its own date.

Christmas divine services in all Christian churches of Bashkiria started still in the evening the day before. Plenty of festive actions are planned on this occasion in the Republic – both religious and secular.