Christmas lights are flashing ahead of schedule. Families sang carols for a bit. And the first gifts of the season – traditionally hidden under a pillow or in a boot – appeared two weeks early.
Among the many Western-oriented changes in Ukraine, put in place gradually since independence and accelerated during the war, one brought special joy this year: Christmas came early.
After centuries of marking the holiday on January 7 under the Julian church calendar, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church this year formally switched to the celebration on December 25 along with most of the rest of Europe — and deliberately not with Russia.
For 6-year-old Drynka, that means practicing carols early and enjoying the excitement of receiving gifts like a Rainbow High doll and a paint set two weeks earlier than last year.
“I love Christmas!” he says.
His mother, Halyna Shvets, saw a step towards Europe in the Ukrainian church’s decision to move the date from the Russian tradition, not only for Christmas celebrations but for other religious holidays.
“We are really happy,” she said. “Faith in God is a main pillar of our life. The celebration of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, is an opportunity for us to gather for the beautiful Ukrainian religious tradition.”
Christmas, like so much else in Ukraine these days, is tightly intertwined with the country’s war with Russia. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church takes the position that the Julian calendar used in the Russian church has no religious significance, and that holidays should be celebrated according to the calendar by which people live their daily lives. Even before the formal transition this year, some Ukrainian Orthodox believers, in the first year after the Russian invasion, moved Christmas to December.
Technically, the festival change is a recommendation; individual parishes decide when to mark the holiday. But of the roughly 7,500 parishes in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, all but 120 have moved the date of Christmas this year, as the Russian invasion approaches its second full year.
Most of the eastern Orthodox churches have taken this position. After the transition of the Ukrainian church, only four of the 15 eastern Orthodox denominations — in Russia, Serbia, Finland and Jerusalem — still follow the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind due to a difference in the calculation of the length of the year. Some religious communities in Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, known as Old Feasters, also continued to follow the old calendar.
In his Christmas speech, President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the second Christmas in the war, and changing the date so that Orthodox and Catholic Ukrainians celebrate on the same day. “Today, all Ukrainians are together,” he said. “We see each other on Christmas. On the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as one united nation.”
Mr. Zelensky said many Ukrainians would celebrate with empty seats at the table for soldiers at the front. However, all together pray for peace “without distinction during the two weeks.”
After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church separated from the Russian Orthodox Church although most liturgies and traditions remained the same. In 2018, that split became formal, although one branch of the church remained aligned with Russia.
After the invasion, that branch removed from church documents the formal mention of allegiance to the Russian church, but continued to celebrate Christmas in January.
Church leaders and believers say celebrating holidays separately from the Russians is a happy change.
“We see that the Moscow Patriarchate creates myths about the Tsar and the Russian world, and people believe them,” said Father Mykhailo Omelian, a spokesman for the Ukrainian church. The celebration separate from the Russians will help differentiate the branch of Ukrainian orthodoxy, he said.
“This process started in the economic, political, social, and cultural fields and is now coming to the spiritual aspect,” he said. “The field of religion cannot belong to an aggressive nation.”
Most Ukrainians will embrace the move, Liudmyla Fylypovych, a professor of religion at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, said in an interview. The move from January to December does not change the meaning of Christmas, he said, adding. “We do not celebrate the date but the event” of Jesus’ birth.
Most of the changes have gone smoothly, families and church leaders say. Gifts, traditionally hidden in shoes or somewhere in a room in St. Nicholas Day on December 6, making millions of Ukrainian children happy.
The rhythm of singing and performing Christmas plays advanced two weeks. On Christmas Eve, children walk around villages or up and down the stairs of apartment blocks, singing carols and receiving small gifts from those who listen, a tradition that is carried out today on December 24 instead of January 6.
In another Ukrainian tradition, on Christmas Day, children perform skits of the Nativity story in the central streets of their town. Training began earlier this year.
Cities have moved schedules for hundreds of holiday events. In the western city of Lviv, for example, more than 200 Christmas and New Year activities, including street theater skits on Christmas Day, were organized under the new calendar.
For those who observe it, a preholiday religious fast of abstaining from meat also came earlier this year.
Along the frontline of the war, about 700 Ukrainian Orthodox Church priests serving as chaplains visited the trenches and bunkers to bless the troops, said Father Mykhailo, the church spokesman. They will not hold Christmas mass in places near the front, because any congregation of soldiers creates a target for Russian artillery or missiles.
Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the Ukrainian church, will celebrate mass on Monday at St. Sophia cathedral in Kyiv. He posted his Christmas prayers online, ahead of the usual schedule.
“In the midst of the sadness and suffering of war, in the midst of the pain of losses, we still celebrate,” he plans to say at Monday’s liturgy, “because Christmas for us is not only or not a time of entertainment and gift as a testimony to the triumph of truth and goodness and the inevitable defeat of evil.”
His address was wrapped in the usual celebratory words: “Christ is born!”
There are some glitches with the date change. With less school vacation time before Christmas, preparing the holiday meal and its centerpiece — a dish of boiled wheat grains with nuts and dried fruit — is busier, Ms. Shvets. But that’s a minor inconvenience, he added.
“We’ve been waiting for this for years,” said Ms. Shvets.
“We are very happy and grateful,” he said. “It’s great for us that we’re celebrating with the rest of the world.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting.
