Christmas in Russia

Russian Orthodox Christmas is at 7-th of January.

Catholic Church uses Gregorian calendar (“new style”), ”), which corresponds to the movement of our Earth around the Sun. Russian Orthodox Church uses now Julian calendar (“old style”). This “old style” better than Gregorian fit to the Moon movement around the Earth. Because of that it is more valid for calculating the date of Easter.               So in Russian Orthodox Church Christmas is on 7 of January. It is just the end of Christmas fast. This fast lasts 40 days. So the date of 6 January has a special mean – it named “sochelnick”, the day of full fast. This day one cannot eat till the first star in the sky. It is the memory of  Bethlehem Star. The first meal after that is a special wheat or rice dish with honey and dry fruits: prunes and pears.

Priest Efrem Sirin (IV century) wrote about Christmas night: “Now is the night of reconciliation. So nobody has to be angry on his brother. This night presents peace to the whole world. So nobody has to threaten, nobody has to be cruel.”                 Russian writer Ivan Shmelev wrote about Russian Christmas night: “Do you know what snow is? Here it is a rare thing. But in our place when snow – one cannot see light, sometimes for 3 days! Than you can see snowdrifts on the streets, all is white. And all is silent. The sledge rides fast, but you cannot hear it. Only the runners are shriek when frosty.                   We are waiting for the first star… And there it is! The widow is blue. And what kind of stars!… When you will open the window leaf – the frost will cut your face. And on the black sky stars are twinkle and boil in light. All stars are enormous because of frost, they are beam with different colors – crystal blue, and violet, and green – with arrows.”

     
 
               This night the big divine service is in every church. 
                 Russian Orthodox Church prays in front of icons. It has a special icon for every Church holyday. Here you can see some variants of icon “Christmas”.

              Also there are a special prays for ever holyday. Here is one for Christmas.

One of the most popular icons is the icon of “Virgin” – “Bogoroditzsa”. There are some different standard positions for this icon. Here you can see some of them.

Here you can see some more variants of "The Nativity" by different icon schools.              

Now Christmas is a holyday day in Russia. But some years ago it was an ordinary working day. So now not all people celebrate Christmas.

But now we can see how new traditions appears. In Christmas night people make sky rockets on the snow streets. Here you can see a photo of “snow draw rope” that was held this year (2004) in Saint Petersburg. The girl’s team wins! Also a “snow volleyball” was born as an analogous for “beach volleyball’.

Here we presents some Christmas postcards.

   web-master Petr Zviaguine   <BACK TO CLUB-AUDITORIUM PAGE>