Why Russian Christmas is on 7th of January and not on 25th of December?
Christmas is the second most important church festival after Easter for all Christians which commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ. In Russia is very religious festival , people go to churches at night . In the West its more family celebration when all members of it unite and have great fun . Russian great fun is on New year night usually
So why we don’t celebrate it in one day ? Isn’t it strange ? Well ,this happens because of different calendars . The Julian calendar , introduced by Julius Caesar, was in operation since 46 BC , it accumulated too many extra days. for every 128 years, one extra day . Therefore, in the 16th century, the church faced the fact that Easter came too early. And it was decided by the Pope Gregory III to reform the calendar to make it more accurate with astronomical times . He ordered to throw away 10 days from the calendar and after , to throw away 3 more days every 400 years in order to make calendar correct . He became the founder of Gregorian calendar . All world accepted it as well as Russia as the state , but Russian Church ( which is separated from the state ) refused to accept it . By the way , Russian church consists of 15 equal independent local churches and 11 of them celebrate Christmas on 25 Th of December , but Russian, Jerusalem, Georgian and Serbian churches follow Julian calendar and celebrate it on 7 Th of Jan . I am sure , that one day this situation will be fixed .