Puzzling
So Dima informs me that Christmas has only been on the calendar in Russia for the last 15 or 20 years. Which is very confusing, because I was pretty sure that it had been celebrated at least since Cyril and Methodius came through that way in the 9th century. I had trouble figuring out exactly what he meant, but so far I can only think of two possibilities:
1. The Orthodox Church has been in way worse trouble this century than I realized, so much so that Christmas was publically forgotten for a while.
2. The version of Christmas publically celebrated in North America is so secularized that Dima didn’t think of it as the same holiday as the Russian one.
I suppose there’s also:
3. The Orthodox aren’t particularly public in their liturgical celebrations.
Having spoken at greater length, I’m leaning towards #1.
December 28th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
I thought it was just that their calendar was WAY different than ours… Maybe not though…