UOC bishops: X-mas traditions of Turkey are closer to MPs than Jerusalem’s

The Turkish Embassy in Ukraine. Photo: dumskaya.net

Chairman of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC, Metropolitan Clement (Vecheria) said that the tradition of celebrating Christmas on 25 December came from Turkey.

In a comment to the “Strana” website, Metropolitan Clement said that the deputies who made the decision to move Christmas from 7 January to 25 December had misleading information.

"As for the motivation for cancelling the day off on January 7, as moving away from the Russian tradition, the authors of this idea most likely had inaccurate or incomplete information," the bishop said.

According to him, "this date of celebration coincided not with the Russian tradition but with the calendar tradition of the Church in Jerusalem".

In Jerusalem, there are "the main sanctuaries of Christianity, and there all the main celebrations of the Orthodox Church to this day have been celebrated according to the Julian calendar," Metropolitan Clement said.

He noted that "the tradition of celebrating Christmas on 25 December in Orthodoxy came from Turkey".

"I find it difficult to answer why the deputies decided that for the Ukrainian people traditions from Turkey are closer than traditions from Jerusalem and Bethlehem," said the head of the UOC Synodal Information and Education Department.

Earlier, Metropolitan Clement said that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians of various denominations will celebrate Christmas the way they used to do.

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