4um: Orthodox Christmas Celebrated

Orthodox Christmas Celebrated

Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral

(epa)

January 7, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- From Russia to Ethiopia, Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas today.

In Moscow, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Aleksy II, celebrated a midnight Mass for 5,000 people at Christ the Savior Cathedral.

Orthodox Christmas was not officially recognized by the communist regime, but became a public holiday in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Communists demolished thousands of churches, including Christ the Savior Cathedral, which was rebuilt in the late 1990s.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, began Christmas ceremonies for Greek, Syrian, and Coptic churches at the ancient Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on January 6.

The rites were attended by locals and tourists, but in lower numbers than in previous years.

Security concerns contributed to a drop in tourist numbers. The town is cut off from neighboring Jerusalem by Israel's security barrier. People are also concerned about internecine violence that has peaked in recent days in Palestinian areas.

Meanwhile, Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo celebrated Christmas in the shadow of an imminent UN decision on the fate of the breakaway Serbian province, where the Albanian majority demands independence.

Kosovo's remaining 100,000 ethnic Serbs are looking to the future with uncertainty.

"I can't say it'll be the last Christmas in Kosovo, because I'm an optimist and I believe there will be even more in Kosovo," Slavisa Stefanovic, who lives in Kosovska Mitrovica, told Reuters television. "No offence to anyone, but Christmas is always most beautiful in Kosovo."

Father Milija Arsic from the St. Dimitrije church on Miner's Hill above Mitrovica, told Reuters that Serbs will remain in Kosovo.

"We know we are on our own ground, and we will try to stay," Arsic said. "Here was the Serb state, and if God wants it will remain so."

Christmas celebrations in Russia were marred by news of the murder of an Orthodox priest.

Interfax reported that the priest was murdered; religious icons stolen, and his church burned down on January 6 in a village near the Ural Mountains. Twenty-one religious icons, some over 100 years old, are missing from the church. The news agency reported that several suspects had been detained.

Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle during a Christmas service in a church at New Jerusalem, a 17th-century monastery complex, about 40 kilometres outside Moscow, early Sunday. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, Pool)

MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin celebrated Orthodox Christmas early Sunday in a monastery outside Moscow as senior government figures attended a service in the capital's main cathedral led by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Putin, dressed in a black suit and shirt, was shown in footage broadcast on national television crossing himself and lighting a candle. The New Jerusalem monastery was closed and turned into a museum after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and only regained its religious status in the 1990s.

Despite his career as a KGB officer in the officially atheist Soviet Union, Putin has publicly been seen as a devout Orthodox Christian and has cultivated links with the powerful Russian Orthodox Church and its leader, Patriarch Alexy II.

Putin attends Christmas services every year. In 2005, he became the first Russian head of state to visit the 1,000-year-old monastic community of Mount Athos in Greece, a place revered as one of the most important sites of Orthodox Christianity.

The Russian Orthodox Church, like some other Orthodox churches including those in Ukraine and Serbia, observes Christmas on Jan. 7 because it retained the Julian calendar for its liturgical schedule when countries switched to the Gregorian calendar.

In a message to his fellow Russians, Putin congratulated them on Christmas.

"This holiday brings joy and good expectations in the homes of millions of people, unites everyone on the basis of traditional moral values and strengthens moral principles and accord in society," he said in a message released by the Kremlin.

The Russian Orthodox Church, all but banned under the Soviet Union, has experienced a major resurgence since 1991, with the church claiming that two-thirds of Russia's 144 million people are observant.

At Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which was torn down in 1931 under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and then reconstructed in the 1990s, Alexy led a Christmas Eve service attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov.

Thank you, even though I already celebrated Christmas Day. Happy New Year to you!



Canadian Press