Well, Happy Orthodox Christmas everyone. Thanks to the discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, millions of people in Eastern Europe celebrate Christmas in early January.
I’ve got no idea how Santa manages this. Twelve days into resting, a belly full of mince pies and sloshy whisky to burn off, and he’s out again on what must feel like the most miserable time of the year for him. It must be a bit like having to drive to London three hours after your night shift.
I jest. I don’t think they have Ortho-Santa. I think they light candles, eat sweetbreads, and bake apples with their families instead of longing for presents. Actually it sounds pretty good to me - I’d take that today; Christmas, Western Christmas, feels like it was ages ago.
It was also Epiphany yesterday, which is the celebration of the Three Kings arriving at the birth of Jesus. The tradition is of course that they arrived on Twelfth Night and gave their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The confusion is that it’s also 12 days that separate the calendars, and so the Orthdoxers appear to be celebrating Epiphany today, which they’re actually not.
I know. There’s lots of confusion. There weren’t three of them either, and they weren’t kings. In fact, I’m not even sure they got there in the same year, let alone the same fortnight. But I don’t want to upset anyone. I’ll still happily sing We Three Kings next year, and I won’t even blink when Christmas cards arrive, showing their splendid arrival on painted camels.
Working with Eastern Europeans too, gives us a bit of a mishmash of availability today - a curious divide between East and West. The Armenians are in, the Ukrainians are not. The Belarusians and the Russians are definitely not in, but the Polish are. For the Brits it’s just a very normal Friday. A very normal, ongoing, Capitalist Friday in the West.
I guess polarisation isn’t anything new. For three hundred years, countries had to decide which calendar they’d adopt, which way of life would suit them best, which side of the world to align with. Russia for example, didn’t switch to the Gregorian system until the beginning of the 1900s!
Long before that, the Western Roman Empire stuck with Latin for its church services, while the Eastern Orthodox plumped for Greek. And before that, society in Europe had to pick between paganism and Christianity, old heathenism or the new ways of doing things. And the Church had to pick when Christmas was! It won’t surprise you to know that sheep aren’t out in the fields in December or January, any more than the midwinter was likely to be bleak. But it probably won’t surprise you either to note that Saturnalia, the midwinter festival that Christmas replaced, was for merriment, gift-giving, frivolity and charitable deeds.
Anyway. Happy Orthodox Christmas to anyone and everyone who celebrates it. Long may your breads be sweet and your families be healthy. May your apples be well-baked, and your candles be beacons of hope in a world of darkness. Oh, and if you’re wondering who’s got the real Christmas - don’t worry. It’s almost certainly in September.
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