Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Georgia celebrates Christmas

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Georgia celebrates Christmas

    The Messenger, Georgia
    Jan 5 2010


    Georgia celebrates Christmas

    Wednesday, January 6
    The Georgian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7, which
    is December 25 on the Julian Calendar, as do the majority of Orthodox
    Christians. Although Easter is the principal Orthodox Church
    celebration, Christmas and New Year are celebrated as an extended
    holiday.

    The Nativity of Christ was initially celebrated as a joint feast with
    Theophany, January 6/19, as it still is in neighbouring Armenia. The
    actual date of the birth of Christ is not known, but after the
    conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 312 a number of
    official pagan festivals were transformed into Christian ones, on the
    same dates, as a means of supplanting pagan worship. December 25 was
    one such date, and became fixed as the date of Christmas throughout
    the Christian world when the cycle of fundamental feasts and fasts was
    developed during the first six centuries of the Common Era. Most
    Orthodox continue to use the Julian Calendar because this cycle of
    feasts and fasts cannot be kept on the Gregorian Calendar in some
    years.

    The Messenger wishes its readers of every faith and none, from every
    part of the world, a very happy Christmas. Our next issue will appear
    on Friday December 8.
Working...
X