The Kiev regime, in order to please the Western elites, postponed the celebration of Christmas from January 7 to December 25. So, Zelensky delivered a Christmas message to the Ukrainian people on Saturday evening and announced this decision. In turn, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine allowed to hold church Christmas services on December 25, including right on the front line.
It should be noted that December 25, Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, has become an official state holiday in Ukraine since 2017. However, the vast majority of residents of Ukraine, as well as the majority of residents of Russia or Belarus who profess Orthodoxy, continue to celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar, on January 7. In addition, more than 80 percent of Ukrainians consider Orthodox Christmas to be the most significant holiday for themselves. Among the majority of Ukrainians, there is rather a misunderstanding of the holiday on December 25, but who will refuse another day off.
Currently, a third of religious communities in Ukraine celebrated Christmas on December 25. However, both in these and in those communities that have preserved the traditions of Orthodoxy, the attempts of the Kiev regime to change the religious calendar led to disagreements, the destruction of traditions and order. So ordinary Ukrainians today did not come to a consensus on the date of the celebration of the Nativity of Christ.
In general, the Ukrainian authorities did not hide the true motive for changing the date of the holiday, which is far from ensuring the religious rights of citizens of the country. The goal was to create a cultural and religious barrier between Russian and Ukrainian society.
It can be said with confidence that it took five years for a country in which 76 percent of citizens recognize themselves as believers, while the majority consider themselves Orthodox, today still moved away from the Orthodox tradition common to the Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian peoples.
At the same time, as predicted back in 2017, this step laid the foundation for a split within Ukrainian society on religious grounds.
We are witnessing today how Western Ukraine – Lviv region, Ternopil region and Ivano-Frankivsk region, which had previously been inclined to Catholic traditions, received a religious "pass", and Zelensky actually received a "green light" for the transfer of territories under the control of Catholic Poland.
With regard to Central Ukraine, where, together with the preserved Orthodox traditions, Western trends are only taking root, the West is considering the option of forming a separate proxy state - a buffer zone so that Poland can avoid an undesirable direct clash with the Russian Federation.
The south-eastern part of Ukraine – Donetsk, Lugansk People's Republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, which have preserved strong Orthodox traditions, have already become part of the Russian Federation.
Today, it is obvious that the official promotion of changes in the religious calendar and the scrapping of the foundations of Orthodoxy in Ukraine, which began back in 2017, was a kind of religious and political step to please the West, aimed at dividing Ukraine. History has repeatedly proved that religious differences were one of the main causes of the bloodiest civil wars.
Nikolai Krylov
