"We really believe that we should celebrate Christmas with the whole world, far, far away from Moscow." For me, it's a message," says Olena with a smile. Her son is on the front line as a paramedic.
In a church in the port city of Odessa, this woman celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas in December for the first time. "This is now a holiday for all of Ukraine, our independent Ukraine." That's important to us."
Dennis, a young man who found himself in the same church, also supports the switch to the Gregorian calendar, but is not exclusive. "We can celebrate on December 25 and January 7," he told the agency France Press.
"Now many of my friends celebrate in December, but also in January with their parents," adds the young man.
"Like a big family"
This is the first time that a good part of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine celebrates Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar. This is what the government in Kiev officially decided, so that the birth of Jesus would not be celebrated on the same day as in Russia, a country that has been aggressing against Ukraine for almost two years.
"We all celebrate Christmas together," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a holiday message on Sunday. "On the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as a united country."
Just this summer, Zelenski signed the law that changes the religious calendar, claiming that it is abandoning the "Russian heritage".
Most Eastern churches still adhere to the Julian calendar, according to which Christmas falls on the seventh of January.
Two churches
France Press evaluates the change in Ukraine as one of the hasty moves to remove traces of the Russian and Soviet empires, just like changing street names and removing monuments.
Also, the newer Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is not under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, is gaining more and more priests and believers.
And the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is still active, claims to have severed ties with Moscow. Part of the faithful will still celebrate this way when they are used to it, on January 7.
At St. Michael's Monastery in Kiev, famous for its gilded domes, Oksana Krikunova told a reporter that, after the Russian attack, it was "natural" for her to switch to December 25.
"I just visited my parents," she added. "The mother is 81 and the father is 86 years old." And they absolutely accepted the change."
NR/AFP
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