Ukrainian Catholic Church to switch to new calendar to December 25

KYIV: Ukraine's main Catholic church said on Monday it would move to a new calendar that would see Christmas celebrated on December 25 rather than January 7, due to an effort by Ukrainian institutions to break cultural links to Russia.

Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko welcomed the move by Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church UGCC, which counts just under a tenth of Ukrainians as worshippers.

He wrote on Facebook that this decision is appropriate because of the demands of our time and public opinion, citing the results of a national online survey conducted by the government.

In December 2022, the poll showed that 59 per cent of over 1.5 million people supported moving Christmas celebrations to Dec 25, when the feast is celebrated in Western Europe.

Tkachenko expressed hope that all of Ukraine's churches would agree to celebrate Christmas on 25 December.

Monday's announcement by the UGCC made it the first to do so.

All major churches in majority-Orthodox Ukraine followed the Julian calendar, which celebrates Christmas on January 7. That is the date on which Russia celebrates the feast.

The UGCC was one of few churches worldwide to recognise papal authority while simultaneously following the Julian calendar which the Vatican replaced with the amended Gregorian calendar in 1582.

The head of the UGCC, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said that fixed-date feasts such as Christmas would be moved to the new calendar, but movable feasts such as Easter would still be celebrated according to the old calendar.