Orthodox Christians have marked Christmas Day. Celebrated by over 200 million people worldwide, festivities for those who follow the Julian Calendar are held from Eastern Europe, to Egypt, to Ethiopia and Australia. But for some it’s under a shadow of conflict.
There are more than 200 million members of the Orthodox Church worldwide, spanning Eastern Europe, Egypt, and Ethiopia, and in Australia.
Nik Lukich is a trustee at the St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Sydney and has been celebrating Christmas alongside the hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians worldwide.
The Orthodox Church, which follows the Julian Calendar, traditionally celebrates Christmas 12 days after Western churches, though some other variations of Orthodox Christians, like the Armenians, celebrate on the 6th.
Nik Lukich says despite the different dates celebrated, the meaning behind Orthodox Christmas is the same.
“Today is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and we traditionally greet each other with ‘Christ is born’, and the response is ‘truly, indeed he is born’. In Serbian ‘Hristos se rodi’ ‘Vaistinu se rodi’.”
With strong traditions and the gathering of community, Orthodox Christmas is celebrated differently in each country but the celebrations, which usually follow a morning church service, are far less commercialised than many in the West.
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