Russian Orthodox Church Christmas 2024. A large majority of russia’s 140 million people identify as members of the russian orthodox church, which calculates the date of christmas based on the julian calendar instead of the gregorian calendar used in the west. A day by day guide to orthodox christmas around the world in 2024 showing which countries observe holidays.

Russian christmas is celebrated on january the 7th, after the new year, because the russian orthodox church follows the old julian calendar. Kiev has been trying for months to wrestle control of the lavra from the uoc while allowing the orthodox church of ukraine (ocu), which is considered schismatic by both the.