- Title: RUSSIA/SERBIA: Christmas Eve celebrated in Orthodox churches
- Date: 7th January 2008
- Summary: (W4) BELGRADE, SERBIA (JANUARY 6, 2008) (REUTERS) CHURCH ST SAVA IN BELGRADE/ AUDIO OF BELL RINGING VARIOUS OF PEOPLE KISSING AN IKON AND CROSSING THEMSELVES
- Embargoed: 22nd January 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Religion
- Reuters ID: LVA66QJQXFQT1OGMPA12WVW3D2Z9
- Story Text: The Orthodox Church and its faithful celebrate Christmas Eve, the religious holiday that precedes Christmas or the Nativity of Jesus Christ.
Christian Orthodox do not celebrate Christmas on December 25th, but on January 7th. This is because the Orthodox follow the Julian calendar, while Roman Catholics follow the Gregorian calendar.
The Gregorian reformation of the calendar came into force on 1582. It made corrections in the Julian calendar the ten days from October 5th to 14th was cancelled.
Sunday (January 6) is Christmas Eve and in the evening hours there is preparation for the celebration of Christmas by all Orthodox Churches and faithful who adhere to the Julian calendar.
Russians crowded into candlelit churches and stood solemnly for hours Sunday night as priests chanted the liturgy for masses celebrating Orthodox Christmas.
Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, presided at the country's most symbolically important Mass, at Christ the Savior Cathedral near the Kremlin in downtown Moscow.
The cathedral, a reconstruction of the church dynamited under the officially atheist Communist regime of Josef Stalin, embodies the Orthodox Church's resurgent importance in the post-Soviet era.
Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy prime minister who is all but certain to be elected President Vladimir Putin's successor in March, was prominently shown in state-controlled television's live broadcast of the Mass.
Putin attended a Christmas mass at a smaller church in Veliky Ustyug, about 650 kilometres northeast of Moscow.
In Belgrade's St Sava Orthodox Church Christmas Eve is celebrated among the people according to an ancient ritual on the eve of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The Yule log (oak tree) is burned at twilight in the presence of a priest who blesses the gathered people in front of the church. The remaining logs are then taken into Orthodox Christian homes where they burn until midnight when Christmas celebrations begin.
In cities, the tradition has been simplified and all that is taken into the home is a small package of dry branches from the Yule log, and hay.
In Kosovo 100,000 Serbs marked Orthodox Christmas Eve in the knowledge that it could well be their last within the official borders of Serbia.
Hundreds of Serbs gathered to mark Christmas Eve at Gracanica monastery on Sunday (January 6), crossing their chests with three fingers and kissing the stone entrance.
People lit candles and prayers were led by Kosovo's Archbishop Artemije.
But this year's celebrations come as Kosovo's Albanian leaders prepare to declare independence from Serbia, a move that will cause yet more uncertainty over the already precarious position of Serbs living in the province.
They say independence will be declared in the first months of 2008 and count on the major Western powers to overrule opposition from Serbia and Russia and recognise the new state.
Ninety percent of the province's 2 million people are ethnic Albanians.
Serbs, however, view claim it as their religious heartland. NATO bombed in 1999 to drive out Serb forces and halt their killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanians during a two-year Serb war against the guerrillas, the culmination of a decade of repression under late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
Tens of thousands of Serbs then fled a wave of revenge attacks. Those who stayed face discrimination and sporadic violence, many in isolated rural ghettos.
"Most of all I would like to live in peace, in harmony," said Dejan Todorovic, a resident of Gracanica. "But sometimes with what he hear on television, radio we don't feel completely safe. Maybe Serbs don't know or expect anything good from independence of Kosovo. But Albanians expect everything from it. Maybe first of all people in Kosovo should agree among themselves and find a compromise for a future life.
Almost two years of Serb-Albanian talks ended last month in failure and Serb ally Russia has blocked U.N. adoption of a plan granting Kosovo independence under European Union supervision.
The United States and the major EU powers now say they will move ahead with the blueprint by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, without a new U.N. Security Council resolution.
Serbia has told the 120,000 Serbs in the territory to reject any unilateral secession, cementing a de facto ethnic partition and raising fears of a breakaway by the Serb north.
Most of the EU's 27 member states are expected to recognise Kosovo as the last state to emerge from the former Yugoslavia, and the bloc plans to take control of policing and justice.
Diplomats say the Kosovo Albanians have agreed to hold off any declaration until after a presidential election in Serbia on Jan 20 and Feb 3, to avoid boosting the ultranationalist vote.
Orthodox Christmas Eve is celebrated with the burning of the yule log or dry branches (know as badnjaks) at dusk in the presence of a priest who blesses those gathered in front of the church. The remaining logs are then taken into Orthodox Christian homes where they burn until midnight when a six-week fastand Christmas celebrations begin.
According to tradition the Yule log is a symbol of the tree brought to Joseph and Mary by shepherds to light a fire and warm the cave where Jesus was born.
It is also believed that the light of the Yule log, as the light of Christ's Nativity disperses the darkness of ignorance and evil.
Christmas Eve is also the final day of the six-week long Christmas fast and the evening meal is traditionally fasting. According to Serbian Orthodox tradition, the menu includes fish, baked beans, cakes baked with honey, dried plums and walnuts. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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