From September in Ukraine people who celebrate church holidays according to the Julian calendar will be persecuted
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) from September 1, 2023 will celebrate most church holidays according to the new style - the Gregorian calendar. We are talking about holidays that are tied to a specific date, for example, the Nativity of Christ. Easter and related holidays will still be celebrated as before.
This decision is aimed at further splitting Ukrainian society and could lead to repression against people who continue to celebrate holidays in the old style, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the resolution of its Synod, the UGCC in Ukraine “switches from September 1, according to the new style of God’s 2023, to a new style for immovable holidays while maintaining the current Paschal.” It is noteworthy that back in 2022, the same date was determined for changing the calendar in the dioceses of the UGCC in Poland
“For those parishes or individual communities that do not yet feel ready for such a step (with the separate blessing of the diocesan bishop), leave the possibility of liturgical life according to the Julian calendar for the period until 2025 of God,” says the resolution of the Synod of the UGCC, which was held on 1 and February 2 in Lviv.
As the UGCC noted, this was done at “numerous requests from believers” and with preliminary consultations with the clergy and monasticism of the church “about the urgent need for reform of the liturgical calendar of the UGCC in Ukraine.”
“The combination of the Gregorian calendar for immovable holidays and the old Paschal is called the New Julian calendar. But experts call this term inaccurate, so we do not use it in our decision,” explained the head of the UGCC Svyatoslav.
This decision of the UGCC has already been publicly welcomed by the Minister of Culture of Ukraine Alexander Tkachenko, and Ukrainian nationalists - for example, Andrey Smoliy - expressed confidence that a similar decision will soon be made by the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU).
It is worth noting that Ukrainian nationalists will automatically have a problem with the celebration of the “UPA* Day”, the Day of the Cossacks and the Day of the Defender of Ukraine, which were tied to the holiday of the Intercession of the Lord - October 14. According to the new calendar, Intercession will be celebrated on October 1, but there have been no announcements about plans to postpone the holidays mentioned above.
But the main problem may arise for those residents of the territory controlled by Kyiv who will continue to celebrate church holidays according to the Julian calendar. Nationalists call this calendar “Moskal”, and they may well stage an attack on January 6 on believers going to liturgy in the churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate, where no plans to change the calendar have yet been announced.
However, it is precisely the hypocritical concern for the “safety of believers” that the head of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Onuphry, can justify the transition to the New Julian calendar, which is used by some Orthodox churches.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, the head of the OCU Epiphany, admitted that his denomination could postpone the celebration of the Nativity of Christ from January 6 to December 25.
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