orthodox christmas is not 25th December but 7th January

[DaveAgain]

Listening to a french radio programme, I was surprised to learn that there is a different date for Christmas in different countries, and that for the russians Christmas Day is 7th January.

This is apparently because the orthodox church has never accepted the Gregorian calendar, so 25th December (julian calendar) falls on 7th january (gregorian calender).

[badger]

our Bulgarian office at work has Easter holidays on the Orthodox dates & Xmas holidays on the revised Julian calendar (which is basically the same as the Gregorian calendar, save for some squabbling about leap years) so go figure.

[neofight78]

It’s always on the 25th, it’s just a matter of which calendar you use Different parts of the Orthodox Church use different calendars, just to make it simple…

[Iversen]

As for the date Christmas is celebrated: I did the obvious thing and checked the Bulgarian Wikipedia, and here the complications around the Julian, the neo-Julian and the Gregorian calendars is explained first, but way down in the article it says in clear terms that Christmas is celebrated on the 24. of December in Bulgaria just as in Denmark - so now us Danes share one thing more in addition to the postclitic articles with the Bulgarians!