The choice facing Ukrainians this Christmas

Like most Ukrainians, we normally celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7, rather than on Dec. 25, like most Christians. Our Christmas Eve dinner on Jan. 6 in Ottawa always featured the traditional 12 Ukrainian meatless and dairy-free courses, symbolizing the dozen guests at the Last Supper. In line with tradition, wheat would be placed under the tablecloth and a spoonful of the first course – a poppy-seed, wheat and honey mixture called kutia – was tossed by the head of the household toward the ceiling with the amount of grains that stuck indicating the health of the coming year’s harvest.

My late mother, Vera, was so proud of our enthusiastic preservation of these traditions that on many occasions, local media would be invited over to record the proceedings. For me, the peak was in my teenage years when the Ottawa Citizen printed a colour photo of my baby sister and me, decked out in traditional Ukrainian folk costumes, seemingly gazing through the living-room window for the first star – a sign that, after a day of fasting, it’s time to start the Sviata Vecheria, or Christmas Eve meal.

Not only did we have Jan. 7 itself off from school but we’d delight in boasting to our classmates about snagging great Christmas gift deals from Boxing Day sales. In those days of feeling like an outcast in Canada’s Two Solitudes, and with a surname like Bociurkiw, you had to leverage whatever you could to stay ahead of the Joneses.

Back then we’d never have dreamed that several decades later, Russia would launch a fullscale invasion of our homeland and that, as an act of defiance against the occupier and the state-controlled Russian Orthodox Church, President Volodymyr Zelensky would move the official Christmas holiday to Dec. 25. The date change is intended to “abandon the Russian heritage,” Mr. Zelensky was quoted by Ukrainian media as saying when he signed the bill on July 28.

With the exception of Russia and Serbia, most countries with majority Orthodox Christian populations observe Christmas on Dec. 25. Because the Russian Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar, used by the Russian Empire for several centuries, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholics decided to switch to the newer Gregorian calendar in an effort to distance themselves from Moscow. The change initiated by Mr. Zelensky serves to place a firewall between Ukrainian believers and the Russian Orthodox Church and its leaders, who’ve backed the Kremlin’s invasion. One could argue it also puts Ukraine more in sync with neighbouring EU countries such as Poland, where the birth of Christ is observed on Dec. 25.

If anything, this is a war where history has been repeating itself. Many of our family dinners saw my father launch into long narratives about the oppressive ways of successive Soviet dictators – from how they killed millions of Ukrainians in a manmade famine in 1932-33, to blood-curdling stories of relatives sent to the gulag for promoting Ukrainian independence, to efforts to liquidate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church under Stalinist rule. But in our own diaspora mindset we’d thought the best way to counter Russian attempts to destroy our culture and traditions would be to preserve them in any way we could. During my many trips to Ukraine, friends in Kyiv and elsewhere would joke that we are more Ukrainian than they are, or that our Ukrainian language skills are either on par with theirs or better.

I suppose that with Ukraine becoming more European and with an increasing number of Ukrainians celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25, it’s no surprise that support for the date change is quite high. In a Ukrainian government poll launched last December, nearly 59 per cent of the more than 1.5 million people who voted supported moving the date to Dec. 25.

Where does all this leave the enormous global Ukrainian diaspora community, including the millions who recently fled the war to safer havens such as Canada? I suspect many will shop for parishes and community organizations that fit in with their own beliefs and calendars. Until now, many Ukrainian church leaders have been more than happy to provide both dates as options to their flock, and I believe that will continue despite political decisions made in Kyiv. This year, flexibility on dates is being allowed by Ukrainian church leaders in Canada, and some churches, such as Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral in Winnipeg, will offer their flocks celebrations in December and January.

Where communities switch to just one Christmas, there could be confusion for some. There’s been a tradition in some Canadian communities for carollers from Ukrainian organizations to schedule house visits so that “old calendar folks” visit families celebrating on Dec. 25, and new calendar observants hit homes celebrating on Jan. 7. How will this work now, given that carolling is a top annual fundraising event for many Ukrainian community organizations in Canada?

As for me? I’ve already blocked out Boxing Day for my customary Christmas gift shopping and invited loved ones around for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner on Jan. 6. My opposition to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is clear and cuts deep into my soul. But celebrating Christmas on Jan. 7 connects me with a family past of warm and fuzzy memories. Even though it overlaps with Russian traditions, it has always been how our family stayed connected with the past and helped keep our culture alive, especially when Ukraine was a subjugated nation. For me, it is also an added layer of insulation against the increasing crass commercialism of Christmas.

Just as those in Ukraine want to differentiate themselves from Russia, those of us in the diaspora who have decided to stick to the old calendar want to differentiate ourselves from our neighbours here in Canada. Celebrating Christmas on Jan. 7 in Canada is our way of preserving the rich Ukrainian traditions that have defined us for so long.