Russian Orthodox Christmas celebrated

While Christmas has already been forgotten by most, the Russian Orthodox church is just getting over the holiday.

That's because Russian Christmas is celebrated Jan. 7, in accordance with the old Julian calendar. It's a day of both solemn ritual and joyous celebration.

After the 1917 Revolution, Christmas was banned throughout Russia, along with other religious celebrations.

It wasn't until 75 years later -- in 1992 -- that the holiday was openly observed.

Today, it's once again celebrated in grand fashion, with the faithful participating in an all-night Mass in incense-filled cathedrals amidst the company of the painted icons of Saints.

In Alaska, Russian Orthodox faithful went uninterrupted in their celebration of the holiday, continuting a tradition established here by the Russians' first monks in 1794.

Wasilla's St. Herman Orthodox Mission held special Christmas services for the holiday, including a Christmas Eve Mass on Jan. 6.

Since the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar we use, Russian Orthodox members are in the midst of a celebratory week, with New Year's Day taking place on Sunday. Celebrations and church services have been taking place locally, and around Alaska.

The reason the holiday is celebrated later than the rest of the world is that because in ancient times, many unreliable methods had been used to calculate the dates according to either the lunar or solar cycles.

By Roman times, the calendar became three months out of line with the seasons, so in 46 BC, Julius Caesar commissioned the astronomer Sosigenes to devise a more reliable method.

He came up with what is called the Julian calendar, and it was used widely for 1,500 years.

The calendar was still 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the solar year, so by the year 1580, the calendar was 10 days off again.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII corrected the difference between the sun and calendar by ordering 10 days dropped from October, the month with the least Roman Catholic feast days.

His calendar became known as the Gregorian Calendar, which is used in almost all of the world today. Pope Gregory made further changes to keep the calendar in line, which on average is 26.3 seconds longer than the solar year.

Russia and Turkey did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until the early 1900s, and because of the differences, that is why the birth of Christ is celebrated 13 days later on the Julian calendar.

Alaska has a large Russian Orthodox population, and the first two weeks of January are a time to celebrate Christmas and the New Year.

In many coastal villages from St. Petersburg to those on Kodiak Island and in the north along the Bering Sea, Russian Christmas and New Year gradually became incorporated with local Native traditions such as masking rituals and potlatch gatherings.