The Calendar Question

Author: Father Basile Sakkas Why do some Orthodox Christians celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on December 25th and others on January 7th? In 1924, under the influence of Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis of Constantinople, a small minority of the Orthodox Churches renounced the traditional (Julian) church calendar for the heterodox Gregorian calendar in a non-canonical act of heretical ecumenism in order to align themselves closer with the Roman Catholic and Protestant confessions, tragically creating a division within the Orthodox Christian world. In 1971, Father Basile Sakkos wrote to Archbishop Vitaly (Ustinov) in order that the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia might "condemn this fabrication of the West which has become the cause of so many evils and confusion."The reader will find answers to the following and more: Why do Orthodox Christians adhere to the Julian calendar? What was the Orthodox Church’s long history of rejecting the Gregoria