Saskatchewan residents embracing changes to Ukrainian Christmas [Video]

There might be more households than usual celebrating this Christmas Eve, as many Ukrainians around the world are opting to abandon the orthodox calendar.

We hear about “Ukrainian Christmas” — that is the January 7th date when typically many Ukrainians, especially those of the Orthodox faith, would celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar. But this year, that’s different.

“There was a vote across North America to accept the new, revised Julian calendar, which means that it was going to be English Christmas and Ukrainian Christmas now celebrated together on the 25th of December,” Father Taras Makowsky from the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity told CTV News.

The change is mostly due to developments following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian president passed a law this year which moved away from the January date observed by the Russian Orthodox church.

“One of the reasons was to distance …