Orthodox Christians in Russia, Serbia and other countries Celebrate Christmas today

For the Orthodox Christians in Russia, Serbia, and other countries, the Christmas holidays began yesterday. They are celebrated in conditions of restrictions due to the coronavirus, but this does not seem to worry worshipers who flocked to churches, the Associated Press reported.

Most Orthodox believers celebrate Christmas on January 7 (in the old style) with a traditional church service at midnight.

However, the Orthodox Churches in Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece celebrate Christmas on December 25th with other Christian communities.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has the largest number of worshipers, requires celebrants to wear masks and keep their distance during church services. However, a live broadcast of the service at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral showed that about half of those present were without masks or took them off bellow their noses as they watched the procession of priests in golden robes led by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia - Cyril, who sang prayers and did incense.

Although new cases of coronavirus have halved in the last 24 hours and have decreased in numbers for over a month, to about 15,000 yesterday, the country is concerned about the highly contagious variant of Omicron. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said yesterday that authorities had identified Omicron in people who had not traveled outside Russia.

/BTA

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