Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1337 EAT on Wednesday 7 January 2025

While most of the world celebrates Christmas on December 25, millions of Orthodox and Eastern Christian believers mark the holiday on January 7. This difference in dates is rooted in the use of the Julian calendar, which is currently 13 days behind the more widely used Gregorian calendar.

The tradition is observed across countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Ethiopia, and Egypt, where churches follow the ancient calendar for liturgical events. For these communities, January 7 is the culmination of Christmas preparations, with midnight masses, festive meals, and cultural ceremonies that reflect centuries-old practices.

Religious scholars explain that the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, was gradually replaced in most of the world by the Gregorian calendar in 1582. However, some Orthodox churches chose to retain the Julian system for all religious celebrations, keeping traditions alive that date back hundreds of years.

The reason some Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7 is not because they believe Jesus was born on a different day, but because they follow a different calendar.

The difference dates back to 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar to replace the less accurate Julian calendar used by the Catholic Church. The Julian calendar, created by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, slightly overestimated the solar year by 11 minutes, causing the calendar to drift out of sync with the seasons over centuries.

To correct the discrepancy, the world had to skip 10 days to realign the calendar with the solar year. While the Julian calendar loses one day every 128 years, the Gregorian calendar loses only one day every 3,236 years, making it a much more precise measure of time.

Most of the world eventually adopted the Gregorian calendar. However, many Orthodox and Eastern Christian churches continue to use the Julian calendar for religious observances, including Christmas, preserving centuries-old traditions.

Fast forward to today, the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. As a result, December 25 on the Julian calendar corresponds to January 7 on the modern Gregorian calendar.

Of the estimated 2.3 billion Christians worldwide, about 2 billion celebrate Christmas on December 25. This includes roughly 1.3 billion Catholics, 900 million Protestants, and some Orthodox Christians who have adopted the Gregorian calendar.
The remaining 250–300 million Christians, primarily Orthodox and Coptic denominations, celebrate Christmas on January 7, a day also known as Old Christmas Day.

Notable groups that observe Christmas on January 7 include:

The Russian Orthodox Church – the largest group following this tradition.
The Serbian and Georgian Orthodox Churches
The Coptic Orthodox Church, based mainly in Egypt
The Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches
In Ukraine, Christmas has historically been celebrated on January 7.

However, in 2023, the government officially moved the public holiday to December 25 to align more with Western traditions, though many citizens continue to observe the January date.

Other predominantly Orthodox countries, including Greece and Romania, shifted their Christmas celebrations to December 25 following geopolitical changes after World War I. Bulgaria followed later, officially moving church celebrations to December 25 in 1968.

In Belarus and Moldova, Christmas is observed as a national holiday on both December 25 and January 7, accommodating different Christian denominations. Certain regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Eritrea also maintain celebrations on both days.

January 1 was established as New Year’s Day by the Romans in 153 BC, long before the advent of Christianity. The date originally marked the beginning of a new term for Roman government leaders to take office. When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC, he retained January 1, naming the month after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings.

The exact date of Jesus’s birth is not known. December 25 was chosen for Christmas based on early Christians’ belief that Jesus was conceived on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. Counting nine months from that date places his birth on December 25.

The year does not begin on Jesus’s birthday because of the way Roman political traditions and Christian theology intersected over time.

-Aljazeera

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