New Year is not even a religious holiday, it is not Orthodox or Catholic. For the sake of simplicity, I will omit other religious movements in my example, in no way infringing or belittling the importance of other faiths.
In Russia, they began to celebrate and mark the New Year by decree of Peter the Great. But this was at a time when Russia still lived according to the Julian calendar.
Let me briefly remind you why the World switched to the new Gregorian calendar. 1582 is the year when the Pope finally agreed with scientists that as a result of an unaccounted error in measuring the calendar year, an advance in the position of the Earth in its astronomical orbit had accumulated. This advance was several days. (Calculate how much yourself.) It was because of this that the calculation of the year was shifted by the size of the accumulated error, and a different number of days was introduced in February so that from now on this error would not accumulate.
That is, in 1582, part of the World switched to the Gregorian calendar, but not Russia! Russia continued to live according to the old Julian calendar. That is, Christmas fell, as expected, on December 25. And the New Year, according to the decree of Tsar Peter the Great, was celebrated immediately after the Christmas holidays, after the Christmas week. Thus, first came the religious holiday of Bright Christmas, and then the secular holiday of the New Year was celebrated.
And everything would be fine, because Russia has always been distinguished by its own national character and has never adapted to anyone. But in 1918, Bolshevik Russia also switched to the Gregorian calendar. But the Russian Orthodox Church did not submit and continued to adhere to the old calendar. It continues to adhere to and celebrate church holidays according to the old style to this day.
Thus, all dates and holidays, church and secular (civil), shifted relative to each other. Another disagreement (I would say a discrepancy) has arisen between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. And now the entire Western world celebrates Christmas (Catholic) on December 25, and the Orthodox world - on January 7 according to the new style or according to the old style, this will also be December 25.
For Orthodox Christians, a very serious problem has arisen for celebrating the New Year. After all, the Nativity Fast is a very strict fast, the second in importance after Lent. And according to the new style, it turns out that the New Year falls on the days of the strictest period of the Nativity Fast. At this time, for Orthodox Christians, there can be no secular holidays under any circumstances. After all, Orthodox Christians must fast until the first Christmas star, and this will be on the eve of January 7 according to the new style.
Ironically, Catholics do not really celebrate the New Year (after all, Peter I did not introduce them to this). Catholics mainly celebrate Christmas. And Russians (mostly Orthodox) of course also celebrate Christmas, but first, committing a great sin, they get drunk and indulge in gluttony during the Nativity Fast, on New Year’s Eve.
New Year is not an Orthodox holiday!
Celebrate the Bright Nativity of Christ! And not the secondary holiday of New Year.
