SW News: The official Christmas holiday in Ukraine has been moved to December 25 from January 7, further separating it from the customs of the Putin-aligned Russian Orthodox Church, which observes the festival based on the Julian Calendar.
The Ukrainian parliament approved the bill earlier this month and President Volodymyr Zelensky gave his approval on Friday. Sponsors of the bill claimed that Ukraine would be able to abandon the Russian tradition of imposing the celebration of Christmas on January 7 and allow its citizens to live their own lives with their own traditions and holidays.

Both Ukraine and Russia have a majority Orthodox population; however, following Russia's illegitimate annexation of Crimea and its initiation of assistance for separatists in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region in 2014, a sizable portion of the Orthodox population in Ukraine has moved away from the Moscow Patriarchate.

Given that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, enthusiastically supported the invasion and cast it as a cultural clash between the larger Russian world and Western liberal values, Russia's war in Ukraine widened the gap between the two branches of Orthodoxy.

The new law will basically make legal what some Ukrainian churches have already started doing. Last year, a division of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church permitted Christmas celebrations in its churches on December 25. The Greek Catholic church in Ukraine announced in February that it was switching to the Gregorian calendar so that it could also celebrate Christmas on December 25 like Catholics of the Latin Rite and some other Orthodox Churches.

The Ukrainian government conducted a survey in December asking people whether they thought the timing of Christmas should be moved to December 25. Nearly 59% of those who voted supported such a move.

The dates of other Ukrainian holidays that are observed on the same day as religious celebrations will also alter as a result of the new law. The nation's independence day, the Day of Ukrainian Statehood, will be celebrated on July 15 instead of July 28, and the Day of Defenders of Ukraine, which honors the nation's veterans and fallen soldiers, will be celebrated on October 1 instead of October 14.

Several Orthodox Churches affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate and theological seminaries were searched by Ukraine's Security Service in November, and it was claimed that they discovered pro-Russian propaganda material.

Patriarch Kirill has been accused of exploiting his position to justify the war in the midst of these changes, and the UK government even gave its approval last year. Additionally, he has unsuccessfully pleaded with other religious figures, such as Pope Francis, to persuade Ukraine not to shut down a monastery with ties to Russia in the past.