Lights of hope: Orthodox believers from Ukraine light candles with Priest Petro Bokanov at the Orthodox Saint Nicholas festival in Frankfurt.
Image: Tom Wesse
More and more Ukrainians want to celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th instead of January 7th. The churches are also gradually turning away from the Julian calendar. However, a change is not that easy.
Kt is more than zero degrees on this bitterly cold fourth Sunday in Advent in the church of St. Dionysius. But that doesn’t bother dozens of Ukrainian believers who celebrate the “St. Nicholas Festival” in the service in the extreme west of Frankfurt. For about half an hour, Priest Petro Bokanov will speak the litany to the icon of St. Nicholas of Myra – with his back to the participants. Then he turns to the believers – and prays with them for the Ukrainian armed forces and for the cohesion of the Ukrainians at home and in the diaspora. After communion, the youngest visitors receive a small bag of goodies. The priest, who belongs to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, ends the service with a “Glory to God, glory to Ukraine!”
Will the churchgoers – including many who fled the Russian war of aggression – meet again a week later, on December 25, for Christmas mass? This question was asked to Bokanov in the municipality’s Facebook group. And it moves the Ukrainians at home and in voluntary and involuntary exile. Bokanov’s mother church, which is the Ukrainian religious community with the most sympathizers, has given the congregations the freedom to celebrate Christmas on January 7 according to the Julian calendar or on December 25 according to the Gregorian calendar.
