UOC: State holiday of Catholic Christmas is an anti-Orthodox political project

Lawmakers who voted for a new state holiday of Christmas on December 25 were not motivated by religious beliefs or the protection of human rights, it is an anti-Orthodox political project. This was said by Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhie and Melitopol, writes the site of the eparchy.

According to him, in 2017, Ukraine celebrates Christmas on December 25 officially for the first time, which is done by Catholics and some Orthodox Churches which, by their tradition, use the Gregorian calendar.

If the power holders "advocated the preservation of the Orthodox mentality, their actions would be justified not by European integration, which they relate to the perversion of morals and the unnatural mindset, alien to God’s established view of human existence, but the conformity with the calendar tradition of some, but not all, of the Orthodox Churches , for which the indisputable authority is the opinion of the monastic republic, the indestructible fortress of Orthodox tradition – the Holy Mount of Athos, where Christmas is celebrated on January 7," said the bishop.

In his opinion, the "December 25 project" is aimed at separating our citizens from the Orthodox faith, destroying the centuries-old Orthodox traditions of the Ukrainian people to deprive us of "both clan and tribe", to turn into a faceless gray mass that needs only" bread and spectacles", satisfying physiological needs by various methods justified by them, resignedly fulfilling any whim of the "demonized top", as in the old days – of the godless power," the hierarch believes.

According to Vladyka, many European countries have already forgotten what the feast of the Nativity of Jesus christ is related to, calling it simply "X-mas": "again we are witnessing the processes of neo-communism with a decommunist face whose ultimate goal is the demonization of a person," emphasized the hierarch.