{"id":27340,"date":"2023-01-08T10:58:13","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T10:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/in-pictures-orthodox-christians-around-the-world-mark-christmas"},"modified":"2023-01-08T11:34:55","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T11:34:55","slug":"in-pictures-orthodox-christians-around-the-world-mark-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/in-pictures-orthodox-christians-around-the-world-mark-christmas","title":{"rendered":"In pictures: Orthodox Christians around the world mark Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Gambia. <\/strong><\/span>Orthodox Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas, even as two of the faith’s most populous nations – Russia and Ukraine – continue to fight in Europe’s largest conflict since World War Two.<\/b><\/p>\n

More than 200 million Christians around the world are associated with Orthodox Churches. Most of them celebrate Christmas on 7 January as they follow the Julian calendar, unlike those Christian denominations which follow the Gregorian calendar.<\/p>\n

And while the majority of Orthodox Christians are based in eastern Europe, ceremonies and processions have taken place across the world – including in the Middle East where Orthodox Churches are the most common form of Christianity.<\/p>\n

Across Ukraine, celebrations were coloured by the ongoing war. Ukrainian troops fighting near the front line in the Donbas region toasted each other during a brief moment of respite.<\/p>\n

In Kyiv, believers lit candles at St Volodymyr’s Cathedral. Millions of other Ukrainians flocked to churches across the country at the end of a brutal year of war.<\/p>\n

At the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, led celebrations. The leader of some 110 million believers, Kirill has been a vocal supporter of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Inside the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin cut a solitary figure as he attended a service at the Annunciation Cathedral. He had sought to declare a brief ceasefire in Ukraine to mark the occasion, but was rejected by Kyiv.<\/p>\n

In Serbia, people attended the annual bonfire of dried oak branches – the badnjak – the at the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade. The fire symbolises that built by the shepherds to warm the baby Jesus in his manger.<\/p>\n

In Ethiopia, where there are more than 36 million Orthodox Christians, priests led believers to mark Christmas Eve – or Gena – at Saint Mary’s Church in Lalibela.<\/p>\n

And at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem – said to be the birthplace of Jesus – believers gathered to mark one of the most important days in the Orthodox faith.<\/p>\n

Greek Orthodox Christians now celebrate Christmas on 25 December but Friday was still a special day – the Feast of the Epiphany. These believers held up a wooden cross after retrieving it from the waters of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey.<\/p>\n\r\n