Have yourself a very Orthodox Christmas

Minus all the Western commercial hoopla of 25 December, 300 million members of the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated its Christmas today. The day is celebrated on January 7 according to the old Julian calendar by the Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Jerusalem Orthodox Churches and Mount Athos monasteries commemorate the birth of Jesus 13 days after Western Christmas. Unlike the Catholic Church where the Pope in preeminent, there are 14 autocephalous churches in the Orthodox community, though the mother church is Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the “first among equals”. Photo: Orthodox priests lead a Christmas service at the Bosnian Orthodox Church in Sarajevo (Amel Emric / AP)

At the 1459 Council of Florence monks from the self-governing Mt Athos in Greece refused to let Catholic and Orthodox Churches in return for Western military help against the Turks. As a result Constantinople fell to the Ottomans but Orthodoxy survived doctrinally intact. In today’s Istanbul as in many places across southern and eastern Europe, Orthodox Christian worshippers plunged into chilly waters to retrieve crucifixes in ceremonies commemorating the baptism of Jesus. Hundreds from Istanbul's now tiny Greek Orthodox community and Greek tourists attended the Epiphany ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters. About 20 faithful leaped into the cold Golden Horn inlet to retrieve a wooden cross thrown by the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Apostolos Oikonomou, a 40-year-old Greek man, clinched the cross. "This year I was the lucky guy," he said. "I wish everybody peace and happy New Year."

Over 5,000 worshippers gathered at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ Our Saviour including outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his wife Svetlana. Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, called on the congregation to withstand the “cult of hasty lucre”. Archpriest Sergius Zvonarev of the Moscow Patriarchate said the day was both a solemn ritual and joyous celebration, Zvonarev said the Russian Orthodox Church remained loyal to the Julian calendar which regulated church life and traditions for centuries. “It reveres these traditions as the entire civilized world used to live by them in the past,” he said.

Orthodox Christians gathered in Bethlehem in front of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the Church of the Nativity. Barely days after a fight between various Christian sects over territorial rights in the church, the Mayor of Bethlehem Victor Batarseh said the theme of this year’s celebration was Palestine celebrates hope. “Our message in these days is love and peace to all especially in the Holy Land”, Batarseh said. Over 2,000 scouts from all over the West Bank held a parade through Bethlehem with their marching bands and bagpipes.

Many in Bethlehem say the best band is the Syriac Orthodox Scouts’ pipers. Bethlehem’s Syriac Orthodox community is proud to trace its roots to the ancient Aramean peoples and are among the few people left that speak the language of Jesus, Aramaic. The scouts were established in 1958 and became internationally successful in sports in the 60s and 70s. After the Oslo Accords, their pipers became President Yasser Arafat’s military band. One former band member said they were in Gaza playing the bagpipes for Arafat when the news of Rabin’s assassination was announced. “They thought it was a Palestinian who had killed him so they would not let us leave Gaza,” he said. Today they took centre stage in Manger Square.

In Egypt, Copts nervously celebrated the day as sectarian violence continued, the first Christmas in the post Hosni Mubarak era. US President Barack Obama used the occasion to call for the protection of Copts and other minorities. "I want to reaffirm the commitment of the US to work for the protection of Christian and other religious minorities around the world," he said. The call comes after the military rulers cracked down on a Coptic march in October. Coptic Pope Shenouda III commended Islamist leaders, who attended the Coptic Church service. "We all celebrate together as Egyptians,” Shenouda said.

Christmas Eve

In Australia, as in many western countries, Christmas Eve is the epitome of the tension between capital and Christmas. The media usually presents this ‘last minute spending spree’ as an unalloyed positive. This may reflect the nature of the relationship between media and their customers, the retailers that spend so much in advertising. No thought is given to whether this consumption is a good thing. Scopical reported gleefully an $800 million spent across the nation today. They quoted the Retailers Association’s executive director who said, "It'll be a healthy Christmas for retailers, who want their cash registers ringing long and loud." The valid warnings from economists about rising inflation seemed almost carping in comparison.

The Fairfax outlets also today reported the NSW Business Chamber statement that Christmas shoppers have spent $6 billion across Australia in the month prior to Christmas, up six per cent on 2006. In particular, electrical goods such as plasma screens, DVD players and MP3 players did well - with sales up 13 per cent on last year. While the article did talk about debt-funded spending and increased petrol prices, there was nothing in the frame of this of how this fits in with global warming and the need to reduce consumption. The media, in collusion with their advertisers, will be a long time coming round to this argument.

But not all Christmas Eve activity is about commercial interests. For many cultures, the night of Christmas Eve is the highpoint of the Christmas festival. In Spanish speaking cultures, Christmas Eve is known as “La Nochebuena” (the Good night). Family members gather around nativity scenes common to most homes. Christmas dinner (often Pavo Trufado de Navidad – Christmas turkey with truffles), games and song are followed by La Misa del Gallo (Rooster’s Mass) at midnight. La Misa del Gallo is so called because of the tradition that the only time the rooster crowed at midnight was at Jesus’ birth.

In Scandinavia, Christmas Eve is also the highlight of the festive calendar. It gets dark in some parts of Sweden by 2pm at this time of year and the locals are anxious to make the most of the long evenings. Swedes hang lighted stars and put electric candleholders in the windows. On Christmas Eve (Julafton) homes are alive with the smell of baking which ends in a huge Christmas Eve dinner followed by present giving usually done by someone dressed up as a tomte or Christmas gnome.

But one Swedish consultancy firm are determined to turn a Christmas tradition on its head. Stockholm-based Sweco have done an analysis on population centres and the rotation of the Earth's axis and worked out that the best place for Santa’s Grotto would be a remote location in northern Kyrgyzstan at latitude, (N) 40.40 longitude (E) 74.24 to be precise. The theory is if he starts there and travelled west against the rotation of the Earth, Santa then has twice as much time to deliver presents on Christmas Eve then if he had started at the North Pole. Given the Arctic melting issues, this may need to be looked into more seriously.

Back in the UK however, the rise of anti-social behaviour has claimed another casualty. Many churches have been forced to cancel their Christmas Eve midnight masses due to problems of violence caused by drunks and intruders. Church officials have reported attacks on clergymen in the run up to Christmas. Reverend Malcolm Liles said: "I have heard of several instances where clergy have been asked for money or have been assaulted in their churches." Liles and others are calling for better employment rights for ministers, including improved safety and an end to the situation where churches have no legal responsibility for the safety of the clergy, who are deemed to be employed by God.

Its not just the Christians who are celebrating, others are celebrating the ancient midwinter festival of Yule. Pagans gathered in Modesto, Kansas on 21 December to celebrate the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and the one where the Sun God supposedly dies and is resurrected. Twenty four druids, witches and warlocks walked through an archway while others wafted white sage smoke over them and before spraying holy water from the Irish Well of St. Brigid. The sage was meant to remove negativity while the water was a blessing.

Meanwhile much larger numbers were gathering for another religious rite. Over one million Muslims have made the pilgrimage to Makkah (Mecca) for the annual Haj. They completed the rituals which included stoning the Jamrat in Mina before performing the farewell tawaf in Makkah. Those left will stay in Mina to stone the Jamrat for the fourth day. Authorities were on high alert and imposed a strict one-way system to ensure there was no repeat of the incident at Jamrat bridge during the 2006 Haj when 362 people were killed in a crush. Makkah’s governor Prince Khaled Al-Faisal warned he had noticed that many pilgrims have sneaked into holy places without having a Haj permit. “We will find solutions to all these problems,” he warned.

And on a night traditionally associated with a guiding star, astronomers have gotten their own present for Christmas Eve. Tonight is the night the planet Mars is in syzygy and will be the second brightest object in the sky next to the Moon. Syzygy is when a planet is in opposition which means it lines up with the Earth and sun, with the Earth in the middle. Mars is in opposition once every 780 days. Michael Fauerbach, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Florida Gulf Coast University, says it will appear a couple of hours after dark. “It's impossible to miss,” he said. “It's a bright orange-ish object, and it's obviously not a star”.

Don’t tell that to the wise men. Happy Christmas.

There is a sanity clause!

Last week USA Today placed Santa at number 4 in its list of 101 most influential people that never lived. Only the Marlboro Man (for services to cigarettes), Big Brother (for services to democracy) and King Arthur (for having Camelot?) lead the man in red in this list of mischievous mythical influence. Apart from having great doubts as to the order of selection, Woolly Days has to take issue with USA Today for putting Santa in this list at all. Santa is real.

Back in 1897, 8 year old Virginia O’Hanlon sent a letter to the New York Sun which asked the question “Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun it’s so. Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?” The letter demonstrates the touching faith of Virginia in the existence of Santa and the touching faith of her father in the non-existence of falsehoods in the Sun. Be that as it may, the editorial response is rightly the most famous defence of Santa on record. “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” said the Sun unambiguously. More importantly still perhaps was the prediction of the editorial’s final line “A thousand years from now, nay, 10 times 10 thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood”.

If what the Sun says is as true as Virginia’s Dad says, it would appear as if Santa’s future is guaranteed for some time to come. But what about his past? How far back does Santa go? Turns out he goes almost as far back as that other Christmas icon – Jesus. The first Santa was St Nicholas who lived in the 3rd century AD. He is now the patron saint of sailors, merchants, children, archers and pawnbrokers. In those days Nicholas was a Turkish bishop. He was an early supporter of Christianity, before it became fashionable and sanctioned by Rome. He lived in the town of Myra near the south coast of what is now modern Turkey.

Myra was at that time a Greek colony in the Roman province of Lycia. It was strongly Hellenistic in outlook and held Greek traditions in science, politics and the arts. But it was also steadfastly Roman in its worship of the traditions of law, the military and the economy. The area is now modern Antalya more beloved these days as a cheap Turkish holiday destination.

Nicholas was born to a wealthy family in the Myran town of Patara. Patara was an important town, the major naval and trading port of Lycia. Its wealth grew as Patara became a trade hub. Nicholas was born of one of Patara’s wealthiest families. But change was in the air. The Roman hegemony was being challenged on two fronts. Pirates and looters were wrecking the trade and Christianity was in the air. St Paul launched an early missionary journey to Patara. The new religion was proving popular in the heady atmosphere of an international trade capital.

Both Nicholas’s parents died when he was young. This fact shaped his life. He was now independently wealthy but St Paul’s descendents had sown the new religion in his mind. And so, Nicholas acquired the reputation as a “giver”. He proceeded to give all his money away. Modelling his behaviour on Jesus, Nicholas became the ultimate Christian. His most famous eelymosynary act involved giving gold to three girls to save them from a life of prostitution. The townspeople were so impressed by Nicholas’s altruism they made him Bishop of Myra.

This made him the local power. But Rome wasn’t ready yet to embrace Christianity. Diocletian was on the throne around the turn of the century. It was he who realised the Roman Empire was too large to be ruled by one person. His bureaucratic and economic reforms laid the framework for the next thousand years of the Eastern Roman Empire. The price of his success was fealty to the Roman religion. Although his wife and daughter were Christians, he issued increasingly harsh decrees against anyone who felt they had a higher power than Rome to deal with.

One of the victims of Diocletian’s decrees was Nicholas. Because Nicholas was a powerful man, he wasn’t thrown to lions. Instead he was imprisoned. There he languished until a new emperor, Constantine, ascended to the throne. Although he himself did not become a Christian until just before his death, Constantine always had a more conciliatory attitude to the new religion. He quickly ended the persecutions and Nicholas was released. Back in his role of bishop, he soon realised there was another urgent problem to deal with: Arianism. Arius was an Egyptian teacher and a contemporary of Nicholas. He was spreading a new mutation of Christianity: according to Arianism, Jesus was not eternal. This had some support from the Roman hierarchy but not within the council of bishops. Only 3 out of 300 voted against the Nicene Creed that effectively stamped it out.

Nicholas was at the forefront of that fight. Not only did he keep Arianism out of Myra, he travelled to the Council of Nicea and slapped Arius in the face. This bold action sealed his fame worldwide. However the bishops were stunned at his lack of decorum and stripped him of his bishopric. It didn't hurt his reputation, Nicholas returned home a hero.

Legends grew about him as soon as he died. Within a hundred years of his death he was the main man in what was left of Christendom. The emperor in Constantinople dedicated a church to him. But it was in the west, where his memory was especially revered. England dedicated nearly 400 churches in his honour during the late Middle Ages. People began giving presents in his name on his feast day of 6 December. The present-giving date eventually moved to 25 December to follow Jesus. Also following Jesus was the Protestant Reformation who tried to ban Christmas altogether.

They were not totally successful. In Holland, St Nicholas mutated to Sinterklass. The Dutch took Sinterklass and its euphonious name with them to America. And Nicholas never really went away in Germany either. There Martin Luther replaced this bearer of gifts with the Christ Child, or, in German, Christkindl. Over the years, that became repronounced “Kriss Kringle” which morphed back into Santa.

Thanks to worthy contributions from Dickens and Coke, Christmas and Santa Claus are now significant parts of the Western cultural mythos. Sometimes parents, unwilling slaves to advertisers, quietly curse Kris Kringle and the expense caused by the patron saint of pawnbrokers. But Santa exemplifies Christianity 101. His spirit of giving is infectious and never fails to makes us feel happy. An early episode of South Park has a fight between Jesus and Santa for the right to control Christmas. The show skewers the conventions of both traditions. But both have proved resilient traditions. There’s probably room enough for both of them.

Happy Christmas.