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A Merry Christmas to all members of the Orthodox faith who celebrated on January 7! Also, to Russian speakers who may or may not be religious. Russia was officially atheist for half of my adult life, but by the Eighties, Russians you met on Kalinin Prospekt or at Kafe Kosmos greeted you with a smile and religiously-tinged words. That didn't necessarily mean long-suppressed faith any more than "God bless you" after a sneeze does here, but it might not have happened in, say, 1955. However, since those days, there has been something of a religious revival.
Former Ricochet member @skipsul wrote an R> series about his journey to Eastern Christianity, something I knew very little about. To be honest, while I was growing up in New York, there were only a few Orthodox kids in the neighborhood. At the time, my world appeared to be roughly two-thirds Jewish and one-third Catholic, with a couple of Christian variants here and there. (BTW, this would turn out to be good ethnic training for Hollywood.) Eventually, circa 1970, the Russian Orthodox built a church not far from our parish. Some people have moved to the neighborhood to be near it, and the communities are fairly supportive of each other.
Since Orthodox Christmas falls after January 1, it's pretty common to combine both best wishes in one. So Merry Christmas, to Russians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and the Orthodox everywhere.
NOTE: A serious schism has opened between churches in Ukraine. Let's all hope for a happier New Year.
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When I graduated from college in 1977, I lived about 40 miles away from my sister. She resided in Toms River, NJ. One night, we went to a talk in Princeton. We passed a graveyard with lit candles. If memory serves, she told me that was an Orthodox custom.
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The Orthodox churches around Indy appear to be thriving. I attended festivals at both the Greek Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox churches (beautiful, by the way) this past summer. The Copt festival was "Egyptfest" and an enlightening introduction to the culture. We actually sponsored Greekfest, though we have no affiliation with the church. Great people and great fun all around.
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I was in Baku, Azerbaijan, at Christmastime in 2000 and saw a funny on-stage sketch with two local (and very drunk) comedians playing the western Santa Claus and Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost), Russian culture's traditional equivalent.
Azerbaijan is largely Muslim, but 70 years of Communism changed that, plus it has long been Russified in other ways. So in Baku, Ded Moroz was the more familiar holiday figure, the host. Santa was his friendly, if naive pal from overseas.
The jokes were based on hard reality, nine New Year's after the USSR dissolved itself: old daddy Ded was poor but crafty. Rich Santa proudly showed off the toys he was ready to hand out, but the comic point was, they were flashy-looking junk that didn't work, or reflected weird fads that made no sense.
BTW, most write it as "Dud" Moroz, but I wrote it the way it sounded to me. Also the guy is no dud.
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I don't remember if it was Christmas 1991 or some other year when my wife bought me a little short-wave radio. I was learning my way around the dial a few days later and came across a broadcast of a Christmas service from Moscow. I had never thought I would live to hear such a thing. It may have been Deutsche Welle that was doing the broadcast. I don't remember for sure.
I think was the Christian Science Monitor that had radio news broadcasts that actually gave honest coverage to both sides of news stories! I never thought I would live to hear something like that, either.
Alas, it wasn't long before the Internet put most of those broadcasts out of business.
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