It’s been more than five years since I began celebrating a Catholic Christmas. My first Catholic Christmas I celebrated in Germany in a wonderful Frankfurt-am-Main. I remembered it dressed in rich decorations, all sparkly and merry. The Christmas markets smelled of homemade sweets, honey water and mulled wine.
The actual Christmas Eve was spent with my friend’s family where I for the first time experienced the “magical” Christmas seen in Hollywood movies. The night started with a dinner and the exchange of gifts followed by a short (one hour) service at Church. I cannot say it wasn’t beautiful: there were children singing Christmas carols and the priest held a very solemn church service. Everything looked to me very formal and carefully rehearsed. The “magic” I was expecting to experience throughout the whole night was gradually vanishing as I was observing people gathered in that church. Well-dressed, with a dutiful expression on their faces, content with having done what “was expected” of them. Everything went perfectly well: they had a perfect dinner, exchanged the perfect gifts and put the final check mark by visiting the church and blessing themselves a couple of times. Of the three ingredients the greatest attention was paid to the exchange of presents. Presents, well-chosen, hunted for and expected. The presents and their opening with all the sighing and laughing were the highlight of that Christmas Eve.
If truth be told, as I reflect on it, it left me with a very unpleasant impression of having assisted to a stage production where every role was assigned and everyone recited their part perfectly. And just like in one of those Christmas postcards that I used to spend hours gazing at, the happy family around the Christmas tree was simply a picture, an appearance. And just as you turn over the postcard and see the blank unfilled space, so did I feel that behind the smiles and apparent happy atmosphere I would find only blank unfilled souls.
After my first Catholic Christmas in Germany I would spend numerous Christmas holidays in Italy. I thought I should mention this detail, because some of you might think it was simply the typical “German coldness” which took the magic away. But I must be honest and say that Christmas holidays in Italy did not differ even a bit from what I had experienced that first time in Germany.
The Orthodox Christmas comes after New Years day, on the 7th of January. Russia became a Communist totalitarian state with the revolution of 1917 and the militant atheism imposed by the government persecuted all religious beliefs. For many years of socialism, reigning in Russia, it was absolutely illegal to either celebrate religious holidays or even baptize newborn children. The Communists destroyed thousands of churches; hundreds of thousands of priests and monks were murdered by Communist government agents. All children were forced to learn and subscribe to the religion of atheism. Most of the churches, if not destroyed, were used as libraries, youth clubs or even night clubs. Within two generations, Russia became a predominantly atheistic society. Freedom of religion was only restored after the fall of the USSR in 1991.
During the Soviet period only a few hundred churches were opened for services. However most of the priests were either imprisoned in concentration camps or found themselves without occupation and had to find another way of living. That led many people to hide their intimate family celebrations, pretending to be agnostic in the eyes of the soviet society. My grandparents formed part of that limited circle of people who managed to maintain their faith despite the best efforts of the regime. That particular moment in our history carved a deep impression on the national Russian character and it ironically would explain the renaissance of religion.
Strong religious traditions (very well known from the books of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) and their subsequent repression during the Soviet period (thoroughly described in Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”) shaped the new Church. And starting from its liberation in 1991 it has been growing stronger and stronger. The Russians are finally back to their origins, to the wellsprings of their belief. If we go back in Russian history, the contact with the divine was the most important part of their lives. Nothing started without a prayer, without asking for forgiveness. Even today I love that feeling of magic when you enter an Orthodox Church and hear the low voice of the priest, the choir singing together with the bells – those sounds bring out tears of purification resounding inside my soul.
Perhaps I seem lacking in objectivity in telling you this – maybe I’m biased! But the difference between the two celebrations of Christmas is significant. The Russian Orthodox Christmas does not celebrate the gifts that are exchanged, it celebrates the Son of God, born on that day. It celebrates the human soul and its thirst for divinity. Christmas in Russia sees families assist at the liturgy in church, teaching their children the old traditions, explaining the significance of the moment; it is followed by a family reunion and dinner of simple food. There are however no gifts given on that day to either children or adults. Everything is very simple, yet joyful.
What we are witnessing at the present moment is the steady decline of faith in Western European countries, and its renaissance on Russian territory. Year after year that feeling of “magic”, the true meaning of Christmas is gradually vanishing, finding a substitute in something that has nothing to do with the original meaning of the holiday – holy-day. We should not gather together just to eat sophisticated food or exchange expensive gifts … if that is all we do we deprive ourselves and our children of the real meaning of the feast.
The Magi travelled from the East with gifts for the Christ child.
Try for once to give sense to your Christmas this year and feel the magic, promising a new start and a new life, by looking to the East. Try to mark His birth in the manger by being re-born in your own thoughts and intentions.
That’s the true meaning of Christmas – and it is for you to bring it to birth once more.
