Eastern Catholic Christmas?

[Jesus_Is_God_1]

As a Latin Catholic, I am just wondering what the Christmas traditions of our fellow brothers and sisters of Christ in the east are like? Which Byzantine Catholic Churches celebrate Christmas on Jan 7 like some Eastern Orthodox Churches? What is Christmas like for our Byzantine Catholics? What about Catholics who belong to the Syrian rites (Maronite, Syro-Malabar, Chaldean and others) what do you guys do on Christmas?

 

[adamhovey1988]

As a Latin Catholic, I am just wondering what the Christmas traditions of our fellow brothers and sisters of Christ in the east are like? Which Byzantine Catholic Churches celebrate Christmas on Jan 7 like some Eastern Orthodox Churches? What is Christmas like for our Byzantine Catholics? What about Catholics who belong to the Syrian rites (Maronite, Syro-Malabar, Chaldean and others) what do you guys do on Christmas?

from what I’ve seen during Christmas Divine Liturgy with the melkites it doesn’t seem that different from a normal Sunday one. That’s not to say it’s not beautiful if there’s one thing Byzantine churches can be no matter what, it is beautiful. Also, we get food afterwards. I’m canonically a Latin but I love my Melkite brothers and sisters. to the best of my knowledge they celebrate on 25th December at least in Augusta Georgia they do.

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

It depends on which calendar each church is on. The UGCC is mainly on the Julian Calendar in Ukraine and some parishes here in North America. So, our Patriarch will celebrate Christmas on Jan 7 (Old Calendar date of Dec 25), but alot of individual parishes in the the USA (including ours) use the Gregorian calendar so we won’t technically be celebrating on the same day…ditto for Pascha when it falls on different days (thankfully not next year though!).

Usually Dec 24th is a strict fast day. I’m not ethnically Ukrainian though so I don’t follow the 12 course vegan meal which seems to be a tradition there.

ETA: also we have a Vesperal Divine Liturgy on the 24th…a combo of Vespers and then the Liturgy of St. Basil. I think if we were to have Divine Liturgy on the 25th it would be regular Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

 

[SyroMalankara]

As a Latin Catholic, I am just wondering what the Christmas traditions of our fellow brothers and sisters of Christ in the east are like? Which Byzantine Catholic Churches celebrate Christmas on Jan 7 like some Eastern Orthodox Churches? What is Christmas like for our Byzantine Catholics? What about Catholics who belong to the Syrian rites (Maronite, Syro-Malabar, Chaldean and others) what do you guys do on Christmas?

Malankara Syriac Catholics, as well as Malabar, and Malankara Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox in India all follow the Gregorian Calendar. The Malankara (not mentioning Malabar here) celebrations traditionally begin in the evening/night. The public celebration starts with the Evening Prayer mentioning the end of the Nativity Fast and anticipating what is to come. Then there is a Nativity Liturgy, which has procession and the burning of palms (and a hymn to Christ the Divine Light come into the world). The procession leads us to the pre-Divine Liturgy, where the altar is brightly lit and all the bells are rung in the Joy of the One who has Come. Prayers for the blessing of the world by the infant Christ are proclaimed, and then the Divine Liturgy starts. After the Divine Liturgy, the 25 day fast from meat is broken and the congregation shares the first full meal together.