Church Services Mark Christmas in Russia
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW - Eastern Orthodox Christians in Russia celebrated Christmas Wednesday with church services and pop concerts. In Bethlehem, families exchanged visits and restaurants served up elaborate feasts.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II held a Christmas Day service at the hulking Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow, a symbol of Christianity's resurgence following the collapse of Communism.
In a Christmas message that aired on state-run television, Alexy called the church's rebirth a "miracle," saying the "strengthening of our great country is becoming clearer and clearer."
Thousands attended Alexy's earlier midnight service at the recently rebuilt church, which was destroyed in 1931 by order of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. About two-thirds of Russia's 144 million people are considered Orthodox Christians, though many do not attend church regularly.
Beneath the multicolored onion domes of St. Basil's Cathedral outside the Kremlin, actors and singers in colorful costumes performed a fast-paced Christmas pageant with a nativity scene as a backdrop. Thousands of university students gathered for a pop concert in a Moscow park.
Christmas falls on Jan. 7 for Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, Russia and other Eastern Orthodox churches that use the old Julian calendar instead of the 16th-century Gregorian calendar adopted by Catholics and Protestants and commonly used in secular life around the world.
Other Orthodox Christians celebrated the holiday on Dec. 25, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew — the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox — and the church in Greece and the Americas.
In Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, holiday celebrations were subdued, reflecting the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israeli army has restricted Palestinian travel in most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Manger Square sat relatively empty as Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrated indoors. Banquet halls were booked for the evening, ready to welcome hundreds of Bethlehem residents for food, drinks and dancing.
On Tuesday, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Eireneos I, was hugged by Bethlehem officials and greeted by a large crowd of residents as he made his way to the Church of the Nativity for the Christmas Eve Mass.
A checkered Palestinian headscarf covered a wooden chair, representing the absence of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was barred by Israel from traveling to Bethlehem from his compound in nearby Ramallah.
In Ukraine, worshippers holding flickering candles and singing Baroque hymns packed Kiev's 11th century Monastery of Caves to hear the liturgy of Metropolitan Volodymyr, leader of one of two feuding Ukrainian Orthodox Church patriarchates, in a two-hour service broadcast live on state television.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to a church and monastery outside Moscow that Orthodox Christianity is an integral part of Russian culture.
"One should not completely draw a line between the culture and the church," Putin said in televised comments. "Of course, by law in our country the church is separate from the state, but in the soul and the history of our people it's all together. Always has been and always will be."
Putin made the comments in Zvenigorod, a city west of the capital, where state-run television showed him drinking tea with boys at an orphanage run by the monastery and watching them perform a Christmas concert.
Told that the boys wanted a bathhouse with a swimming pool, Putin promised that the government would help realize the dream — a generous Christmas gift in a country where many orphanages are poorly equipped.