Why is Catholic Christmas celebrated on December 25th? To answer this question, one must first ask another question: why, in fact, the last month of the year is called December. After all, this word has a Latin origin, from "deck" - "ten". Why did the ancient Romans call the last, twelfth month of the year tenth?
In ancient Rome, the beginning of the year fell on March 1. Only many centuries later, the famous Guy Julius Caesar, becoming a dictator, ordered to consider the beginning of the year the shortest day. And the Romans, rejoicing that with the beginning of the new year, the daylight hours begin to increase at least a little, that it is about spring, organized lush festivities that had a long tradition. They were called "Saturnalia", in honor of one of the most revered deities - Saturn. These days, class distinctions were temporarily erased, sumptuous tables were laid right on the streets, wine flowed like water. Of course, there was no question of any abstinence. It is not surprising that when Christianity became the dominant religion, priests even wanted to erase the memory of "vile pagan amusements" dedicated to the "wrong" god. But to do this was not so easy. The people stubbornly did not want to abandon the fun falling to their share in the last days of December of each year. Neither persuasion nor the threat of eternal torment in the afterlife helped. The century lasted for a century, and the inhabitants of the former Roman Empire stubbornly continued to celebrate Saturnalia. In the end, reluctantly, the highest hierarchs of the church decided to simply replace the pagan holiday with Christmas. Despite the fact that no one knew the exact date of the birth of Christ, it was announced that he was born at this particular time. So gradually the former Saturnalia turned into Christmas. And why in different countries is Christmas celebrated on different days? For example, in Russia - January 7? The fact is that at the end of the 16th century a new so-called “Gregorian” calendar was introduced in Europe, designed to adjust the difference between the actual duration of the earthly year and the one resulting from the “Julian” calendar, according to which many countries lived, including Russia. The duration of the year in the Julian calendar exceeds the actual one by only 11 and a quarter minutes. This, of course, is negligible compared to the true value, but over the course of many centuries a rather decent total error has accumulated, for which Roman Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar. In 1918, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Russia, but the church continues to live according to the old Julian calendar. That is why Europe celebrates Christmas on December 25, and ours on January 7.
