Latvia: Christmas remains banned

Lettland: Orthodoxes Weihnachten kein staatlicher Feiertag:

Latvia: no Orthodox Christmas public holiday

The Orthodox Christmas on 7 January is still not recognized as a national holiday. The Latvian parliament has rejected a request for this from the "Harmony Party". Over the past 20 years, the Parliament had already rejected several similar requests. The "Harmony Party" is particularly committed to the Russian Orthodox minority in Latvia, the membership of about 500,000 people. For the last 150 years, there has been in the country as well as a Russian speaking group also Latvian-speaking Orthodox Christians. They also celebrate on 6 January Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas.
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Oleg-Michael said…
The title of this piece is twice wrong. First, of course, Christmas is not "banned" in Latvia. It is absolutely OK to celebrate Christmas, on whichever date you want. It's just about not making it a public holiday. And second, it is not "Christmas", but rather the day when those who follow the (outdated and inaccurate) Julian calendar celebrate Christmas. This is about the ethno-political situation and not about religion. Mind you, Latvia has three days of public holidays in a row to celebrate Christmas (Dec. 24 to 26), as well as Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. Russia, for example, only has Julian Christmas (one day) and no Easter holidays (except for the Easter Sunday which is, er, a Sunday). Gregorian Christmas, as celebrated by Roman Catholics and Protestants? A workday. Same in such countries as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Macedonia, or Georgia; in others, December 24/25 is a holiday only because the local "Orthodox" Church follows the corrected calendar. I only know one country in Europe, Moldova, that has two dates for Christmas holidays (both Julian and Gregorian) because it is divided between the Romanian and Russian Churches (Romanian following the Gregorian calendar).
11:19 PM
Andris Amoliņš said…
Thank you, Oleg-Michael for explaining the situation. In fact, the religious holidays in Latvia are those celebrated by the Lutheran majority. Establishing new ones would create pretext for other religious communities to make their feasts public holidays, too. We, catholics, too, could ask for Assumption (very popular in Latvia) or Corpus Christi (public holiday in many West European countries).
9:10 AM
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