Christ is born! Merry Christmas

Patriarch Porfirije will serve the Christmas liturgy in the morning in the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade, starting at nine o'clock.

In the Church of Saint Sava, the celebration of Christmas will begin with the service of the midnight liturgy, which will be served by the vicar of the patriarch, the bishop of Hvostan, Alexey.

Christmas, together with Easter, represents one of the greatest Christian holidays and is celebrated as a memory of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Serbian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas for three days. The second day of Christmas is the Assembly of the Holy Mother of God, as a sign of gratitude for having given birth to the Savior, while on the third day, Saint Stephen is celebrated.

Believers traditionally greet each other with Peace of God, Christ is born - He is truly born.

Christmas is always a fat day, which was preceded by a forty-day Christmas fast, which represents the purification of spirit and body.

The most joyous Christian holiday on January 7, in addition to the Serbian Orthodox Church, is celebrated by the Russian Orthodox Church, the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the Holy Mountain, the ancient calendarists in Greece and the Egyptian Copts, who respect the Julian calendar.

On Christmas morning, before dawn, all the bells on the Orthodox churches ring and announce the arrival of Christmas and the Christmas celebration.

In the temples, the epistle of the archbishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church is read.

Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, from the Archdiocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, congratulated Christmas and called on the faithful to spend this holiday, in the year marking the 850th anniversary of the birth of Saint Sava, reconciled and united, with the message that they must not forget those who spend these days of joy suffering and grieving, exiled from their homes like Christ, and above all the people of Kosovo and Metohija.

Christmas is the holiday of the birth of a new life, the holiday of children and childhood, the holiday of parenthood - fatherhood and motherhood.

For Serbs, this holiday is decorated with the most beautiful religious customs and ceremonies, which have one basic meaning and goal: to ask God to preserve and increase the host's family and property.

In Serbia, the most important part of the festive Christmas table is česnica, a loaf of bread in which a gold or silver coin is placed. At the beginning of Christmas dinner, the česnica is rotated three times counterclockwise, before being broken among the family members.

According to belief, whoever finds a coin in his piece of dough will be exceptionally lucky in the coming year.

It is customary to have a Christmas roast on the table. The household members present the first guest at Christmas with gifts.

"And when the time was fulfilled, God sent his only begotten Son" to save the human race, it is written in the Gospel. And when nine months have passed since the annunciation, which was announced by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary in Nazareth, saying: "Rejoice, gracious... here you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus".

According to the Gospel, Christ was born exactly at midnight, when the brightest star stopped above the cave near Bethlehem.

"At the same time, a great bright star appeared over the land of Israel, which was unusual because it did not move from east to west, but moved to the south, and it was not at the height of all stars, but at the height of a bird's flight," the Gospel says.

The Virgin Mary, in the cave in Bethlehem, wrapped baby Jesus in straw and worshiped him as God.

"The star was followed for 40 days by three wise men, Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior. Arriving in Jerusalem, in the Bethlehem cave, over which the star stopped, they worshiped the child as the king of kings and presented him with gold, and then incense as God and myrrh as high priest and teacher".

King Herod, fearing for his throne, ordered that all male children under the age of two be killed in Bethlehem, hoping that the newborn Jesus would be among them.

Then, according to the Gospel, 14,000 children were killed, but the holy family fled to Egypt, where they lived until Herod's death.

In the gate of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity of Christ, there is a cave-chapel where the relics of 14,000 "bethlehemian infants who were killed by the bloodthirsty king Herod in order to kill the Christ child among them" are kept.

By the way, the date of celebrating Christmas was first mentioned as a holiday in 336 in a Roman calendar. Until the 16th century, all Christians celebrated Christmas on the same day, and after 1582 and the acceptance of the Gregorian calendar by the Vatican, differences appeared.

In the first centuries, both Orthodox and Protestant countries followed the old calendar, which later gradually changed.

In Serbia, Christmas has been proclaimed a national holiday since July 2001.