Russian propaganda spreads fake about Christmas celebrations in Ukrainian church on January 7

Russian Telegram channels are circulating a video of a service in one of Ukraine’s churches. A female voiceover claims that the video was recorded for the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), alleging that on January 7 “people came to church to celebrate ‘Soviet’ Christmas” and are therefore “traitors,” while supposedly no one attended the service on December 25.

This claim is false. The original video was filmed in 2024 in one of Kyiv’s churches during Christmas celebrations and was first published on TikTok on December 26 of that year.

Using video-editing software, propagandists added the caption “traitors” to the original footage and overlaid it with a separately recorded audio track featuring a female voice.

It should be noted that in July 2023, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada adopted a law changing the dates of state holidays. Under this law, January 7, when Christmas is celebrated according to the Julian calendar, is no longer a public holiday or a non-working day. Instead, December 25 was officially established as the date for celebrating Christmas.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) decided to switch to the Revised Julian calendar as of September 1, 2023.

At the same time, the OCU emphasized that the transition to the new calendar is voluntary, and the fact that certain parishes and monasteries remain on the old calendar should not be a cause for disputes. As a result, some Ukrainians will continue to celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar on January 7. This calendar is also used by the Russian, Serbian, Georgian, and Jerusalem Orthodox churches.

Most Orthodox churches, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, use the Revised Julian calendar.

Russian propaganda traditionally spreads manipulative narratives around Christmas holidays in Ukraine. Their aim is to convince audiences that only the style of celebration approved in Russia is canonical and supposedly the only correct one, while portraying Ukrainians’ transition to the new calendar as evidence of an alleged departure from Orthodox faith.

As previously reported by Ukrinform, Russian propaganda earlier forged a fake Charlie Hebdo cover allegedly featuring a Christmas greeting from President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Andrii Olenin