It is Christmas Day in the Orthodox Christian world.*
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Think about this, YOU are so important to God that, in his great plan, he sent his son to take on humanness so he could save us.
And the eternal Son of God was willing to leave heaven in obedience to the Father because he loved YOU.
The great and holy Creator of all there is was willing to sacrifice self for YOU, dear reader.
Thank you God!
Merry Christmas!
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* This difference in date is because Orthodox churches (there are many of them and are nation based e.g. Ukrainian, Russian, Greek, etc.) still use the Julian calendar (apparently from Julius Caesar no less) instead of the Gregorian calendar (16th c. long after the East-West schism in 1053). I love it because it extends Christmas longer!
Fun fact: Kievan leader Yaroslav the Wise sought to spread Christianity across the realm.
Kyiv, Ukraine
He sent emissaries to Rome and Constantinople to choose the form of the church to spread through the Kievan state. As the story goes, the emissaries returned and described the mystical beauty of the Eastern churches in Constantinople, that factor was large among the reasons for his choosing Eastern style.
kingdom travelin' 