A Christian Christmas - Soviet Union

A Christian Christmas

Moscow - In the Soviet Union Christmas normally begins in the Baltics, for it is only there that Catholics and Protestants commemorate the holiday according to the Gregorian Calendar - the so-called "new style." The other churches - the Russian Orthodox Church and the Armenian Gregorian Church, to be sure, but even the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite and Baptists and other Protestants - celebrate Christmas 13 days later, according to the Julian Calendar.

This year, however, it would not suffice to describe only what was happening in the Baltics on December 24 and 25, although there, for the first time in dozens of years, Christmas not only was celebrated nationwide, but was even recognized as a national holiday by the Communist authorities. In Lithuania all 630 Catholic churches summoned believers to Mass by tolling their church bells for the first time since the Soviet takeover in 1940. In Vilnius Cathedral, Archbishop Julionas Stepanavicius celebrated Mass, which was broadcast over the radio and television, to be heard by all Lithuanians. Throughout the republic there were concerts of religious music, and city squares for the first time displayed brightly shimmering Christmas trees.

Estonia, which is primarily Protestant, was almost as colorful this Christmas as its Catholic neighbor, Lithuania. Practically the entire population of this tiny country attended church services. In the Dom Cathedral of Tallinn there was a huge Christmas concert. And a curious event took place right before Christmas: a manifesto appeared in the press announcing the formation of the "Party of Free Democrats of Estonia." Among the scientists and cultural figures who had signed the manifesto, half were former CPSU members.

This year even in Yerevan and in Moscow the commemorations began on the "new style" Christmas Eve. On December 24 Armenian protestors erected a Christmas tree on the tracks of the railroad that brings raw materials to the nitrate plant in Yerevan, which for a long time has been poisoning the city's inhabitants. Christmas this year has been a symbol of rebirth for the Armenian people.

In Moscow there are relatively few Catholics, most of them Poles living here. On December 24 and 25 they gathered, as they customarily do, in St. Ludvik's Cathedral, where they listened attentively to the sermon by the church's rector, Father Stanislav Mozheyko. This Christmas, however, they were joined by a number of Orthodox believers. But even more of the Orthodox went on December 24 to the new Moscow Art Theater, which for the first time staged a Christmas play, organized and financed by the Baptist newspaper The Protestant. The initiative came from Nikolay Gubenko, a famous dramatic actor who is now the minister of culture. The play, Under the Star of Bethlehem, was specially written for the occasion, and it reached out not only to believers: those in attendance included not simply atheists and Communists, but even People's Deputies, such as Gavriil Popov and Ilya Zaslavsky.

At the end of the play everyone in the audience received a gift that is very precious in the Soviet Union - a Gospel. There are plans to repeat this program in the Moscow Art Theater during the course of the Yuletide season.

There is no more room for Communist idols in the festive light of Christmas.

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