“Metropolitan” of the OCU, Ioann Yaremenko, said that priests should convey to the parishioners the “ancient apostolic church rules”, which, according to him, teach to celebrate Christmas on December 25th. It is reported by suspilne.media.

The “hierarch” believes that the use of the Julian church calendar is due to the fact that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church “was subordinate to the Russian for more than three centuries.”

“The signs of the feudal-serf spirit of this Church influenced its inability to bring the chronology of the church calendar in line with simple or even elementary astronomical facts of human life,” Yaremenko added.