Os votos de Feliz Natal do The European Correspondent (à maneira da Arménia)

If Europe were a classroom, Armenia would be that one extra kid who does everything differently. This small country of three million people has an alphabet of its own, a unique Indo-European language unintelligible to anyone else, and a Church that is so independent, it celebrates Christmas on a day nobody else does: 6 January.

The reason lies in early Christian history. The Armenian Church, an independent branch within Christianity, celebrates Jesus’s birth the way early Christians once did. In the first centuries of the religion, there was no single, fixed Christmas Day. 6 January was the main celebration, marking Jesus' birth, baptism, and revelation all at once.

That changed in the fourth century, as Christianity spread across the Roman Empire and grew more organised. Church leaders in Rome separated these events into different feast days. Jesus’s birth was moved to 25 December, while 6 January was kept for other parts of the story.

The 25th was a convenient date: it fell close to the winter solstice, the time of year when days begin to grow longer, making it a symbol of light overcoming darkness. It also fitted easily into existing midwinter celebrations already popular across Europe.

Over time, celebrating Christmas on 25 December became the norm across most Christian churches; Armenia, however, never made this change. Having separated early from the Roman Church, it kept the older tradition and continued to mark Jesus’s birth on 6 January.

And the celebration itself is pretty unique too. Armenian Christmas is primarily a religious occasion, largely untouched by the consumer rituals that dominate in much of Europe: there are no gift exchanges, no festive pop songs, and no houses dressed in red and green.

All of that happens at New Year’s, which is when Armenians get together to feast, have fun, exchange presents – all the wholesome stuff.

On the evening of 5 January, Christmas Eve, Armenians flock to churches to attend the Christmas liturgy and carry symbolic candles back to their homes.

Afterwards, families gather for a Christmas dinner, usually consisting of fish and wine, two well-known Christian symbols. And of course, there is the most recognisable Armenian Christmas dish: rice with raisins. The rice, which is greater in quantity, symbolises the mundane and the common, while the raisins, fewer but sweet, symbolise the believers.

Note that many Europeans celebrate Christmas on 7 January. This is not a matter of theology, but of calendars: many Orthodox Christians (like in Russia, Serbia and Georgia) follow the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian one. As the two are 13 days apart, 25 December in the Julian calendar falls on 7 January in the modern one.

Ukraine also used to celebrate Christmas on 7 January but switched in 2023 to 25 December to distance itself from Russia and align more closely with Europe.

Nerses Hovsepyan