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January 2002
Dear Friends,
Our first Christmas in Russia, our first New Year’s, and
soon we will be at the end of our first year here. Since Russia
celebrates Christmas on January 7, we had the strange experience
of celebrating Christmas twice, first with the Anglican congregation
we attend and then with our Russian partners once again in January.
With St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Moscow, we had the
traditional service of Lessons and Carols the week before Christmas
and then several services during Christmas week. For the children,
the church put on a Christingle Service followed by a traditional
Orthodox puppet theater.
The Christingle tradition seems to come out of Croatia or Serbia.
The service involves telling the story of a family too poor to
make the traditional Christmas offering to the Christ child at
their church. On the streets of their village, though, they found
an orange. It had a rotten spot which they cut out and
inserted a candle. Then they decorated the orange with bits of
dried fruit arranged at four points around the orange, and tied
a red ribbon around it. It is full of symbolism, which our children
appreciated. The orange symbolizes the world, the red ribbon Christ’s
sacrifice for us, the bits of fruit—the fruits of the Spirit,
the four points represent North, South, East and West, and the
candle, of course, is the Light of the World—Jesus.
The puppet theater has been a part of Orthodox Christmas celebrations
for over 300 years. The young people who put it on are working
to revive some of the old traditions. For the show, the lights
in the church were turned out. The performance, done by candlelight,
was sung to a tune played on a Goossie, a traditional instrument
similar to a dulcimer. The story for this performance was "The
Death of Herod," dealing largely with Herod’s reaction
to the story of the three wise men. It contrasted Herod’s
reaction with that of the shepherds and the wise men.
In Russia, New Year’s celebrations took on many of the
Western Christmas traditions after the revolution, when no one
was allowed to celebrate Christmas openly. For New Year’s,
Russians put up a tree in their home, a "yolky," and
they exchange gifts. The children often dress up in costumes,
as they do in Italy for Epiphany. Instead of Santa Claus, they
have a figure called Father Frost, Ded Moroz, and his granddaughter
Snegurochka. Traditions were preserved, but not their meaning.
Ded Moroz bears a striking resemblance to old St. Nick, but these
are strictly secular characters. We’ve lost most of the meaning
in these Christmas traditions as well.
Advent and Christmas in the Baptist Church is a time for outreach
(trips to local orphanages with gifts of fruit and cookies) and
pageants telling the Christmas story. Great effort is put into
these productions. We watched the youth at Good News Baptist Church
prepare for their pageant as we helped with a vacation Bible school
during a partner visit in the week before Russian Christmas. They
spent hours painting a spectacular backdrop using tempura paints
and cardboard, they gathered elaborate costumes, and they practiced.
Our Russian colleagues are distressed by the commercialism of
New Year’s.
Because it comes first, New Year’s often overwhelms the significance
of Christmas for many Russians. Two nights before Russian Christmas,
we had the privilege of joining one of our partners for a special
tea. All those members who had worked to support the various programs
of the church throughout the year were invited. It was a time
of thanksgiving. The church was expressing thanksgiving for the
support of its members, and the members took time to come up and
express their heartfelt thanks for all that the church had meant
to them. We ate, we talked, we laughed, and we sang.
In addition to New Year’s, January 1, Russia also celebrates
Old New Year’s, on January 13. At the time of the revolution,
Russia switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
This is why Christmas is celebrated in January instead of December
and why they celebrate New Year’s twice.
Unfortunately, since our group was flying out of Moscow on January
7, we were at the airport and unable to join any of our partners
for the Christmas day service.
Peace and blessings,
Ellen & Al Smith
The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 94
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