Orthodoxy Is Not Uniform on This — Read Carefully
There is no single 'Orthodox calendar'. There are two practices for fixed feasts and one shared framework for Pascha, and conflating them produces almost every error people make about this subject.
Old-calendar churches
Some Orthodox churches continue to use the Julian calendar for fixed feasts — including the Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia and Georgia, and the monastic communities of Mount Athos, along with old-calendarist groups that separated over the question. Their Nativity falls on 25 December Julian, which is 7 January on the civil calendar.
New-calendar (Revised Julian) churches
Others use the Revised Julian calendar for fixed feasts — including the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Churches of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Antioch, Alexandria, Cyprus and others, together with the Orthodox Church in America and most Greek Orthodox parishes in the West. Their Nativity falls on 25 December as it appears on the civil calendar.
Pascha is the shared part
Both groups compute Pascha on the traditional Julian-based Paschalion. That is why Orthodox Easter usually falls later than Western Easter and sometimes coincides with it, and why an Orthodox parish can keep Nativity on the civil 25 December while keeping Pascha on a date the West does not share.
What this rules out
Two statements should now be off the table: 'the Orthodox use the old calendar' (many do not, for fixed feasts) and 'the Orthodox adopted the Gregorian calendar' (none did; the Revised Julian is a distinct rule, and no one moved Pascha onto it). Both are common, and both are wrong.
Where it remains genuinely unsettled
Whether the situation should be resolved, and how, is an open question inside Orthodoxy. Proposals for a common date with the West resurface periodically, and there is no pan-Orthodox decision. Listing jurisdictions is descriptive, not a prediction that anything will change.
Citations on this file
Sources
- Orthodox Church in AmericaA Revised Julian jurisdiction; publishes accessible explanations of its calendar practice.https://www.oca.org/questions ↗
- Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America — Our Faith libraryAuthoritative jurisdictional material on the liturgical calendar and Paschal observance.https://www.goarch.org/ourfaith ↗
Links are pointers for further reading. The claim is what is sourced, not the website.