Christian Orthodox History

Most of my friends around the world have never heard or knew about Christian Orthodox tradition and customs. They were quite surprised when i said that we are celebrating Christmas one week after new year. Why is that? please explain! - was the comment of one.

Well, here are some facts!

The separation between the two churches happened in 1054, when the misunderstandings between the two wings, the Roman in Rome (Italy) and Constantinople as a part of the Byzantine empire, that was actually the old Roman capital (today's Istanbul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople#Religious) . The ancient Roman empire collapsed and was separated in Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire.

To read more about the separation of the churches you can visit Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_Schism.



In today's world Orthodox Christianity is spread all over the world, in all continents, but mostly in Eastern Europe and has around 400 Mill. people with that religion. Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Kazaxstan, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Belarus, Cyprus, Georgia, and some other where is minority.

In the next post i am going to gather some pictures and customs that we have during these 3 days of celebration of Christmas. What we do, why we do it, and what does it represents.