More than 50% of Ukrainians celebrated Christmas on December 25 this year: survey and changes

Illustrative image: curaphotography/DEPOSITPHOTOS

In 2024, more surveyed Ukrainians celebrated Christmas on December 25 than last year. This winter, Christmas was celebrated on December 25 53% Ukrainians, and last winter – 42%.

Those who celebrated Christmas on January 7, on the contrary, decreased. There were such respondents 11% this year, and last year – 17%, it is said in survey International Republican Institute.

Also, the number of people who celebrated the birth of Christ on both dates decreased by 4% during the year. At the same time, the number of people who do not celebrate Christmas at all has increased somewhat.

Such results were shown by a study commissioned by the Sociological Group “Rating”. International Republican Institute (IRI). Note that the survey concerned Ukrainians who are not Muslims or Jews.

Among those who celebrated Christmas on December 25, Greek Catholics prevailed (93%). In second place are believers of the OCU and UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate (58%).

Christmas on December 25 was also celebrated by atheists (33%) and those who do not belong to any religion (38%). This date was the least common among believers of the UOC MP (24%), because they mostly celebrated Christmas on January 7.

In this survey, there is no noticeable correlation between age and the date of Christmas. The indicators were approximately the same in all age groups – the date of December 25 was in the lead.

As for the region of residence, December 25 was the most popular date among residents of the West (72%). The center was in second place (55%), and the south (39%) was in third place.

Slightly fewer people celebrated Christmas on December 25 in the east (32%). At the same time, the East leads in terms of the number of respondents who do not celebrate Christmas at all (29%).

We will remind you that on July 14, 2023, the Rada moved the state date of Christmas to December 25 according to the New Julian church calendar.

And in two weeks Volodymyr Zelenskyi finally signed the law, which changes the dates of public holidays, in particular, the date of Christmas.

Support for December 25 as a date of celebration has grown significantly since the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. In 2021, only 26% of Ukrainians were ready to move the date of the celebration from January 7 to December 25. At the same time, in December 2022, almost half of the respondents already agreed to this.

And after some time, almost 60% of Ukrainians in “Dia” voted to celebrate Christmas on December 25, instead of January 7.

The survey was conducted by the Sociological Group “Rating” on the order of the Center for Analysis and Sociological Research International Republican Institute throughout Ukraine (except the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas) on February 17-21, 2024.

2 thousand residents of Ukraine aged 18+ took part in it. The error of representativeness of the study with a confidence probability of 0.95 does not exceed ±3.5 percentage points for the full sample. The respondents’ reach rate is 14%.

The survey was conducted with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).