Orthodox Christmas

Santa stood in line with other Ukrainians on Thursday, waiting to change currency for Christmas Eve celebrations. Throughout the world, today is Christmas for more than 200 million people who worship in Orthodox Christian churches. In an extraordinary bid for unity, the heads of the world’s 15 Orthodox churches gathered in Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth, and led Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat through a candlelit Christmas Mass in the recesses of the Church of the Nativity, a cave where tradition says Jesus was born. Arafat, a Muslim, lit a candle. Orthodoxy’s traditional domain encompasses Russia, much of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and some regions around the Black Sea.