THE SOVIET CHRISTMAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18283, 27 December 1922, Page 4

THE SOVIET CHRISTMAS.

Russia's revolutionary experiments have surely reached their climax in the instructions issued by the Soviet Government concerning the observance of Christmas. The season henceforth is to be shorn, so runs the purport of the regulations recently promulgated, of all features distinctively Christian, and to revert to the " heathen" form of its celebration. No sacred emblems are to be placed on Christmas trees ; figures of angels are especially banned ; and nothing suggestive of religion is to be allowed. This is to put back the clock with a vengeance. The roots of the great Christian festival, as of other things established in modern society, go far into the past; they are traceable to centuries before Christianity's arising. Indeed, it is known with certainty that when, some time after apostolic days, a general desire to celebrate the birth of Christianity's Founder led to a decision about the date to be kept, an old-time pagan festival time was chosen. It was the date of the winter solstice, which Europe had long marked with feasting in honour of spring's return and the promise of harvest. Christianity gave this season a new significance, and in the process of its consecration as a memorial of the Nativity freed it from the roughest of its frolics and made it the year's chief occasion of loving kindness. This engrafted significance has made the season fruitful of mutual goodwill. Once a mere rejoicing at the sun's reassertion of power—a physical frolic over a physical fact—it has become charged with spiritual suggestion and ethical impulse, and as such it is a truly popular festival throughout the civilised world. Is this not the nadir of Russia's descent into primitive barbarity ? Is civilisation to be kept alive on fireworks, and find its characteristic exercise in masquerades, as the Soviet edict implies 1 The Bolshevik rulers fear religion, even of the simple order that Christmas inculcates. Why"? There have been perversions of pure faith which have enslaved and oppressed men, but the story of the Babe of Bethlehem has inspired nothing but good. To cut Christmas out of the calendar is to rob the people of a powerful impulse to real fraternity and spiritual vision : to replace it with a riot of masques and pyrotechnics is to proffer a stone for bread.