Christmas

Christmas (Latin: Nativitas, 'birth')? Is one of the most important festivals of Christianity, along with Easter and Pentecost “Seventh Sunday after Easter”, which celebrates the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, Israel “A small town near Jerusalem on the West Bank of the Jordan River; early home of David and regarded as the place where Jesus was born”. The Catholic Church OR Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast on December 25.

The Anglican Church some other Protestant churches and the Romanian Orthodox Church, and on January 7 in other Orthodox churches because they do not accept the reforms made ​​to the Julian calendar, to pass our current calendar, called the Gregorian, the name of reform, the Pope Gregory XIII.

Anglophones “Someone who speaks English” use the term Christmas, which means 'mass of Christ'. In some Germanic languages ​​such as German, the party called Weihnachten, which means 'blessed night'. The Christmas holidays proposed, as its name suggests, celebrate the Nativity (ie birth) of Jesus of Nazareth.

The celebration of this feast on December 25 due to the old annual celebration of the birth of the God-Sun on the winter solstice (natalis Solis invicti), one adapted by the Catholic Church in the third century AD C. to allow conversion of the peoples paganos.2

Therefore, to some historians the historical Christmas celebrations should be in spring (April-May), and others, following the story of Luke 2:8, which indicates that the night of Jesus' birth, the shepherds tending the outdoor herds and the sky was full of stars, it is unlikely that this event had occurred in the winter (northern hemisphere). The Christian Church held on 25 December as conventional date, because in the spring or fall, the Church celebrates Easter.