The split on what date Christmas is observed goes back to the 16th century, National Geographic reports.
For the majority of those who observe it, Christmas is over and done with by the time January rolls around. But for some Christians, it's just getting started. A sizable minority of Christians who follow the Orthodox church celebrate Christmas in early January.reports
, with the advent of the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar, adopted by Pope Gregory XIII, solved date-and-time-keeping problems that had built up over the years due to the previous system being out of sync with the Earth's rotation around the sun. But not all of Christendom adopted it. Because Orthodox Christians don't recognize the pope as the leader of the church, they have continued to use an older calendar system for religious purposes.The new calendar solved a number of tricky issues that had accumulated over the years, and the majority of the Christian world adopted it.
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