Opening gifts, attending a church service and then rounding out the day with a family meal.

This is how many of us will be celebrating Christmas today.

However, members of a local church do things a little differently.

“For us, Christmas doesn’t just last one day,” said Father Alexis Baldwin, attending priest for St. Catherine Orthodox Church in Columbus.

“There’s a lot of prayers and hymns and services that we do leading up to Christmas Day. For instance, on Friday I am going to be serving what we call The Royal Hours. It is a collection of hymns and readings from scripture that are done in preparation for Christmas. It is kind of preparing our hearts and minds for celebrating that feast. We don’t always do this when we have other major feasts in the church. It’s kind of unique for Christmas.”

Nativity is what the members call the Christmas holiday and it begins for them in November.

Beginning on Nov. 15, Orthodox Christians began the Nativity Fast. The fast sees them refraining from eating all meat, dairy and egg products leading up to Christmas Day, which for the parishioners of St. Catherine is Dec. 25, though it varies by church. According to The Orthodox Church of America’s website, the fast is to teach discipline over desires of the flesh as well as prepare them to enjoy the Nativity feast.

“One of the things that I think is quite interesting is, many Orthodox Christians, we celebrate Christmas on what ends up being Jan. 7 in many places,” Baldwin said. “So, even in Mississippi, some of our churches celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, and some of our churches celebrate it on Dec. 25.”

With Columbus being just one of the three churches where Baldwin ministers, he was given permission by his Bishop to celebrate the holiday on both Dec. 25 and Jan 7.

The day before Nativity is when the celebrations reach a peak.

A Christmas Eve Liturgy is delivered in the afternoon. Following this, a feast is served, still excluding the fast items.

“One of the traditions that many of us hold is that we always have a dinner,” he said. “Generally it’s done at someone’s house, and it could either be done by a family or families together, or it could be done at the church. We have a number of different dishes. Usually, it’s 12 to commemorate the 12 disciples, but sometimes it can be a few less. It doesn’t necessarily always have to be 12. We gather around the table there and we read from scripture about the star appearing in the sky and the wise men journeying and the shepherds. Essentially, we’re celebrating the coming of Christ’s birth.”

At this feast, there remains an empty chair. This is no ordinary chair though.

“Generally, no matter how many people are invited to that meal, we always leave a chair empty,” Baldwin said. “That represents an invitation for Christ to come. It’s the chair for Jesus.”

The final liturgy is delivered on Christmas morning, and the celebration concludes.

Baldwin added that, though many aspects of the Orthodox celebration are different, there is also the standard celebration.

“Orthodox Christians also celebrate Christmas in ways common to everyone in the United States, such as putting up a Christmas tree, lights, gift giving, singing carols, even if some of our church traditions are different,” he said.

St. Catherine Church
Nestled behind the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library at 725 Fourth Ave. N., St. Catherine is a relatively new church, founded in late 2017.

“There was no Orthodox Christian Church in the Columbus area when we moved here in 2017,” said Dr. William Rosenblatt. “So, for a couple of Sundays, we drove to the closest Orthodox church, which was in Tupelo. And from our house in New Hope, that was a solid hour and 40 minutes, which became not doable pretty quick.”

This led to Rosenblatt and his family, along with a few families he had connected with in the area, to set out and establish their own church.

“I had a priest tell me, in the midst of that journey, ‘You know William, it’s a whole lot easier to drive an hour and a half to church than it is to start one.’ And, boy, was he right. It has been very challenging on a number of levels.”

However, he does not regret the move.

“The rewards are exponential and it’s been an incredible area of spiritual growth for me, personally.”

The church now boasts a congregation of about 30 people.