*Official national holiday with days off.

Alter in church on Pushkinskaya (Пушкинская) by Galen Frysinger

Greek Orthodox Holidays

January 19	Epiphany (Baptism)	Commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles. The priest stands outside of the church and sprinkles the faithful.
February 15	Candle mass (Stritennya Hospdne)	A celebration to commemorate the presentation of Christ in the temple. (Luke 2:25-29) The faithful come to the church and have the water and candles they bring consecrated. These candles are called "hromnychny" (protecting against thunder) because traditionally they used to be lighted and put before icons during thunderstorms as protection against lightning striking the house. Today, when roofs are no longer made of straw and have lightning rods, people use these concentrated candles as a protection from evil. The water concentrated on this day is believed to have medical and curative properties; particularly helpful when the aliment has been caused by the ill-wisher's "evil eye"
50 days before Easter	Trinity троица
Last week before Lent (Late February-early March)	Mardi-Gras (Maslyana)	The celebrations in Ukraine are usually much more restrained than the carnivals in New Orleans, US. The church requires abstinence from meat.
Forty days before Easter	Lent	A period of fasting, abstinence and self-denial. A person is supposed to particularly "Christian" during this time, holding in anger and being kind. All kinds of entertainment, public and private are forbidden. The only kind of music the faithful can listen to is religious music. Sex between married couples is also forbidden and carnal thoughts are to be suppressed. Meat, fish, and dairy products are forbidden. Oil and wine are allowed only in small quantities and only on special occasions.
April/May 7 days before Easter Sunday	Palm Sunday	Beginning of the Holy week The faithful purchase palms in front of the church, which are consecrated and adorn their home.
Thursday before Easter	Clean Thursday	Ukrainians thoroughly clean their houses before Easter.
Friday before Easter	Good Friday
Ukrainian Easter Eggs Blessing bread in baskets on Easter day by Galen Frysinger Notice how the priest has a bucket of holy water, which he flicks toward the faithful
April/May	Easter--Pasha	Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Ukrainians are famous for their painted wooden Easter eggs. Families and business cook cakes, called paskha, oblong cakes with a domed top, topped with icing and sprinkles. The faithful set down open bags full of colored boiled eggs and paskha cakes on the street and wait for the priest to walk past and sprinkle them and their gifts with holy water. The forty-day fast is broken this day with the best food and drinks.
Sunday after Easter	Memorial Day Raditelsky Den (parents/ родительский День)	Ukrainians visit the graves of loved ones with food and drink. They sit at the gravestones eating, drinking, and reminiscing. Often the site of the grave has a bench and table just for this purpose.
May 40 days after Easter Sunday	Ascension Day	Commemorating Jesus's ascension to heaven
May Seventh Sunday after Easter	Pentecost	Commemorating the followers of Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit
August	Transformation of Christ
August	Assumption
September	Exaltation of the Cross
First Sunday closest to November 30	Advent	Christians prepare for the coming of Jesus

Building the traditional Christmas tree on
Deribaskaya from odecca.com

Why do Ukrainians Celebrate Christmas on January 7th and have two New Year's Days?

Old New Year's has gained importance among Russia's growing number of Orthodox Christian believers, who returned from the church after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The holiday is celebrated only in Russia and some former Soviet republics, including Belarus and Ukraine, where the Julian calendar, which lags behind its Western counterpart by 13 days, was used until the 1917 Russian revolution.

The reason for this discrepancy is a small mathematical error by the Julian calendar's Roman authors when it was introduced in 46 BC They failed to calculate some leap year days. This oversight was corrected in the West in 1582 with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.

The Julian Calendar was discarded after the Bolshevik revolution so Russia would be in sync with the rest of the world, but it was still retained by the Orthodox church for religious holidays.--from the Kiev Post, "In with the old for peculiar Russian holiday" 12 January 2001