Christmas is complicated, if you sweat the details. At the gym I frequent here in Oak Ridge, the management took down all of the Christmas decorations on December 26th.

I asked why. I was told: “Christmas is over.” I asked if they had heard of the “12 days of Christmas.” A staffer said, “Yes,” but assumed that was before the 25th. Another staffer quietly said that she would leave the decorations up until January 6th. It’s safe to assume that she attends the local Catholic parish or another liturgical church.

Hang in there with me. I am working my way toward a stunningly one-sided CBS News report that ran with this headline: “Ukraine snubs Russia, celebrates Christmas on Dec. 25 for first time.”

The key is that America has shopping-mall Christmas and then liturgical-calendar Christmas. Several years ago, I wrote an “On Religion” column noting that when Siri is asked, “When is Christmas?”, an Apple iPhone answered: "Christmas is on … December 25, 2012. I hope I have the day off." Then I asked, “When is Advent?” That led to this “conversation.”

Siri searched her memory and said: "I didn't find any events about 'Ed Fant.' "

Trying again: "When is the Advent season?"

Siri cheerfully responded: "I am not aware of any events about 'advent season.' "

After several more "BEED-EEP" chimes the Apple cloud ultimately drew a blank when asked, "When does the Christmas season end?" Alas, Siri didn't understand the term "Christmas season."

This morning, I asked Siri: “When is Orthodox Christmas.” I was told that Christmas Day is on January 7th.

Ah, but that isn’t accurate in most Orthodox Churches in America. Why? That’s complicated and the fine details are relevant to the CBS News report about Ukraine.

Many people are aware that the Orthodox follow the ancient Julian calendar, instead of the Western Gregorian calendar. However, in many lands shaped by European culture, the Orthodox (this includes my parish) follow a modified Julian calendar that manages to put Christmas on December 25th, but Pascha (Easter) remains on the date that fits the Julian calendar.

Trust me, there is much more that can be said. But here is the key: This is basically a collision between cultures shaped by European culture and those shaped by eastern Orthodox culture. This should not be collapsed into a political clash between Ukrainians and Russians, although it may be linked to cultural tensions between Ukrainians who primarily speak Ukrainian and those who primarily speak Russian.

This brings us to the overture in the CBS report:

Ukrainian Orthodox Christians attended services … as the country for the first time celebrated Christmas on Dec. 25, after the government changed the date from Jan. 7, when most Orthodox believers celebrate, as a snub to Russia.

"All Ukrainians are together," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Christmas message released Sunday evening. "We all celebrate Christmas together. On the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as one united country."

It’s highly simplistic — inaccurate, even — to say that all Ukrainians “celebrate Christmas together … as one big family,” but Zelenskyy is making a political statement. It would also be highly inaccurate to say that all Ukrainians who oppose the Russian invasion agree on this move to the Western Christmas schedule.

In terms of basic issues of accuracy and fairness, this is the key material in the CBS report. Let’s walk through this carefully:

Most eastern Christian churches use the Julian calendar, in which Christmas falls on Jan. 7, rather than the Gregorian calendar used in everyday life and by Western churches.

That’s a good start, with the line defined as “eastern” and “Western” (although I will ask about that small “e” clashing with the large “W”). Let’s keep reading:

Zelenskyy signed a law in July moving the celebration to Dec. 25, saying it enabled Ukrainians to "abandon the Russian heritage of imposing Christmas celebrations on January 7." The date change is part of hastened moves since Russia's invasion to remove traces of the Russian and Soviet empires. Other measures include renaming streets and removing monuments.

This is where things veer off the rails. Is it “Russian heritage” that leads to Julian calendar celebrations in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and in many other settings in the Eastern Orthodox world? Is it a “Russian thing” that leads to “old calendar” tensions in some cultures in the Orthodox world (including America)?

This brings us to a reference that CBS News really needs to correct.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine formally broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church over Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

That’s just wrong. Period.

The schisms inside Orthodoxy in Ukraine started long before that. I talked with some experts about that — secular and religious — during my first Kiev visit in 2008. In an “On Religion” column (“Religion ghosts in Ukraine”) I mentioned an important public rite of mourning in which media failed to grasp the importance of the splits inside the nation’s Orthodox believers.

It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) — with direct ties to Moscow — had taken part. …

But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century? A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. 

This historic Ukrainian Orthodox Church continues to exist, under persecution opposed by Pope Francis, the United Nations and many other human-rights activists.

Here at GetReligion, I have stressed that it’s important for reporters to talk to leaders of the historic Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as to the leaders of the current government and the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This new church was created out of the merger of the two churches born during the post-1991 schisms (with strong support from the United States, the European Union and the ecumenical patriarch in Istanbul).

Meanwhile, the leader of the older UOC condemned the Russian invasion, supported Ukrainian independence and has done everything he can do — under Orthodox canon law — to cut remaining ecclesiastical ties to Moscow. In an earlier “On Religion” column I noted this statement at the time of the invasion:

UOC Metropolitan Onuphry proclaimed: "We appeal to the President of Russia and ask him to immediately stop the fratricidal war. The Ukrainian and Russian peoples came out of the Dnieper Baptismal font, and the war between these peoples is a repetition of the sin of Cain, who killed his own brother out of envy."

Also, the UOC synod proclaimed:

"From the first day of the invasion of Russian troops, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has condemned this war and has consistently advocated the preservation of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Our believers, with God's help and the prayers of their fellow believers, courageously defend their Motherland in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. … Memory eternal to all victims of this terrible war!"

What’s the big idea here? I think it is crucial for journalists to note that the overwhelmingly majority of the Ukrainians who who attempt to celebrate Christmas on January 7th will not be making a POLITICAL statement that is pro-Russia or, heaven forbid, pro-Vladimir Putin. They are trying to follow the older liturgical and cultural traditions of the Orthodox east.

What will happen on January 7th? Will congregations in this older Orthodox body be allowed to worship freely? Will their members have complications at work or in school? What will happen at the ancient monastery known as the Lavra of the Kievan Caves?

The CBS News report accurately notes that most people in Western Ukraine are fine with the calendar change that aligns their churches with Europe. Read the following carefully:

"We wanted to support what is happening in Ukraine now. Because changes are always difficult, and when these changes occur, more people are needed to support it in order for something new to happen," said Denis, a young man attending church in Odesa.

At Kyiv's Golden-Domed Monastery, Oksana Krykunova said that for her, after the invasion, it was "natural to switch to the 25th." She added: "I just visited my parents — my 81-year-old mother and 86-year-old father — and they accepted it absolutely (normally)."

In the western city of Lviv, which has been little damaged by the war, Taras Kobza, an army medic, said "We have to join the civilized world."

This point of view states that the civilized world is, of course, Europe, the United States and the world of mass-media culture — not ancient Orthodoxy. That is a crucial part of this bloody, bitter divide and that issue predates, by several decades, the hellish Russian invasion of Ukraine.

FIRST IMAGE: A Ukrainian Christmas basket, for sale through the Ukrainian Gift Delivery website.