Christians mark the baptizing of Jesus today

January 6, 2006
Bucharest Daily News
By Alecs Iancu

[...]
[...] Orthodox Armenians celebrate Christmas today, on the same day the Orthodox Church marks the baptizing of Jesus.

According to Armenians, celebrating Christmas on January 6 is a way of maintaining initial Christian traditions, which state that Jesus was baptized 33 years after he was born, on his birthday.

The celebration of Christmas on January 6 by the Armenians is not due to the old calendar, according to a press release from the head of the Armenian Union in Romania, Varujan Vosganian.

"This is false because Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 6, on the same day as the baptizing of Jesus, while the Christian Orthodox who go by the old calendar celebrate Christmas on January 7 and the baptizing on January 20," the release states.

The Christmas date was changed during the Roman Empire, after Christian beliefs were accepted among the empire's religions by Emperor Constantine, through the Milan Edict in 313 A.D. Thus, December 25 was set as the new date for Christmas. The change was officially accepted by Christian churches, after the Chalcedony Synod, in 451. But, due to the fact Armenia was at war with the Persians, the Armenian church representatives could not attend the gathering and did not adopt the calendar changes. Thus, Armenian continued celebrating the birth of Jesus following traditions of the early ages of Christianity, the release states.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.