Putin attends Orthodox Christmas service at church in Novo-Ogaryovo presidential residence

As a rule, Putin celebrates Christmas outside Moscow, while on Easter he usually goes to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

© Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended an overnight Orthodox Christmas service at the Church of the Image of the Savior, located at his presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov disclosed last month that Putin traditionally attended Orthodox Christmas services outside Moscow but did not specify, where the Russian president would attend the service this year.

As a rule, Putin celebrates Christmas outside Moscow, while on Easter he usually goes to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

In 2021, the Russian head of state attended a Christmas service at the Church of St. Nicholas on Lipno Island near Veliky Novgorod.

On three occasions, in 2012, 2019 and 2020 Putin went to a Christmas service at the Transfiguration Cathedral in St. Petersburg, where he was baptized in infancy.

In 2018, Putin celebrated Christmas in St. Petersburg, at the Church of Simeon and Anna on Mokhovaya Street, where his own father was baptized.

In 2017, he attended a Christmas service in the St. George's (Yuriev) Monastery in Veliky Novgorod, and in 2016, at a rural Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God near Voronezh. Before that Putin for two years in a row went to Christmas services near Sochi: the Church of the Holy Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, built near Olympic Park, and the Holy Trinity St. George's Monastery in the Lesnoye village, the Adler district.

In other years, Putin went for Christmas to the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God in the village of Turginovo, the Tver Region, the church of the Holy Martyrs Alexander and Antonina in the village of Selishche, the Kostroma Region, the Candlemas Church in the village of Solomennoye in Karelia, the St. Procopius’s Cathedral in Veliky Ustyug and the New Jerusalem Monastery. In 2006, Putin went to a church in Yakutsk, where outside air temperatures on that day fell 50 degrees below freezing.

In Moscow, Putin marked Christmas in 2001 at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and in 2000, when he, while serving as Russia’s acting president, appeared at the Christmas service in the Trinity Church on Sparrow Hills.