--- title: "December 23, 2026 (New Style) | Church calendar" description: "Wednesday, December 23, 2026. 23 December (Revised Julian). Fast day. The Orthodox Church calendar, icons, prayers, lives of saints and Church history on…" url: "https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2026-12-23" language: "en" --- Wednesday # December 23, 2026 23 December (Revised Julian) · 30th week after Pentecost New Calendar (Revised Julian) [Old Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2026-12-23) [New Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2026-12-23) [Month calendar](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2026-12) [← December 22](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2026-12-22) [December 24 →](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2026-12-24) ## Events of the day No commemorations in the content package for this day yet - Forefeast: Nativity of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ ## Fasting Fast day · Nativity Fast Nativity Fast (from 20 Dec Old Style), Monday, Wednesday and Friday: xerophagy. - Meat: not allowed - Dairy & eggs: not allowed - Fish: not allowed - Oil: not allowed - Wine: not allowed - Xerophagy Food rules are reference church information. Agree your personal measure of fasting with a priest; consult a doctor if you are ill. ## Readings of the day - Epistle Hebrews 10:1–18 **Show the text** 1 For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Or else wouldn’t they have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins? 3 But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins. 4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5 Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. 6 You had no pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.’ ” 8 Previously saying, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you didn’t desire, neither had pleasure in them” (those which are offered according to the law), 9 then he has said, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first, that he may establish the second, 10 by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11 Every priest indeed stands day by day serving and often offering the same sacrifices which can never take away sins, 12 but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet. 14 For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. 15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them: ‘After those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;’ ” then he says, 17 “I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.” 18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. - Gospel Mark 10:11–16 **Show the text** 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her. 12 If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery.” 13 They were bringing to him little children, that he should touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who were bringing them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. 15 Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.” 16 He took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands on them. Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, New Calendar (OCA practice). Text: World English Bible. ## Saints and icons - Prayer of the day: [The Trisagion](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/prayers/trisagion)