Modern-day controversy occurs mainly in China, the United States and to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom. In Nazi Germany, organized religion as a whole was attacked as an enemy of the state and Christmas celebrations were corrupted so as to serve the Party's racist ideology.
Later, in the 20th century, Christmas celebrations were prohibited under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union. With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of Revolutionary France, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was forcibly renamed the 'equality cake' under anticlerical government policies.
In the 17th century, the Puritans had laws forbidding the ecclesiastical celebration of Christmas, unlike the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, the latter from which they separated. For centuries, it has been the subject of several reformations, both religious and secular. For the brief cessation of hostilities during World War I, see Christmas truce.Ī 1931 edition of the Soviet magazine Bezbozhnik, published by the League of Militant Atheists, depicting an Orthodox Christian priest being forbidden to take home a tree for the celebration of Christmastide, which was banned under the Marxist–Leninist doctrine of state atheism Ĭhristmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, which, in Western Christian Churches, is held annually on 25 December.
