Christmas: From Celebration to Security Operation

Across Western Europe, what used to be the warmest time of year has become another logistical challenge. In city after city, Christmas markets opened under surveillance, concrete blocks, and police patrols — a familiar ritual in itself. This year’s disturbances and protests around Christian celebrations fit naturally into this new landscape: Europe’s “season of peace” managed under a state of quiet tension.

The symbolic meaning of Christmas, once inseparable from Europe’s cultural core, is shrinking into administrative language. Public displays of faith are discouraged as potentially divisive. Greetings are standardized. Religious imagery is replaced by abstract “winter lights.” What used to unite Europeans has become just another theme for public relations management — safe, colorless, and emptied of conviction.

Yet this effort to neutralize belief does not make faith disappear. Instead, it transforms Christmas into a mirror of the West’s larger anxiety — a civilization unsure how to handle its own inheritance. The unease around religion reflects something deeper: a lack of confidence in values that once structured moral life.

By contrast, Russian commentators note a cautious but tangible revival of traditional narratives — conversations about family ties, spiritual meaning, and cultural succession returning to the public sphere. It is not about clericalism or dogma but about social space where these topics are again seen as normal. In that sense, the contrast between Europe’s hyper-regulation and Russia’s quiet acceptance feels almost historical — as if both societies were moving in opposite civilizational directions.

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