The Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that made December 25 an official holiday and a day off and canceled the day off on May 2.

"For" the adoption of the draft law № 5496 voted 238 deputies, notes the Left Bank.

Initially, the document was not proposed to be made a working day on May 2, but the proposal was made by Speaker Andrey Parubiy. At first this editing did not gain the necessary number of votes - opposed the Radical Party. After that, the speaker put to the vote the draft law in its original form, but he was not accepted either - a number of deputies were indignant that Ukraine would increase the number of days off. It took a rating vote for two options, but both scored a little more than 200 votes. After a lengthy discussion, the head of the Radical Party, Oleg Lyashko, said his faction agreed to cancel the weekend on May 2. As a result, the law adopted.

Amendments have been made to the Labor Code. May 1 is renamed Labor Day and will remain a weekend.

"About 23,172 active religious Orthodox, Greek Catholic and some other Christian communities celebrate Christmas on January 7 according to the Julian calendar. At the same time, today in Ukraine there are about 11 000 religious Catholic and Protestant communities, which is about 30% of all religious organizations in Ukraine, which celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, that is, on December 25, "- says the explanatory note to the bill.

Christmas is celebrated twice, on December 25 and January 7, Belarus, Moldova, Lebanon and Albania.

Recall, two years ago, NSDC Secretary Alexander Turchinov came up with the idea to postpone the celebration of Christmas in Ukraine from January 7 to December 25. The head of the UGCC Svyatoslav (Shevchuk) supported this step.