For all of us, the calendar is a familiar and even everyday thing. This most ancient invention of man fixes days, numbers, months, seasons, the frequency of natural phenomena, which are based on the system of motion of celestial bodies: the Moon, the Sun, stars. Earth sweeps in a solar orbit, leaving behind years and centuries.
Moon calendar
In one day, the Earth makes one complete revolution around its own axis. For a year, it passes once around the Sun. A solar or
astronomical year lasts three hundred sixty five days five hours forty eight minutes forty six seconds. Therefore, the whole day does not exist. Hence the difficulty in compiling an accurate calendar for the correct timing.
Ancient Romans, Greeks used a convenient and simple calendar. The revival of the moon occurs with an interval of 30 days, and to be precise, at twenty-nine days, twelve hours and 44 minutes. That is why the count of days, and then months could be kept on the changes of the moon.
Initially, this calendar had ten months that were named after the Roman gods. From the third century BC , an analogue was used in the ancient world, based on a four-year lunar-solar cycle, which gave an error in the magnitude of the solar year of one day.
In Egypt, they used the solar calendar, compiled on the basis of observations of the Sun and Sirius. The year on it was three hundred sixty five days. It consisted of twelve months of thirty days. After it was added another five days. It was formulated as "in honor of the birth of the gods."
History of the Julian calendar
Further changes occurred in the forty-sixth year BC. e. The emperor of ancient Rome, Julius Caesar, introduced the Julian calendar according to the Egyptian model. In it, the magnitude of the year was taken to be the solar year, which was slightly more astronomical and amounted to three hundred sixty-five days and six hours. The first of January was the beginning of the year. Christmas on the Julian calendar began to be celebrated on the seventh of January. So there was a transition to a new reckoning.
In gratitude for the reform, the Senate of Rome renamed the month Quintilis, when Caesar was born, into Julius (now it's July). A year later, the emperor was killed, and the Roman priests, either out of ignorance or intentionally again began to confuse the calendar and began to declare every coming third year a leap year. As a result, from the forty-fourth to the ninth year BC. e. instead of nine, twelve leap years were declared.
The emperor Octivian Augustus saved the situation. By his order, there were no leap years in the next sixteen years, and the rhythm of the calendar was restored. In his honor, the month of Sextilis was renamed Augustus (August).
For the Orthodox Church, the concurrence of church holidays was very important. The date of the celebration of Easter was discussed at the First
Ecumenical Council, and this issue became one of the main ones. The rules for the exact calculation of this celebration established at this Council cannot be changed under pain of anathema.
Gregorian calendar
The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory the Thirteenth, approved and introduced a new calendar in 1582. It was called "Gregorian." It would seem that everyone had a good Julian calendar, according to which Europe lived for more than sixteen centuries. However, Gregory the Thirteenth considered that reform is necessary to determine a more accurate date for the celebration of Easter, as well as to ensure that the day of the vernal equinox returns again to March twenty-first.
In 1583, the Council of Eastern Patriarchs in Constantinople condemned the adoption of the Gregorian calendar as violating the liturgical cycle and casting doubt on the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. Indeed, in some years he violates the basic rule of the celebration of Easter. It happens that Catholic Sunday is a time earlier than Jewish Passover, and this is not allowed by the canons of the church.
Summer reckoning in Russia
On the territory of our country, starting from the tenth century, the New Year was celebrated on March 1st. Five centuries later, in 1492, in Russia the beginning of the year was postponed, according to church traditions, to the first of September. This went on for more than two hundred years.
On the nineteenth of December, seven thousand two hundred and eight, Tsar Peter the Great issued a decree stating that the Julian calendar in Russia, adopted from Byzantium along with baptism, remained valid. The start date of the year has changed. It has been approved in the country. According to the Julian calendar, the New Year was to be celebrated on the first of January “from the Nativity of Christ”.
After the revolution of February 14, nineteen eighteen, new rules were introduced in our country. The Gregorian calendar excluded three leap years within each four hundredth anniversary. It began to adhere to it.
What is the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars? The difference between leap years. Over time, it increases. If in the sixteenth century it was ten days, then in the seventeenth it increased to eleven, in the eighteenth century it was already equal to twelve days, thirteen in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and by the twenty-second century this figure will reach fourteen days.
The Russian Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, following the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, and the Catholics - the Gregorian.
You can often hear the question of why the whole world celebrates Christmas on December twenty-fifth, and we on January seventh. The answer is quite obvious. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas according to the Julian calendar. This also applies to other major church holidays.
Today, the Julian calendar in Russia is called the "old style." Currently, its scope is very limited. It is used by some Orthodox Churches - Serbian, Georgian, Jerusalem and Russian. In addition, the Julian calendar is used in some Orthodox monasteries in Europe and the United States.
Gregorian calendar in Russia
In our country, the issue of calendar reform has been raised repeatedly. In 1830, it was put by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prince K.A. Lieven, who was then the Minister of Education, considered this proposal untimely. Only after the revolution, the question was submitted to a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation. Already on January 24, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar.
Features of the transition to the Gregorian calendar
The introduction of a new style by the Orthodox Christians caused certain difficulties. The New Year has been shifted to the Christmas post, when any fun is not welcome. Moreover, January 1 is the day of remembrance of St. Boniface, who patronizes everyone who wants to give up drinking, and our country celebrates this day with a glass in hand.
Gregorian and Julian calendar: differences and similarities
Both of them consist of three hundred and sixty-five days in a regular year and three hundred and sixty-six leap years, have 12 months, 4 of which are 30 days and 7 to 31 days, February is either 28 or 29. The difference is only in the frequency of the leap years.
According to the Julian calendar, a leap year occurs every three years. In this case, it turns out that the calendar year is 11 minutes longer than the astronomical one. In other words, after 128 years, an extra day appears. The Gregorian calendar also recognizes that the fourth year is a leap year. The exception is those years that are multiples of 100, as well as those that can be divided by 400. Based on this, extra days appear only after 3200 years.
What awaits us in the future
Unlike the Gregorian, the Julian calendar is simpler for reckoning, but it is ahead of the astronomical year. The basis of the first was the second. According to the Orthodox Church, the Gregorian calendar violates the sequence of many biblical events.
Due to the fact that the Julian and Gregorian calendars increase the difference in dates over time, Orthodox churches that use the first of them will celebrate Christmas from 2101 on January 7, as it is now, but on the eighth of January, and from nine thousand nine hundred and first years, the celebration will take place on the eighth of March. In the liturgical calendar, the date will still correspond to the twenty-fifth of December.
In countries where the Julian calendar was used at the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, in Greece, the dates of all historical events that occurred after the fifteenth of October one thousand five hundred and eighty-two are nominally marked on the same dates when they happened.
Consequences of Calendar Reforms
The Gregorian calendar is currently fairly accurate. According to many experts, he does not need changes, but the question of his reform has been discussed for several decades. However, this is not about the introduction of a new calendar or any new methods of accounting for leap years. It is about regrouping days in a year so that the beginning of each year falls on one day, for example, on Sunday.
Today, calendar months range from 28 to 31 days, the length of the quarter ranges from ninety to ninety-two days, and the first half of the year is 3-4 days shorter than the second. This complicates the work of financial and planning authorities.
What are the new calendar designs
Over the past one hundred and sixty years, various projects have been proposed. In 1923, a calendar reform committee was established under the League of Nations. After the Second World War, this issue was referred to the UN Economic and Social Committee.
Despite the fact that there are a lot of them, two options are preferred - the 13-month calendar of the French philosopher Auguste Comte and the proposal of the astronomer from France G. Armelin.
In the first version, the month always starts on Sunday, and ends on Saturday. In a year, one day has no name at all and is inserted at the end of the last thirteenth month. In a leap year, such a day appears in the sixth month. According to experts, this calendar has many significant drawbacks, so more attention is paid to the project of Gustave Armelin, according to which, the year consists of twelve months and four quarters of ninety-one days.
Thirty-one days in the first month of the quarter, thirty in the next two months. The first day of each year and quarter begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In an ordinary year, one additional day is added after December 30, and in a leap year after June 30. This project has been approved by France, India, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and some other countries. For a long time, the General Assembly delayed the approval of the project, and recently this work at the UN has ceased.
Will Russia return to the "old style"
It is rather difficult for foreigners to explain what the concept of “Old New Year” means, why we celebrate Christmas later than Europeans. Today there are those who want to make the transition to the Julian calendar in Russia. Moreover, the initiative comes from well-deserved and respected people. In their opinion, 70% of Russian Orthodox Russians have the right to live according to the calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church.