Julian and Gregorian calendars - how are they different? Julian and Gregorian calendars: differences from each other. History of origin

God created the world outside of time, the change of day and night, seasons allows people to put their time in order. For this purpose, humanity invented the calendar, a system for calculating the days of the year. The main reason for switching to another calendar was disagreement about the celebration of the most important day for Christians - Easter.

Julian calendar

Once upon a time, back during the reign of Julius Caesar, in 45 BC. The Julian calendar appeared. The calendar itself was named after the ruler. It was the astronomers of Julius Caesar who created a chronology system based on the time of successive passage of the equinox by the Sun , therefore the Julian calendar was a “solar” calendar.

This system was the most accurate for those times; each year, not counting leap years, contained 365 days. In addition, the Julian calendar did not contradict the astronomical discoveries of those years. For fifteen hundred years, no one could offer this system a worthy analogy.

Gregorian calendar

However, at the end of the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII proposed a different chronology system. What was the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, if there was no difference in the number of days between them? Every fourth year was no longer considered a leap year by default, as in the Julian calendar. According to the Gregorian calendar, if a year ended in 00 but was not divisible by 4, it was not a leap year. So 2000 was a leap year, but 2100 will no longer be a leap year.

Pope Gregory XIII was based on the fact that Easter should be celebrated only on Sunday, and according to the Julian calendar, Easter fell on a different day of the week each time. 24 February 1582 the world learned about the Gregorian calendar.

Popes Sixtus IV and Clement VII also advocated reform. The work on the calendar, among others, was carried out by the Jesuit order.

Julian and Gregorian calendars – which is more popular?

The Julian and Gregorian calendars continued to exist together, but in most countries of the world it is the Gregorian calendar that is used, and the Julian remains for calculating Christian holidays.

Russia was among the last to adopt the reform. In 1917, immediately after the October Revolution, the “obscurantist” calendar was replaced with a “progressive” one. In 1923, they tried to transfer the Russian Orthodox Church to the “new style,” but even with pressure on His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, a categorical refusal followed from the Church. Orthodox Christians, guided by the instructions of the apostles, calculate holidays according to the Julian calendar. Catholics and Protestants count holidays according to the Gregorian calendar.

The issue of calendars is also a theological issue. Despite the fact that Pope Gregory XIII considered the main issue to be astronomical and not religious, later discussions appeared about the correctness of a particular calendar in relation to the Bible. In Orthodoxy, it is believed that the Gregorian calendar violates the sequence of events in the Bible and leads to canonical violations: Apostolic rules do not allow the celebration of Holy Easter before the Jewish Passover. The transition to a new calendar would mean the destruction of Easter. Scientist-astronomer Professor E.A. Predtechensky in his work “Church Time: Reckoning and Critical Review of Existing Rules for Determining Easter” noted: “This collective work (Editor's note - Easter), in all likelihood by many unknown authors, was carried out in such a way that it still remains unsurpassed. The later Roman Easter, now accepted by the Western Church, is, in comparison with the Alexandrian one, so ponderous and clumsy that it resembles a popular print next to an artistic depiction of the same object. Despite all this, this terribly complex and clumsy machine does not yet achieve its intended goal.”. In addition, the descent of the Holy Fire at the Holy Sepulcher takes place on Holy Saturday according to the Julian calendar.

The converter converts dates to the Gregorian and Julian calendars and calculates the Julian date; for the Julian calendar, the Latin and Roman versions are displayed.

Notes

• Gregorian calendar(“new style”) introduced in 1582 AD. e. Pope Gregory XIII so that the vernal equinox corresponds to a specific day (March 21). Earlier dates are converted using standard rules for Gregorian leap years. Conversion up to 2400g is possible.
• Julian calendar(“old style”) introduced in 46 BC. e. Julius Caesar and totaled 365 days; Every third year was a leap year. This error was corrected by Emperor Augustus: from 8 BC. e. and until 8 AD e. Additional days of leap years were skipped. Earlier dates are converted using standard rules for Julian leap years.
• Roman version The Julian calendar was introduced around 750 BC. e. Due to the fact that the number of days in the Roman calendar year changed, dates before 8 AD. e. are not accurate and are presented for demonstration purposes. The chronology was carried out from the founding of Rome ( ab Urbe condita) - 753/754 BC e. Dates before 753 BC e. not calculated.
• Month names Roman calendar are agreed modifiers (adjectives) with a noun mensis'month':

• Days of the month determined by the phases of the moon. In different months, the Kalends, Nonas and Ides fell on different dates:

The first days of the month are determined by counting the days from the upcoming Nons, after the Nons - from the Ides, after the Ides - from the upcoming Kalends. The preposition is used ante‘to’ with accusative case (accusatīvus):

a. d. XI Kal. Sept. (short form);

ante diem undecĭmum Kalendas Septembres (full form).

The ordinal number agrees with the form diem, that is, it is placed in the accusative case of the masculine singular (accusatīvus singulāris masculīnum). Thus, the numerals take the following forms:

If the day falls on the Kalends, Nonas or Ides, then the name of this day (Kalendae, Nonae, Idūs) and the name of the month are placed in the feminine plural instrumental case (ablatīvus plurālis feminīnum), for example:

The day immediately preceding the Kalends, Nones or Idams is designated by the word pridie(‘the day before’) with the feminine accusative plural (accusatīvus plurālis feminīnum):

Thus, month adjectives can take the following forms:

• Julian date is the number of days that have passed since noon on January 1, 4713 BC. e. This date is arbitrary and was chosen only to harmonize different chronology systems.

Citizens of the Soviet country, having gone to bed on January 31, 1918, woke up on February 14. The “Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic” came into force. Bolshevik Russia switched to the so-called new, or civil, style of calculating time, which coincided with the Gregorian church calendar used in Europe. These changes did not affect our Church: it continued to celebrate its holidays according to the old Julian calendar.

The calendar split between Western and Eastern Christians (believers began to celebrate the main holidays at different times) occurred in the 16th century, when Pope Gregory XIII undertook another reform, replacing the Julian style with the Gregorian. The purpose of the reform was to correct the growing difference between the astronomical year and the calendar year.

Obsessed with the idea of ​​world revolution and internationalism, the Bolsheviks, of course, did not care about the Pope and his calendar. As stated in the decree, the transition to the Western, Gregorian style was made “in order to establish in Russia the same calculation of time with almost all cultural peoples...” At one of the first meetings of the young Soviet government in early 1918, two time reform projects were considered ". The first envisaged a gradual transition to the Gregorian calendar, dropping 24 hours every year. This would have taken 13 years. The second envisaged doing this in one fell swoop. It was he who liked the leader of the world proletariat, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who surpassed the current ideologist of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel, in globalist projects.

Competently

Religious historian Alexey Yudin talks about how Christian churches celebrate Christmas:

First of all, let’s make it clear right away: it is incorrect to say that someone celebrates December 25, and someone celebrates January 7. Everyone celebrates Christmas on the 25th, but according to different calendars. In the next hundred years, from my point of view, no unification of Christmas celebrations can be expected.

The old Julian calendar, adopted under Julius Caesar, lagged behind astronomical time. The reform of Pope Gregory XIII, which was called papist from the very beginning, was extremely negatively received in Europe, especially in Protestant countries, where the reformation was already firmly established. Protestants were against it primarily because “it was planned in Rome.” And this city in the 16th century was no longer the center of Christian Europe.

Red Army soldiers take church property out of the Simonov Monastery at a subbotnik (1925). Photo: Wikipedia.org

If desired, the calendar reform can, of course, be called a schism, bearing in mind that the Christian world has already split not only along the “east-west” principle, but also within the west.

Therefore, the Gregorian calendar was perceived as Roman, papist, and therefore unsuitable. Gradually, however, Protestant countries accepted it, but the transition process took centuries. This is how things were in the West. The East did not pay attention to the reform of Pope Gregory XIII.

The Soviet Republic switched to a new style, but this, unfortunately, was connected with the revolutionary events in Russia; the Bolsheviks, naturally, did not think about any Pope Gregory XIII, they simply considered the new style the most adequate to their worldview. And the Russian Orthodox Church has an additional trauma.

In 1923, on the initiative of the Patriarch of Constantinople, a meeting of Orthodox churches was held, at which they decided to correct the Julian calendar.

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, of course, were unable to travel abroad. But Patriarch Tikhon nevertheless issued a decree on the transition to the “New Julian” calendar. However, this caused protests among believers, and the decree was quickly canceled.

You see that there were several stages of searching for a calendar match. But this did not lead to the final result. So far, this issue is completely absent from serious church discussion.

Is the Church afraid of another schism? Of course, some ultra-conservative groups within the Church will say: “They betrayed sacred time.” Any Church is a very conservative institution, especially with regard to everyday life and liturgical practices. And they rest on the calendar. And the church-administrative resource is ineffective in such matters.

Every Christmas, the topic of switching to the Gregorian calendar comes up. But this is politics, a profitable media presentation, PR, whatever you want. The Church itself does not participate in this and is reluctant to comment on these issues.

Why does the Russian Orthodox Church use the Julian calendar?

Father Vladimir (Vigilyansky), rector of the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University:

Orthodox churches can be divided into three categories: those that celebrate all church holidays according to the new (Gregorian) calendar, those that serve only the old (Julian) calendar, and those that mix styles: for example, in Greece Easter is celebrated according to old calendar, and all other holidays - in a new way. Our churches (Russian, Georgian, Jerusalem, Serbian and Athos monasteries) never changed the church calendar and did not mix it with the Gregorian calendar, so that there was no confusion in the holidays. We have a single calendar system, which is tied to Easter. If we switch to celebrating, say, Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, then two weeks are “eaten up” (remember how in 1918, after January 31, February 14 came), each day of which carries a special semantic significance for an Orthodox person.

The Church lives according to its own order, and in it many significant things may not coincide with secular priorities. For example, in church life there is a clear system of progression of time, which is tied to the Gospel. Every day excerpts from this book are read, which has a logic connected with the gospel history and the earthly life of Jesus Christ. All this lays down a certain spiritual rhythm in the life of an Orthodox person. And those who use this calendar do not want and will not violate it.

A believer has a very ascetic life. The world can change, we see how before our eyes our fellow citizens have a lot of opportunities, for example, for relaxation during the secular New Year holidays. But the Church, as one of our rock singers sang, “will not bend to the changing world.” We will not make our church life dependent on the ski resort.

The Bolsheviks introduced a new calendar "in order to calculate time in the same way as almost all cultural peoples." Photo: Publishing project of Vladimir Lisin "Days of 1917 100 years ago"

Different ways of calculating the calendar. A new style of time calculation was introduced by the Council of People's Commissars - the government of Soviet Russia January 24, 1918 “Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic”.

The decree was intended to promote “the establishment in Russia of the same time reckoning with almost all cultural peoples”. Indeed, since 1582, when throughout Europe the Julian calendar, in accordance with the recommendations of astronomers, was replaced by the Gregorian, the Russian calendar turned out to differ from the calendars of civilized states by 13 days.

The fact is that the new European calendar was born through the efforts of the Pope, but the Russian Orthodox clergy had no authority or decree from the Catholic Pope, and they rejected the innovation. So they lived for more than 300 years: in Europe it’s New Year, in Russia it’s still December 19th.

The decree of the Council of People's Commissars (an abbreviation of the Council of People's Commissars) dated January 24, 1918, ordered February 1, 1918 to be considered February 14th (in parentheses, we note that according to many years of observations, the Russian Orthodox calendar, that is, the “Old Style,” is more consistent with the climate of the European part of the Russian Federation For example, on March 1, when according to the old style it is still deep February, there is no smell of spring, and relative warming begins in mid-March or its first days according to the old style).

Not everyone liked the new style

However, not only Russia resisted the establishment of the Catholic count of days; in Greece, the “New Style” was legalized in 1924, Turkey - 1926, Egypt - 1928. At the same time, it is not heard that the Greeks or Egyptians celebrated, as in Russia, two holidays: New Year and Old New Year, that is, New Year according to the old style.

It is interesting that the introduction of the Gregorian calendar was accepted without enthusiasm in those European countries where Protestantism was the leading religion. So in England they switched to a new account of time only in 1752, in Sweden - a year later, in 1753.

Julian calendar

It was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Started on January 1st. The year had 365 days. A year number divisible by 4 was considered a leap year. One day was added to it - February 29. The difference between the calendar of Julius Caesar and the calendar of Pope Gregory is that the first has a leap year every fourth year without exception, while the second has leap years only those years that are divisible by four, but not divisible by a hundred. As a result, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is gradually increasing and, for example, in 2101, Orthodox Christmas will be celebrated not on January 7, but on January 8.

For all of us, the calendar is a familiar and even mundane thing. This ancient human invention records days, numbers, months, seasons, and the periodicity of natural phenomena, which are based on the system of movement of the celestial bodies: the Moon, the Sun, and the stars. The Earth rushes through the solar orbit, leaving years and centuries behind.
In one day, the Earth makes one complete revolution around its own axis. It passes around the Sun once per year. The solar or astronomical year lasts three hundred sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, forty-six seconds. Therefore, there is no integer number of days. Hence the difficulty in drawing up an accurate calendar for the correct counting of time.
The ancient Romans and Greeks used a convenient and simple calendar. The rebirth of the Moon occurs at intervals of 30 days, or to be precise, at twenty-nine days, twelve hours and 44 minutes. That is why days and then months could be counted by changes in the Moon. In the beginning, this calendar had ten months, which were named after the Roman gods. From the third century BC, the ancient world used an analogue based on the four-year lunisolar cycle, which gave an error in the solar year by one day. In Egypt they used a solar calendar based on observations of the Sun and Sirius. The year according to it was three hundred sixty-five days. It consisted of twelve months of thirty days. After it expired, another five days were added. This 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 based on the Egyptian model. In it, the solar year was taken as the size of the year, which was slightly larger than the astronomical one and amounted to three hundred sixty-five days and six hours. The first of January marked the beginning of the year. According to the Julian calendar, Christmas began to be celebrated on January 7th. This is how the transition to a new calendar took place. In gratitude for the reform, the Senate of Rome renamed the month of Quintilis, when Caesar was born, to Julius (now July). A year later, the emperor was killed, and the Roman priests, either out of ignorance or deliberately, again began to confuse the calendar and began to declare every third year a leap year. As a result, from forty-four to nine BC. e. Instead of nine, twelve leap years were declared. Emperor Octivian Augustus saved the situation. By his order, there were no leap years for the next sixteen years, and the rhythm of the calendar was restored. In his honor, the month Sextilis was renamed Augustus (August).

For the Orthodox Church, the simultaneity of church holidays was very important. The date 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 was happy with the Julian calendar, according to which Europe lived for more than sixteen centuries. However, Gregory the Thirteenth considered that the reform was necessary to determine a more accurate date for the celebration of Easter, as well as to ensure that the day of the vernal equinox returned to the twenty-first of March.

In 1583, the Council of Eastern Patriarchs in Constantinople condemned the adoption of the Gregorian calendar as violating the liturgical cycle and calling into question the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. Indeed, in some years he breaks the basic rule of celebrating Easter. It happens that Catholic Bright Sunday falls earlier than Jewish Easter, and this is not allowed by the canons of the church. Calculation in Rus' On the territory of our country, starting from the tenth century, the New Year was celebrated on the first of March. Five centuries later, in 1492, in Russia the beginning of the year was moved, 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 that the Julian calendar in Russia, adopted from Byzantium along with baptism, was still in force. The start date of the year has changed. It was officially approved in the country. The New Year according to the Julian calendar was to be celebrated on the first of January “from the Nativity of Christ.”
After the revolution of February fourteenth, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen, new rules were introduced in our country. The Gregorian calendar excluded three leap years within each quadrant. This is what they began to adhere to. How are the Julian and Gregorian calendars different? The difference between is in the calculation of 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 Orthodox Church of Russia uses the Julian calendar, following the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, and Catholics use the Gregorian calendar. You can often hear the question of why the whole world celebrates Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December, and we celebrate the seventh of January. The answer is completely 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 of application 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 USA.

Gregorian calendar in Russia
In our country, the issue of calendar reform has been raised more than once. In 1830 it was staged by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prince K.A. Lieven, who served as Minister of Education at the time, considered this proposal untimely. Only after the revolution the issue was brought to a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation. Already on January 24, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar. Peculiarities of the transition to the Gregorian calendar For Orthodox Christians, the introduction of a new style by the authorities caused certain difficulties. The New Year turned out to be shifted to the Nativity Fast, when any fun is not welcome. Moreover, January 1 is the day of remembrance of St. Boniface, the patron saint of everyone who wants to give up drunkenness, 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 sixty-five days in a normal year and three hundred sixty-six in a leap year, have 12 months, 4 of which are 30 days and 7 are 31 days, February is either 28 or 29 The only difference is the frequency of 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 year. In other words, after 128 years there is an extra day. The Gregorian calendar also recognizes that the fourth year is a leap year. The exceptions are 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 calendar, the Julian calendar is simpler for chronology, but it is ahead of the astronomical year. The basis of the first became the second. According to the Orthodox Church, the Gregorian calendar violates the order 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 not on January 7, as it happens now, but on January 8, but from nine thousand In the year nine hundred and one, the celebration will take place on March 8th. In the liturgical calendar, the date will still correspond to the twenty-fifth of December.

In countries where the Julian calendar was used by 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 celebrated on the same dates on which they occurred. Consequences of calendar reforms Currently, the Gregorian calendar is quite accurate. According to many experts, it does not need changes, but the issue of its reform has been discussed for several decades. This is not about introducing a new calendar or any new methods for accounting for leap years. This is about rearranging the days of the year so that the beginning of each year falls on one day, such as Sunday. Today, calendar months range from 28 to 31 days, the length of a quarter ranges from ninety to ninety-two days, with the first half of the year being 3-4 days shorter than the second. This complicates the work of financial and planning authorities. What New Calendar Projects Are There Various designs have been proposed over the past one hundred and sixty years. In 1923, a calendar reform committee was created at the League of Nations. After the end of the Second World War, this issue was transferred to the Economic and Social Committee of the UN. Despite the fact that there are quite a lot of them, preference is given to two options - the 13-month calendar of the French philosopher Auguste Comte and the proposal of the French astronomer G. Armelin.
In the first option, the month always begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. One day in the year 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 shortcomings, 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. The first month of a quarter has thirty-one days, the next two have thirty. The first day of each year and quarter begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In a normal year, one additional day is added after the thirtieth of December, and in a leap year - after the 30th of June. This project was approved by France, India, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and some other countries. For a long time, the General Assembly delayed approval of the project, and recently this work at the UN has ceased. Will Russia return to the “old style”? It is quite difficult for foreigners to explain what the concept of “Old New Year” means, why we celebrate Christmas later than Europeans. Today there are people 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. http://vk.cc/3Wus9M