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 to ancient world an analogue based on a four-year lunisolar cycle, which gave an error in the solar year of 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. Emperor Ancient Rome Julius Caesar, based on the Egyptian model, introduced the Julian calendar. 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, simultaneity was very important church holidays. The date of Easter celebration 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 Chapter 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 reform was necessary to determine more exact date celebration of Easter, and also so that the day of the vernal equinox returns again 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 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 on 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 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 calendar year longer than astronomical by 11 minutes. 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 who use the first of them will celebrate Christmas from 2101 not on January 7, as is now the case, but on the eighth of January, and from nine thousand nine hundred and one 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 that used the Julian calendar by the early twentieth century, such as Greece, the dates of all historical events, which occurred after the fifteenth of October, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two, are nominally celebrated on the same dates when they happened. 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, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and some other countries. For a long time the General Assembly delayed approval of the project, and in lately this work at the UN ceased. Will Russia return to the “old style”? It is quite difficult for foreigners to explain what the concept “Old” means New Year"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

Before the transition to the Gregorian calendar, which different countries ah happened in different times, the Julian calendar was used everywhere. It is named after the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar, who is believed to have carried out a calendar reform in 46 BC.

The Julian calendar appears to be based on the Egyptian solar calendar. A Julian year was 365.25 days. But there can only be an integer number of days in a year. Therefore, it was supposed: three years should be considered equal to 365 days, and the fourth year following them equal to 366 days. This year with an extra day.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued a bull ordering “the return of the vernal equinox to March 21.” By that time it had moved away from the designated date by ten days, which were removed from that year 1582. And to prevent the error from accumulating in the future, it was prescribed to eliminate three days from every 400 years. Years whose numbers are divisible by 100, but not divisible by 400, are not leap years.

The Pope threatened with excommunication anyone who did not switch to the Gregorian calendar. Almost immediately Catholic countries switched to it. After some time, Protestant states followed their example. IN Orthodox in Russia and Greece adhered to the Julian calendar until the first half of the 20th century.

Which calendar is more accurate?

The debate about which calendar is Gregorian or Julian, or rather, does not subside to this day. On the one hand, the year of the Gregorian calendar is closer to the so-called tropical year - the period during which the Earth makes a full revolution around the Sun. According to modern data, the tropical year is 365.2422 days. On the other hand, scientists still use the Julian calendar for astronomical calculations.

The purpose of the calendar reform of Gregory XIII was not to bring the length of the calendar year closer to the size of the tropical year. In his time, there was no such thing as a tropical year. The purpose of the reform was to comply with the decisions of ancient Christian councils on the timing of the celebration of Easter. However, the problem was not completely solved.

The widespread belief that the Gregorian calendar is “more correct” and “advanced” than the Julian calendar is just a propaganda cliche. The Gregorian calendar, according to a number of scientists, is not astronomically justified and is a distortion of the Julian calendar.

The Roman calendar was one of the least accurate. At first, it generally had 304 days and included only 10 months, starting from the first month of spring (Martius) and ending with the onset of winter (December - the “tenth” month); In winter there was simply no keeping track of time. King Numa Pompilius is credited with introducing two winter months(januarium and februarium). The additional month - Mercedonius - was inserted by the pontiffs at their own discretion, quite arbitrarily and in accordance with various momentary interests. In 46 BC. e. Julius Caesar carried out a calendar reform based on the developments of the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, using the Egyptian solar calendar as a basis.

In order to correct the accumulated errors, he, with his power as the great pontiff, inserted in the transitional year, in addition to Mercedonia, two additional months between November and December; and from January 1, 45, a Julian year of 365 days was established, with leap years every 4 years. In this case, an extra day was inserted between February 23 and 24, as before Mercedonia; and since, according to the Roman calculation system, the day of February 24 was called “the sixth (sextus) from the Kalends of March,” then the intercalary day was called “twice the sixth (bis sextus) from the Kalends of March” and the year accordingly annus bissextus - hence, through Greek, our word is “leap year”. At the same time, the month of Quintilius was renamed in honor of Caesar (to Julius).

In the 4th-6th centuries, in most Christian countries, unified Easter tables were established, based on the Julian calendar; Thus, the Julian calendar spread to the entire Christian world. In these tables, March 21 was taken as the day of the vernal equinox.

However, as the error accumulated (1 day in 128 years), the discrepancy between the astronomical vernal equinox and the calendar one became increasingly obvious, and many in Catholic Europe believed that it could no longer be ignored. This was noted by the 13th-century Castilian king Alfonso X the Wise; in the next century, the Byzantine scientist Nikephoros Gregoras even proposed a calendar reform. In reality, such a reform was carried out by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, based on the project of the mathematician and physician Luigi Lilio. in 1582: the next day after October 4th came October 15th. Secondly, a new, more precise rule about leap years began to apply.

Julian calendar was developed by a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigenes and introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. uh..

The Julian calendar was based on the chronology culture of Ancient Egypt. In Ancient Rus', the calendar was known as the “Peacemaking Circle”, “Church Circle” and “Great Indiction”.

The year according to the Julian calendar begins on January 1, since it was on this day from 153 BC. e. the newly elected consuls took office. In the Julian calendar, a normal year consists of 365 days and is divided into 12 months. Once every 4 years a leap year is announced, to which one day is added - February 29 (previously a similar system was adopted in zodiac calendar according to Dionysius). Thus, the Julian year has an average length of 365.25 days, which differs by 11 minutes from the tropical year.

The Julian calendar is usually called the old style.

The calendar was based on static monthly holidays. The first holiday with which the month began was the Kalends. Next holiday, falling on the 7th (in March, May, July and October) and on the 5th of other months were nones. The third holiday, falling on the 15th (in March, May, July and October) and the 13th of other months, was the Ides.

Replacement by the Gregorian calendar

In Catholic countries, the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar in 1582 by decree of Pope Gregory XIII: the next day after October 4 was October 15. Protestant countries abandoned the Julian calendar gradually, throughout the 17th-18th centuries (the last were Great Britain from 1752 and Sweden). In Russia, the Gregorian calendar has been used since 1918 (it is usually called the new style), in Orthodox Greece - since 1923.

In the Julian calendar, a year was a leap year if it ended in 00.325 AD. The Council of Nicaea established this calendar for all Christian countries. 325 g day of the vernal equinox.

Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on October 4, 1582 to replace the old Julian: the next day after Thursday, October 4, became Friday, October 15 (there are no days from October 5 to October 14, 1582 in the Gregorian calendar).

In the Gregorian calendar, the length of the tropical year is taken to be 365.2425 days. The duration of a non-leap year is 365 days, a leap year is 366.

Story

The reason for the adoption of the new calendar was the shift in the day of the vernal equinox, by which the date of Easter was determined. Before Gregory XIII, Popes Paul III and Pius IV tried to implement the project, but they did not achieve success. The preparation of the reform, at the direction of Gregory XIII, was carried out by astronomers Christopher Clavius ​​and Luigi Lilio (aka Aloysius Lilius). The results of their work were recorded in a papal bull, named after the first line of the Latin. Inter gravissimas (“Among the most important”).

Firstly, the new calendar immediately at the time of adoption shifted the current date by 10 days due to accumulated errors.

Secondly, a new, more precise rule about leap years began to apply.

A year is a leap year, that is, it contains 366 days if:

Its number is divisible by 4 and not divisible by 100 or

His number is divisible by 400.

Thus, over time, the Julian and Gregorian calendars diverge more and more: by 1 day per century, if the number of the previous century is not divisible by 4. The Gregorian calendar reflects the true state of affairs much more accurately than the Julian. It gives a much better approximation of the tropical year.

In 1583, Gregory XIII sent an embassy to Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople with a proposal to switch to a new calendar. At the end of 1583, at a council in Constantinople, the proposal was rejected as not complying with the canonical rules for celebrating Easter.

In Russia, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars, according to which in 1918 January 31 was followed by February 14.

Since 1923, most local Orthodox churches, with the exception of the Russian, Jerusalem, Georgian, Serbian and Athos, have adopted the New Julian calendar, similar to the Gregorian, which coincides with it until the year 2800. It was also formally introduced by Patriarch Tikhon for use in the Russian Orthodox Church on October 15, 1923. However, this innovation, although it was accepted by almost all Moscow parishes, generally caused disagreement in the Church, so already on November 8, 1923, Patriarch Tikhon ordered “the widespread and mandatory introduction of the new style into church use to be temporarily postponed.” Thus, new style acted in the Russian Orthodox Church for only 24 days.

In 1948, at the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Churches, it was decided that Easter, as well as all movable holidays, should be calculated according to the Alexandrian Paschal (Julian calendar), and non-movable ones according to the calendar according to which the Local Church lives. The Finnish Orthodox Church celebrates Easter according to the Gregorian calendar.

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 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 each time different days weeks. 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, there was a categorical refusal 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” existing rules definitions of 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 Paschal, 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 artistic depiction the same subject. 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.

Calendar - number system large gaps time, based on the periodicity of the visible movements of celestial bodies. The most common is the solar calendar, which is based on the solar (tropical) year - the period of time between two successive passages of the center of the Sun through the vernal equinox. It is approximately 365.2422 days.

History of development solar calendar- this is the establishment of an alternation of calendar years of different lengths (365 and 366 days).

In the Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar, three years in a row contained 365 days, and the fourth (leap year) - 366 days. All years were leap years serial numbers which were divisible by four.

In the Julian calendar, the average length of a year in an interval of four years was 365.25 days, which is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical year. Over time, the onset of seasonal phenomena occurred on increasingly earlier dates. Particularly strong discontent was caused by the constant shift in the date of Easter, associated with the spring equinox. In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea decreed a single date for Easter for the entire Christian church.

In subsequent centuries, many proposals were made to improve the calendar. The proposals of the Neapolitan astronomer and physician Aloysius Lilius (Luigi Lilio Giraldi) and the Bavarian Jesuit Christopher Clavius ​​were approved by Pope Gregory XIII. On February 24, 1582, he issued a bull (message) introducing two important additions to the Julian calendar: 10 days were removed from the 1582 calendar - October 4 was immediately followed by October 15. This measure made it possible to preserve March 21 as the date of the vernal equinox. In addition, three out of every four century years were to be considered ordinary years and only those divisible by 400 were to be considered leap years.

1582 was the first year of the Gregorian calendar, called the "new style".

The difference between the old and new styles is 11 days for the 18th century, 12 days for the 19th century, 13 days for the 20th and 21st centuries, 14 days for the 22nd century.

Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR dated January 26, 1918 "On the introduction of the Western European calendar." Since by the time the document was adopted the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was 13 days, it was decided to count the day after January 31, 1918, not as the first, but as February 14.

The decree prescribed that until July 1, 1918, after the number in the new (Gregorian) style, the number in the old (Julian) style should be indicated in brackets. Subsequently, this practice was preserved, but they began to place the date in brackets according to the new style.

February 14, 1918 became the first day in the history of Russia that officially passed according to the “new style”. By the middle of the 20th century Gregorian calendar used by almost all countries of the world.

The Russian Orthodox Church, preserving traditions, continues to follow the Julian calendar, while in the 20th century some local Orthodox churches switched to the so-called. New Julian calendar. Currently, besides the Russian, only three Orthodox churches - Georgian, Serbian and Jerusalem - continue to fully adhere to the Julian calendar.

Although the Gregorian calendar is quite consistent with natural phenomena, it is also not completely accurate. The length of its year is 0.003 days (26 seconds) longer than the tropical year. An error of one day accumulates over approximately 3300 years.

The Gregorian calendar also, as a result of which the length of the day on the planet grows by 1.8 milliseconds every century.

The current calendar structure does not quite meet the needs public life. There are four main problems with the Gregorian calendar:

— Theoretically, the civil (calendar) year should have the same length as the astronomical (tropical) year. However, this is impossible, since the tropical year does not contain an integer number of days. Because of the need to add an extra day to the year from time to time, there are two types of years - ordinary and leap years. Since the year can begin on any day of the week, this gives seven types of ordinary years and seven types of leap years - a total of 14 types of years. To fully reproduce them you need to wait 28 years.

— The length of the months varies: they can contain from 28 to 31 days, and this unevenness leads to certain difficulties in economic calculations and statistics.

- Neither ordinary nor leap years do not contain an integer number of weeks. Semi-years, quarters and months also do not contain a whole and equal number of weeks.

— From week to week, from month to month and from year to year, the correspondence of dates and days of the week changes, so it is difficult to establish the moments of various events.

The issue of improving the calendar has been raised repeatedly and for quite some time. In the 20th century it was raised to international level. In 1923, the International Committee for Calendar Reform was created in Geneva at the League of Nations. During its existence, this committee reviewed and published several hundred projects received from different countries. In 1954 and 1956, drafts for a new calendar were discussed at sessions of the UN Economic and Social Council, but the final decision was postponed.

A new calendar can be introduced only after it has been approved by all countries under a generally binding international agreement, which has not yet been reached.

In Russia in 2007 State Duma A bill was introduced proposing to return the country to the Julian calendar from January 1, 2008. It proposed to establish a transition period from December 31, 2007, when, for 13 days, chronology would be carried out simultaneously according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. In April 2008, the bill.

In the summer of 2017, the State Duma again discussed Russia’s transition to the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar. It is currently under review.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources