The Russian Orthodox Church uses in its liturgical life the Julian calendar (the so-called old style), developed by a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by the famous scientist Sosigenes and introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. e.
After the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in Russia on January 24, 1918, the All-Russian Local Council decided that "during 1918, the Church will be guided by the old style in its everyday life."
On March 15, 1918, at a meeting of the Department of Divine Services, Sermons and the Church, the following decision was made: “In view of the importance of the issue of reforming the calendar and the impossibility, from the ecclesiastical and canonical point of view, of an early independent decision by the Russian Church, without prior communication on this issue with representatives of all autocephalous Churches, to leave the Julian calendar in its entirety in the Russian Orthodox Church.” In 1948, at the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Churches, it was established that Easter, like all movable church holidays, should be calculated according to the Alexandrian Paschalia (Julian calendar), and non-transitory ones - according to the calendar adopted in the local church. According to the Gregorian calendar, only the Finnish Orthodox Church celebrates Easter.
Currently, the Julian calendar is used only by some local Orthodox churches: Jerusalem, Russian, Georgian and Serbian. It is also followed by some monasteries and parishes in Europe and the USA, the monasteries of Athos and a number of monophysist churches. However, all Orthodox churches that have adopted the Gregorian calendar, except for the Finnish one, still calculate the day of the celebration of Easter and holidays, the dates of which depend on the date of Easter, according to the Alexandrian Paschalia and the Julian calendar.
To calculate the dates of passing church holidays, the calculus is used according to the date of Easter, determined by the lunar calendar.
The accuracy of the Julian calendar is not high: every 128 years an extra day accumulates in it. Because of this, for example, the Nativity of Christ, which initially almost coincided with the winter solstice, is gradually shifting towards spring. For this reason, in 1582, in Catholic countries, the Julian calendar was replaced by a decree of Pope Gregory XIII with a more accurate one. Protestant countries abandoned the Julian calendar gradually.
The difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is constantly increasing due to different rules for determining leap years: in the 14th century it was 8 days, in the 20th and 21st centuries it was 13, and in the 22nd century the gap will already be 14 days. In connection with the growing change in the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, Orthodox churches using the Julian calendar, starting from 2101, will celebrate Christmas not on January 7 according to the civil (Gregorian) calendar, as in the XX-XXI centuries, but already on January 8, but , for example, since 9001 - already March 1 (according to the new style), although in their liturgical calendar this day will still be marked as December 25 (according to the old style).
For the above reason, one should not confuse the recalculation of the real historical dates of the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar style with the recalculation of the new style of the dates of the Julian church calendar, in which all the days of celebrations are fixed as Julian (that is, without taking into account which Gregorian date corresponded to a particular holiday or memorial day ). Therefore, to determine the date, for example, of the Nativity of the Virgin according to the new style in the 21st century, it is necessary to add 13 days to 8 (the Nativity of the Virgin is celebrated according to the Julian calendar on September 8), and in the 22nd century already 14 days. The translation to the new style of civil dates is carried out taking into account the century of a particular date. So, for example, the events of the Battle of Poltava took place on June 27, 1709, which, according to the new (Gregorian) style, corresponds to July 8 (the difference between the Julian and Gregorian styles in the 18th century was 11 days), and, for example, the date of the Battle of Borodino is August 26, 1812 year, and according to the new style it is September 7, since the difference between the Julian and Gregorian styles in the 19th century is already 12 days. Therefore, civil historical events will always be celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar at the time of the year in which they occurred according to the Julian calendar (the Battle of Poltava - in June, the Battle of Borodino - in August, the birthday of M. V. Lomonosov - in November, etc. ), and the dates of church holidays are shifting forward due to their rigid binding to the Julian calendar, which quite intensively (on a historical scale) accumulates calculus errors (in several millennia, Christmas will no longer be a winter, but a summer holiday).
For quick and convenient translation of dates between different calendars, it is advisable to use
Different ways of reckoning the calendar. A new style of counting time 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 calculation with almost all cultural peoples”. Indeed, since 1582, when throughout Europe the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar in accordance with the recommendations of astronomers, the Russian calendar turned out to be 13 days different from the calendars of civilized states.
The fact is that the new European calendar was born through the efforts of the Pope, but the Catholic Pope was not an authority or decree for the Russian Orthodox clergy, and they rejected the innovation. So they lived for more than 300 years: New Year in Europe, December 19 in Russia.
Decree of the Council of People's Commissars (abbreviation of the Council of People's Commissars) dated January 24, 1918 ordered February 1, 1918 to be considered February 14 (in parentheses, we note that according to long-term 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 from mid-March or its first days according to the old style).
Not everyone liked the new style
However, not only Russia rested on the establishment of a Catholic count of days, in Greece the "New Style" was legalized in 1924, Turkey - 1926, Egypt - 1928. At the same time, something is not heard that the Greeks or Egyptians celebrated, as in Russia, two holidays: the New Year and the Old New Year, that is, the New Year according to the old style.
Interestingly, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar was also 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 January 1st. The year had 365 days. The number of the year divisible by 4 was recognized as 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 former has a leap year every fourth year without exception, while the latter has leap years only those years that are divisible by four, but not multiples of 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.
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 church Gregorian calendar used in Europe. These changes did not affect our Church: she continued to celebrate her 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 that replaced the Julian style with the Gregorian one. 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 time calculation with almost all cultural peoples" .... At one of the first meetings of the young Soviet government in early 1918, two draft reforms of time were considered "The first proposed a gradual transition to the Gregorian calendar, each year dropping 24 hours. This would take 13 years. The second provided for doing it 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 Alexei Yudin on how Christian churches celebrate Christmas:
First, let's make it clear right away: to say that someone celebrates on December 25, and someone on January 7 is incorrect. Everyone celebrates Christmas on the 25th, but according to different calendars. In the next hundred years, from my point of view, no unification of the celebration of Christmas is to be expected.
The old Julian calendar, adopted under Julius Caesar, lagged behind astronomical time. The reform of Pope Gregory XIII, which from the very beginning was called papist, was perceived extremely negatively in Europe, especially in Protestant countries, where the reformation was already firmly established. The Protestants were opposed primarily because "it was conceived in Rome." And this city in the XVI century was no longer the center of Christian Europe.
Red Army soldiers take out church property from the Simonov Monastery on a subbotnik (1925). Photo: wikipedia.org
The reform of the calendar, if desired, can, of course, be called a split, 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, the Protestant countries accepted it, but the process of transition took centuries. This is how things were in the West. The East paid no attention to the reform of Pope Gregory XIII.
The Soviet Republic switched to a new style, but this, unfortunately, was due to the revolutionary events in Russia, the Bolsheviks, of course, did not think about any Pope Gregory XIII, they simply considered the new style to be the most adequate to their worldview. And the Russian Orthodox Church has an additional trauma.
In 1923, at the initiative of the Patriarch of Constantinople, a meeting of Orthodox churches was held, at which a decision was made 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 decision was quickly canceled.
You can see that there were several stages of searching for a match on a calendar basis. But this did not lead to the final result. So far, this issue has not been included in a serious church discussion at all.
Is the Church afraid of another schism? Undoubtedly, some ultra-conservative groups within the Church will say: "The sacred time has been betrayed." Any Church is a very conservative institution, especially when it comes to everyday life and liturgical practices. And they rest against the calendar. And the church-administrative resource in such matters is ineffective.
Every Christmas, the theme of switching to the Gregorian calendar pops up. But this is politics, 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 roughly divided into three categories: those that serve all church holidays according to the new (Gregorian) calendar, those that serve only according to 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 mixed it with the Gregorian, so that there would be 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, in which there is a logic associated with the gospel story 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 very eyes fellow citizens have a lot of opportunities, for example, for recreation during the secular New Year holidays. But the Church, as one of our rock singers sang, "will not bend under 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 the same time with almost all cultural peoples." Photo: Publishing project of Vladimir Lisin "Days of 1917 100 years ago"
Gregorian calendar
This calculator allows you to convert the date from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, as well as calculate the date of Orthodox Easter according to the old style
* to calculate Easter according to the new style, you need to enter the date obtained according to the old style into the calculation form
(correction + 13 days to the Julian calendar)
2019 non-leap
V 2019 Orthodox Easter falls on April 15(according to the Julian calendar)
The calculation of the date of Orthodox Easter is carried out according to the algorithm of Carl Friedrich Gauss
Disadvantages of the Julian calendar
In 325 AD e. The Council of Nicaea took place. It adopted the Julian calendar for the entire Christian world, according to which at that time the spring equinox fell on March 21. For the church, this was an important moment in determining the timing of the celebration of Easter, one of the most important religious holidays. Accepting the Julian calendar, the clergy believed that it was perfectly accurate. However, as we know, it accumulates an error of one day for every 128 years.
The error of the Julian calendar led to the fact that the actual time of the vernal equinox no longer coincided with the calendar. The moment of equality of day and night passed to ever earlier numbers: first on March 20, then on March 19, 18, etc. By the second half of the 16th century. the error was 10 days: according to the Julian calendar, the equinox was supposed to occur on March 21, but in reality it already occurred on March 11.
History of the Gregorian Reform.
The inaccuracy of the Julian calendar was discovered in the first quarter of the 14th century. So, in 1324, the Byzantine scholar Nicephorus Gregoras drew the attention of Emperor Andronicus II to the fact that the spring equinox no longer falls on March 21 and, therefore, Easter will gradually be pushed back to a later time. Therefore, he considered it necessary to correct the calendar and, along with it, the calculation of Easter. However, the emperor rejected Gregory's proposal, considering the reform practically impracticable due to the impossibility of reaching an agreement on this issue between individual Orthodox churches.
The inaccuracy of the Julian calendar was also pointed out by the Greek scientist Matvei Vlastar, who lived in Byzantium in the first half of the 14th century. However, he did not consider it necessary to make corrections, since he saw in this some "advantage", consisting in the fact that the delay of the Orthodox Easter saves it from coincidence with the Jewish Passover. Their simultaneous celebration was forbidden by the decisions of some "Ecumenical" councils and various church canons.
It is interesting to note that in 1373 the Byzantine scholar Isaac Argir, who more deeply understood the need to correct the Julian calendar and the rules for calculating paschal, considered such an event useless. The reason for such an attitude to the calendar was due to the fact that Argyr was deeply confident in the coming "doomsday" in 119 years and the end of the world, as it would be 7000 years "from the day of the creation of the world." Is it worth it to reform the calendar, if there is so little time left for the life of all mankind!
The need to reform the Julian calendar was understood by many representatives of the Catholic Church. In the XIV century. Pope Clement VI spoke out for correcting the calendar.
In March 1414, the calendar issue was discussed at the initiative of Cardinal Pierre d'Alli. The shortcomings of the Julian calendar and the inaccuracy of the existing paschals were the subject of discussion at the Basel Cathedral in March 1437. Here, the outstanding philosopher and scientist of the Renaissance, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), one of the predecessors of Copernicus, presented his project.
In 1475, Pope Sixtus IV began preparations for a reform of the calendar and the correction of Paschal. For this purpose, he invited the outstanding German astronomer and mathematician Regiomontanus (1436-1476) to Rome. However, the unexpected death of the scientist forced the pope to postpone the implementation of his intention.
In the XVI century. two more "ecumenical" councils dealt with issues of calendar reform: the Lateran (1512-1517) and Trent (1545-1563). When in 1514 the Lateran Council created a commission for the reform of the calendar, the Roman curia invited the then already well-known in Europe Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) to come to Rome and take part in the work of the calendar commission. However, Copernicus declined to participate in the commission and pointed out the prematureness of such a reform, since, in his opinion, by this time the length of the tropical year had not been established accurately enough.
Gregorian reform. By the middle of the XVI century. the question of the reform of the calendar was so widespread and the importance of its decision was so necessary that it was considered undesirable to postpone this question any further. That is why in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII created a special commission, which included Ignatius Danti (1536-1586), a well-known professor of astronomy and mathematics at the University of Bologna at that time. This commission was charged with drafting a new calendar system.
After reviewing all the proposed versions of the new calendar, the commission approved the project, authored by the Italian mathematician and physician Luigi Lilio (or Aloysius Lily, 1520-1576), a teacher of medicine at the University of Perugia. This project was published in 1576 by the scientist's brother, Antonio Lilio, who, during Luigi's lifetime, took an active part in the development of a new calendar.
The Lilio project was adopted by Pope Gregory XIII. On February 24, 1582, he issued a special bull (Fig. 11), according to which the count of days was moved 10 days ahead and the day after Thursday, October 4, 1582, Friday was prescribed to be counted not on October 5, but on October 15. This immediately corrected the error that had accumulated since the Council of Nicaea, and the spring equinox again fell on March 21.
It was more difficult to resolve the issue of introducing such an amendment into the calendar that would ensure for a long time the coincidence of the calendar date of the vernal equinox with its actual date. To do this, it was necessary to know the length of the tropical year.
By this time, astronomical tables, known as the Prussian Tables, had already been published. They were compiled by the German astronomer and mathematician Erasmus Reingold (1511-1553) and published in 1551. The length of the year was taken to be 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 16 seconds, i.e., only 30 seconds more than the true value of the tropical year. The length of the Julian calendar year differed from it by 10 minutes. 44 sec. per year, which gave an error per day for 135 years, and for 400 years - a little more than three days.
Therefore, the Julian calendar moves forward by three days every 400 years. Therefore, in order to avoid new errors, it was decided to throw out 3 days from the account every 400 years. According to the Julian calendar, there should be 100 leap years in 400 years. To implement the reform, it was necessary to reduce their number to 97. Lilio proposed to consider as simple those century years of the Julian calendar, the number of hundreds in which is not divisible by 4. Thus, in the new calendar, only those century years, the number of centuries of which is divisible by 4 without remainder. Such years are: 1600, 2000, 2400, 2800, etc. The years 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, etc. will be simple.
The reformed calendar system was called the Gregorian or "new style".
Is the Gregorian calendar accurate? We already know that the Gregorian calendar is also not entirely accurate. Indeed, when correcting the calendar, they began to throw out three days in every 400 years, while such an error occurs only in 384 years. To determine the error of the Gregorian calendar, we calculate the average length of the year in it.
In a period of 400 years there will be 303 years of 365 days and 97 years of 366 days. There will be 303 × 365 + 97 × 366 == 110,595 + 35,502 = 146,097 days in a four-century period. Divide this number by 400. Then we get 146097/400 = 365.242500 accurate to the sixth decimal place. This is the average length of a year in the Gregorian calendar. This value differs from the currently accepted value of the length of the tropical year by only 0.000305 average days, which gives a difference of a whole day for 3280 years.
The Gregorian calendar could be improved and made even more accurate. To do this, it is enough to consider one leap year every 4000 years as simple. Such years could be 4000, 8000, etc. Since the error of the Gregorian calendar is 0.000305 days per year, then in 4000 years it will be 1.22 days. If we correct the calendar for one more day in 4000 years, then there will be an error of 0.22 days. Such an error will increase to a whole day in only 18,200 years! But such accuracy is no longer of any practical interest.
When and where was the Gregorian calendar first introduced? The Gregorian calendar did not immediately become widespread. In countries where the dominant religion was Catholicism (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, etc.), it was introduced in 1582 or somewhat later. Other countries recognized it only after tens and hundreds of years.
In states in which Lutheranism was strongly developed, for a long time they were guided by the saying that "it is better to part with the Sun than get along with the pope." The Orthodox Church opposed the new style even longer.
In a number of countries, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar had to overcome great difficulties. History knows the “calendar riots” that arose in 1584 in Riga and were directed against the decree of the Polish king Stefan Batory on the introduction of a new calendar not only in Poland, but also in the Duchy of Zadvinsk, which at that time was under Lithuanian-Polish domination. For several years the struggle of the Latvian people against Polish dominance and Catholicism continued. The "calendar disturbances" stopped only after the leaders of the uprising, Giese and Brinken, were arrested in 1589, subjected to severe torture and executed.
In England, the introduction of the new calendar was accompanied by the transfer of the beginning of the new year from March 25 to January 1. Thus, the year 1751 in England consisted of only 282 days. Lord Chesterfield, on whose initiative the calendar reform was carried out in England, was chased by the townspeople with shouts: "Give us our three months."
In the 19th century attempts were made to introduce the Gregorian calendar in Russia, but each time these attempts failed due to the opposition of the church and government. Only in 1918, immediately after the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, was a calendar reform implemented.
The difference between the two calendar systems. By the time of the calendar reform, the difference between the old and new styles was 10 days. This amendment remained the same in the 17th century, since 1600 was a leap year both in the new style and in the old one. But in the XVIII century. the amendment increased to 11 days, in the XIX century. - up to 12 days and, finally, in the XX century. - up to 13 days.
How to set the date after which the amendment changes its value?
The reason for changing the amount of the correction depends on the fact that in the Julian calendar 1700, 1800 and 1900 are leap years, i.e. these years contain 29 days in February, and in the Gregorian they are not leap years and have only 28 days in February.
To transfer the Julian date of any event that occurred after the reform of 1582 to a new style, you can use the table:
This table shows that the critical days, after which the amendment is increased by one day, are February 29, according to the old style, of those century years in which, according to the rules of the Gregorian reform, one day is dropped from the account, i.e., the years 1700, 1800, 1900 , 2100, 2200, etc. Therefore, starting from March 1 of these years, again according to the old style, the amendment increases by one day.
A special place is occupied by the question of recalculating the dates of events that took place before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century. Such a recount is also important when they are going to celebrate the anniversary of a historical event. Thus, in 1973 mankind celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Copernicus. It is known that he was born on February 19, 1473, according to the old style. But we now live according to the Gregorian calendar and therefore it was necessary to recalculate the date of interest to us for a new style. How was it done?
Since in the 16th century the difference between the two calendar systems was 10 days, then, knowing how fast it changes, you can set the value of this difference for various centuries that preceded the reform of the calendar. It should be borne in mind that in 325 the Council of Nicaea adopted the Julian calendar and the spring equinox then fell on March 21st. Considering all this, we can continue the table. 1 in the opposite direction and get the following translation corrections:
| Date interval | Amendment |
| from 1.III.300 to 29.II.400 | 0 days |
| from 1.III.400 to 29.II.500 | + 1 day |
| from 1.III.500 to 29.II.600 | + 2 days |
| from 1.III.600 to 29.II.700 | + 3 nights |
| from 1.III.700 to 29.II.900 | + 4 nights |
| from 1.III.900 to 29.II.1000 | + 5 nights |
| from 1.III.1000 to 29.II.1100 | + 6 nights |
| from 1.III.1100 to 29.II.1300 | + 7 nights |
| from 1.III.1300 to 29.II.1400 | + 8 nights |
| from 1.III.1400 to 29.II.1500 | + 9 nights |
| from 1.III.1500 to 29.II.1700 | + 10 days |
From this table it can be seen that for the date February 19, 1473, the amendment will be +9 days. Consequently, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Copernicus was celebrated on February 19 + 9-28, 1973.
Since 46 BC, the Julian calendar has been used in most countries of the world. However, in 1582, by decision of Pope Gregory XIII, it was replaced by the Gregorian. In that year, the day after the fourth of October was not the fifth, but the fifteenth of October. Now the Gregorian calendar is officially adopted in all countries except Thailand and Ethiopia.
Reasons for adopting the Gregorian calendar
The main reason for the introduction of a new system of chronology was the movement of the vernal equinox, depending on which the date of the celebration of Christian Easter was determined. Due to discrepancies between the Julian and the tropical calendar (the tropical year is the length of time during which the sun completes one cycle of the seasons), the day of the vernal equinox gradually shifted to ever earlier dates. At the time of the introduction of the Julian calendar, it fell on March 21, both according to the accepted calendar system and in fact. But by the 16th century, the difference between the tropical and Julian calendars was already about ten days. As a result, the day of the spring equinox was no longer on March 21, but on March 11.
Scientists drew attention to the above problem long before the adoption of the Gregorian system of chronology. Back in the 14th century, Nikephoros Gregoras, a Byzantine scholar, reported this to Emperor Andronicus II. According to Grigora, it was necessary to revise the calendar system that existed at that time, because otherwise the date of the celebration of Easter would continue to shift to an ever later time. However, the emperor did not take any action to eliminate this problem, fearing a protest from the church.
In the future, other scientists from Byzantium spoke about the need to switch to a new calendar system. But the calendar continued to remain unchanged. And not only because of the fear of the rulers to cause indignation among the clergy, but also because the further the Christian Easter was pushed back, the less chance it had to coincide with the Jewish Easter. This was unacceptable according to church canons.
By the 16th century, the problem had become so urgent that the need to solve it was no longer in doubt. As a result, Pope Gregory XIII assembled a commission, which was instructed to carry out all the necessary research and create a new calendar system. The results obtained were displayed in the bull "Among the most important". It was she who became the document with which the adoption of the new calendar system began.
The main disadvantage of the Julian calendar is its lack of accuracy in relation to the tropical calendar. In the Julian calendar, leap years are all years that are divisible by 100 without a remainder. As a result, every year the difference with the tropical calendar increases. Approximately every one and a half centuries, it increases by 1 day.
The Gregorian calendar is much more accurate. It has fewer leap years. Leap years in this system of chronology are years that:
- divisible by 400 without a remainder;
- divisible by 4 without a remainder, but not divisible by 100 without a remainder.
Thus, 1100 or 1700 in the Julian calendar are considered leap years because they are divisible by 4 without a remainder. In the Gregorian calendar, of the past, after its adoption, 1600 and 2000 are considered leap years.
Immediately after the introduction of the new system, it was possible to eliminate the difference between the tropical and calendar years, which at that time was already 10 days. Otherwise, due to errors in the calculations, an extra year would run every 128 years. In the Gregorian calendar, an extra day only occurs every 10,000 years.
Far from all modern states, the new chronology system was adopted immediately. The Catholic states were the first to switch to it. In these countries, the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted either in 1582 or shortly after the decree of Pope Gregory XIII.
In a number of states, the transition to a new calendar system was associated with popular unrest. The most serious of them took place in Riga. They lasted for five whole years - from 1584 to 1589.
There were also some funny situations. So, for example, in Holland and Belgium, due to the official adoption of the new calendar, after December 21, 1582, January 1, 1583 came. As a result, the inhabitants of these countries were left without Christmas in 1582.
Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar one of the last. The new system was officially introduced on the territory of the RSFSR on January 26, 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars. In accordance with this document, immediately after January 31 of that year, February 14 came on the territory of the state.
Later than in Russia, the Gregorian calendar was introduced only in a few countries, including Greece, Turkey and China.
After the official adoption of the new chronology system, Pope Gregory XIII sent a proposal to Constantinople to switch to a new calendar. However, she was met with a refusal. Its main reason was the inconsistency of the calendar with the canons of the celebration of Easter. However, in the future, most Orthodox churches still switched to the Gregorian calendar.
To date, only four Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar: Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Jerusalem.
Date rules
In accordance with the generally accepted rule, dates that fell between 1582 and the moment the Gregorian calendar was adopted in the country are indicated both in the old and in the new style. In this case, the new style is indicated in quotation marks. Earlier dates are given in accordance with the proleptic calendar (i.e., the calendar used to denote dates earlier than the date the calendar appeared). In countries where the Julian calendar was adopted, dates prior to 46 B.C. e. are indicated according to the proleptic Julian calendar, and where it was not - according to the proleptic Gregorian.