The Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. It was supposedly developed by Egyptian astronomers (Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigen), but they named it precisely in his honor.
It acquired its final form in 8 AD.
The year began on January 1, since it was on this day that the elected consuls took office, and then everything, as we know, is 12 months, 365 days, sometimes 366.
It is this “sometimes” that distinguishes it from the Gregorian calendar.
Actually the problem is that the full revolution around the sun - a tropical year - the Earth makes in 365.24219878 days. The calendar has an integer number of days. It turns out that if there are 365 days in a year, then every year the calendar will go astray - go ahead by almost a quarter of a day.
In the Julian calendar, they did it simply - to correct the discrepancy, it was assumed that every fourth year would be a leap year ( annus bissextus) and will have 366 days. Thus, the average length of the year in the Julian calendar is 365.25, already much closer to the real tropical year.
But not close enough - now the calendar began to lag behind every year by 11 minutes 14 seconds. For 128 years, it will be a day. This leads to the fact that some dates associated with astronomical phenomena, for example, the astronomical spring equinox, begin to shift towards the beginning of the calendar year.
The discrepancy between the astronomical vernal equinox and the calendar, fixed on March 21, became more and more pronounced, and since Easter was tied to the vernal equinox, many in Catholic Europe believed that something had to be done about the problem.
Finally, Pope Gregory XIII got together and reformed the calendar, producing what we now know as the Gregorian calendar. The project was developed by Luigi Lilio, and according to him, in the future, only those secular years were to be considered leap years, the number of hundreds of years of which is divisible by 4 (1600, 2000, 2400), while others will be considered simple. The error of 10 days accumulated since 8 AD was also eliminated, and according to the decree of the pope of February 24, 1582, it was established that for October 4, 1582, October 15 should immediately come.
In the new calendar, the average length of the year was 365.2425 days. The error was only 26 seconds, and the discrepancy per day has been accumulating for about 3300 years.
As they say, "well, to be more precise, we don't need to." Or, let's put it this way - these will already be the problems of our distant descendants. In principle, it would be possible to declare every year that is divisible by 4000 not a leap year, and then the average value of the year will be 365.24225, with an even smaller error.
Catholic countries switched to the new calendar almost immediately (you can’t argue against the pope), Protestant countries with a creak, one of the last was Great Britain, in 1752, and only Orthodox Greece held out until the very end, which adopted the Gregorian calendar only in 1929.
Now only some Orthodox churches adhere to the Julian calendar, for example, Russian and Serbian.
The Julian calendar continues to lag behind the Gregorian - by one day every hundred years (if the secular year is not divisible by 4 without a remainder), or by three days in 400 years. By the 20th century, this difference had reached 13 days.
The calculator below converts a date from the Gregorian calendar to the Julian calendar and vice versa.
How to use it - enter the date, the Julian calendar field displays the Julian calendar date as if the entered date belongs to the Gregorian calendar, and the Gregorian calendar field displays the Gregorian calendar date as if the entered date belongs to the Julian calendar.
I also note that before October 15, 1582, the Gregorian calendar did not exist in principle, therefore, it is meaningless to talk about Gregorian dates corresponding to earlier Julian dates, although they can be extrapolated into the past.
At all times, many attempts have been made to streamline the reckoning. Various ways of measuring time were taken as a basis, calendars took different events, both religious and political, as a starting point. There are lunar calendars based on the periodicity of the Moon's movement, solar calendars based on the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, mixed. Not so long ago, namely on January 31, 1918, Soviet Russia switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. What is the difference between the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar?
Julian calendar was introduced during the reign of Julius Caesar, in 45 BC, and was named after him. This solar calendar, oriented to the time of successive passage of the equinox point by the Sun, was developed by the emperor's court astronomers.
The reason for the appearance Gregorian calendar There were disagreements in the celebration of Easter: according to the Julian calendar, this bright holiday fell on different days of the week, while Christians believed that Easter should be celebrated only on Sunday. By order of the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, the Gregorian solar calendar was prepared and put into operation on February 24, 1582, which is rather a reformed Julian calendar.
While the Gregorian calendar was adopted to regularize the celebration of Easter, its introduction broke the sequence of the gospel events. So the Russian Orthodox Church still calculates all passing holidays according to the Julian calendar, and not passing holidays according to the “new style”.
Leap years
Both one and the second calendar, consist of 365 days in a normal year and 366 days in a leap year, include 12 months, 7 of which contain 31 days, 4 months - 30 days, and February is either 28 or 29, depending from a year. The only difference is the frequency of leap years.
The Julian calendar assumes that a leap year repeats every three years for a fourth. But in this way it turns out that the calendar year is 11 minutes longer than the astronomical one. That is, every 128 years an extra day is formed. The Gregorian calendar also recognizes every fourth year as a leap year, except for years divisible by 100 in cases where they are not divisible by 400. Thus, an extra day is formed only in 3200 years.
Beginning of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendar
At the time of using the Julian calendar, the beginning of the year was determined first on the 1st of September, and then on the 1st of March, as they said, the autumn or spring new year. In any case, the year began with a new season. According to the Gregorian calendar, the new year begins on December 1, that is, in the middle of the season.
TheDifference.ru determined that the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is as follows:
The Julian calendar is simpler for reckoning, but ahead of the astronomical year in time.
The Gregorian calendar arose after the reform of the Julian calendar, taking it as a basis.
The Orthodox Church believes that the Gregorian calendar violates the sequence of biblical events.
For all of us, the calendar is a familiar and even ordinary thing. This ancient human invention fixes days, numbers, months, seasons, periodicity of natural phenomena, which are based on the system of movement of celestial bodies: the Moon, the Sun, the stars. The Earth sweeps through the solar orbit, leaving years and centuries behind.
Moon calendar
In one day, the Earth makes one complete rotation around its own axis. It goes around the sun once a year. Solar or lasts three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty-six seconds. Therefore, there is no integer number of days. Hence the difficulty in drawing up an accurate calendar for the correct timing.
The ancient Romans and Greeks used a convenient and simple calendar. The rebirth of the moon occurs at intervals of 30 days, and to be precise, in twenty-nine days, twelve hours and 44 minutes. That is why the days, and then the months, could be counted according to the changes of the moon.
In the beginning, this calendar had ten months, which were named after the Roman gods. From the third century to the ancient world, an analog was used, based on a four-year luni-solar cycle, which gave an error in the value of the solar year in 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 and sixty-five days. It consisted of twelve months of thirty days. After its expiration, five more days were added. This was formulated as "in honor of the birth of the gods."
History of the Julian calendar
Further changes took place in 46 BC. e. Julius Caesar, the emperor of ancient Rome, introduced the Julian calendar following the Egyptian model. In it, the solar year was taken as the value of the year, which was slightly longer than the astronomical one and was three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours. The first of January was the beginning of the year. Christmas according to the Julian calendar began to be celebrated on the seventh of January. So there was a transition to a new chronology.
In gratitude for the reform, the Senate of Rome renamed the month Quintilis, when Caesar was born, into Julius (now it is 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 the forty-fourth to the ninth year BC. e. instead of nine, twelve leap years were declared.
The Emperor Octivian August 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 of Sextilis was renamed Augustus (August).
For the Orthodox Church, the simultaneity of church holidays was very important. The date of the celebration of Easter was discussed at the First and this issue became one of the main ones. The rules established at this Council for the exact calculation of this celebration 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 the Julian calendar was good for everyone, 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 returned to the twenty-first of March.
In 1583, the Council of the 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 it violates the basic rule of celebrating Easter. It happens that Catholic Bright Sunday falls in time before Jewish Easter, and this is not allowed by the canons of the church.
The chronology 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 over two hundred years.
On December 19, 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 valid. The start date has changed. It has been officially approved in the country. 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 the fourteenth of February, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen, new rules were introduced in our country. The Gregorian calendar ruled out three within each four hundred years. It was this that was adopted.
What is the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars? The difference between in the calculation of leap years. It increases over time. 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 the Catholics use the Gregorian.
You can often hear the question of why the whole world celebrates Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December, and we - on the seventh of January. The answer is quite obvious. The Orthodox Russian 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". At present, its scope is very limited. It is used by some Orthodox Churches - Serbian, Georgian, Jerusalem and Russian. In addition, the Julian calendar is used in some Orthodox monasteries in Europe and the United States.
in Russia
In our country, the issue of calendar reform has been raised repeatedly. In 1830 it was staged by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prince K.A. Lieven, who at that time was the Minister of Education, considered this proposal untimely. Only after the revolution, the issue was submitted to a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation. Already on January 24, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar.
Features of the transition to the Gregorian calendar
For Orthodox Christians, the introduction of a new style by the authorities caused certain difficulties. The new year turned out to be shifted into when any fun is not welcome. Moreover, January 1 is the day of memory of St. Boniface, who patronizes 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 and sixty-five days in a normal year and three hundred and 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 difference lies only in the frequency of leap years. 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 a multiple of 100, as well as those that can be divided by 400. Based on this, an extra day appears only after 3200 years.
What awaits us in the future
Unlike the Gregorian, 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 sequence of many biblical events.
Due to the fact that the Julian and Gregorian calendars increase the difference in dates over time, Orthodox churches that use the first of them will celebrate Christmas from 2101 not on January 7, as it happens now, but on January 8, but from nine thousand of the nine hundred and first year, the celebration will take place on the eighth of March. In the liturgical calendar, the date will still correspond to the twenty-fifth of December.
In countries where the Julian calendar was used by the beginning of the twentieth century, such as Greece, the dates of all historical events that occurred after October fifteenth, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two, are nominally noted on the same dates when they happened.
Consequences of calendar reforms
Currently, the Gregorian calendar is fairly accurate. According to many experts, it does not need to be changed, but the question of its reform has been discussed for several decades. In this case, we are not talking about the introduction of a new calendar or any new methods of accounting for leap years. It 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 are from 28 to 31 days, the length of a quarter ranges from ninety to ninety-two days, with the first half of the year shorter than the second by 3-4 days. This complicates the work of financial and planning authorities.
What are the new calendar projects
Over the past one hundred and sixty years, various projects have been proposed. In 1923, a calendar reform committee was created under the League of Nations. After the end of the Second World War, this issue was referred to the Economic and Social Committee of the United Nations.
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 variant, the month always starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In a year, one day has no name at all and is inserted at the end of the last thirteenth month. In a leap year, such a day occurs 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 each.
In the first month of the quarter there are thirty-one days, in the next two - thirty. The first day of each year and quarter begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In a normal year, one extra day is added after December 30th, and in a leap year after June 30th. This project was approved by France, India, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and some other countries. For a long time the General Assembly delayed the approval of the project, and recently this work in the UN has stopped.
Will Russia return to the "old style"
It is rather difficult for foreigners to explain what the concept of "Old New Year" means, why we celebrate Christmas later than Europeans. Today there are 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.
Humanity has been using chronology since ancient times. Take, for example, the famous Mayan circle that made a lot of noise in 2012. Measuring day by day, the pages of the calendar take weeks, months and years away. Almost all countries of the world today live according to the generally recognized Gregorian calendar, however, for many years the state was Julian. What is the difference between them, and why is the latter now used only by the Orthodox Church?
Julian calendar
The ancient Romans counted the days by the phases of the moon. This simple calendar had 10 months named after gods. The Egyptians had a familiar modern reckoning: 365 days, 12 months of 30 days. In 46 BC. Emperor of Ancient Rome Gaius Julius Caesar ordered the leading astronomers to create a new calendar. The solar year with its 365 days and 6 hours was taken as a model, and the starting date was January 1st. The new way of counting days then, in fact, was called a calendar, from the Roman word "calends" - that was the name of the first days of each month when interest on debts was paid. To the glory of the ancient Roman commander and politician, in order to perpetuate his name in the history of a grandiose invention, one of the months was called July.
After the assassination of the emperor, the Roman priests got a little confused and declared every third year to be a leap year to even out the six-hour shift. The calendar was finally aligned under the emperor Octavian Augustus. And his contribution was recorded by the new name of the month - August.
Julian to Gregorian
For centuries julian calendar states lived. It was also used by Christians during the First Ecumenical Council, when the date for the celebration of Easter was approved. Interestingly, this day is celebrated differently every year, depending on the first full moon after the spring equinox and the Jewish Passover. This rule could only be changed on pain of anathema, but in 1582 the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, took the risk. The reform was successful: the new calendar, called the Gregorian, was more accurate and returned the day of the equinox to March 21. The hierarchs of the Orthodox Church condemned the innovation: it turned out that the Jewish Easter happened later than the Christian Easter. This was not allowed by the canons of the Eastern tradition, and another point appeared in the discrepancies between Catholics and Orthodox.
The chronology in Rus'
In 1492, the New Year in Rus' began to be celebrated according to church tradition on September 1, although earlier the New Year began simultaneously with spring and was considered "from the creation of the world." Emperor Peter I established that adopted from Byzantium Julian calendar on the territory of the Russian Empire is valid, but the New Year was now celebrated without fail on January 1. The Bolsheviks brought the country to Gregorian calendar, according to which the whole of Europe has long lived. It is interesting that in this way the then February became the shortest month in the history of the chronology: February 1, 1918 turned into February 14.
WITH Julian to Gregorian calendar in 1924, Greece officially crossed, followed by Turkey, and in 1928, Egypt. In our time, according to the Julian chronology, only some Orthodox churches live - Russian, Georgian, Serbian, Polish, Jerusalem, as well as eastern ones - Coptic, Ethiopian and Greek Catholic. Therefore, there are discrepancies in the celebration of Christmas: Catholics celebrate the birthday of Christ on December 25, and in the Orthodox tradition this holiday falls on January 7. The same with secular holidays - confusing foreigners, is celebrated on January 14 as a tribute to the previous calendar. However, it does not matter who lives according to what calendar: the main thing is not to waste precious days.
Kaluga region, Borovsky district, Petrovo village
Welcome to ! On January 6, 2019, the magic of Christmas Eve will envelop the entire park, and its visitors will find themselves in a real winter fairy tale!
An exciting thematic program of the park awaits all guests of the park: interactive excursions, craft workshops, street games with mischievous buffoons.
Enjoy the winter views of ETNOMIR and the festive atmosphere!
Christmas is the most fabulous, the most magical holiday. A holiday that promises a miracle. The most awaited holiday of the year. Christmas is more important than New Year. So it is in the West, so it was in Russia before the revolution. It is Christmas that is the warmest family holiday with the obligatory Christmas tree and the expectation of gifts from Santa Claus or Father Frost.
So why do Christians have two Christmases today? Why do Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7, and Catholics and Protestants on December 25?
And the point here is not at all in religious differences, but only in the calendar. Initially, the Julian calendar existed in Europe. This calendar appeared before our era and was generally accepted until the 16th century. The Julian calendar was named after Julius Caesar, who introduced this calendar in 45 BC. replacing the obsolete Roman calendar. The Julian calendar was developed by a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigenes. Sozigenes is an Alexandrian scientist, a scientist from the same Alexandria, which was located on Egyptian lands. In Rome, he was invited by Caesar to develop a calendar. Also known for his philosophical treatises, for example, a commentary on Aristotle's treatise De Caelo. But his philosophical works have not survived to this day.
The Julian calendar was developed based on ancient Egyptian knowledge of astronomy. In the Julian calendar, the year begins on January 1, since it was on this day that newly elected consuls took office in ancient Rome. The year consisted of 365 days and was divided into 12 months. Once every four years there was a leap year, to which one day was added - February 29th. But the calendar was not accurate enough. Every 128 years, one extra day accumulated. And Christmas, which in the Middle Ages was celebrated in Western Europe almost on the days of the winter solstice, began to gradually move away closer and closer to spring. The day of the spring equinox was also shifted, according to which the date of Easter was determined.
And then the Popes came to the understanding that the calendar is not accurate and needs to be improved. Gregory XIII became the pope who carried out the calendar reform. It was in his honor that the new calendar was named the Gregorian. Before Gregory XIII, Popes Paul III and Pius IV made attempts to change the calendar, but their attempts were not successful. The new Gregorian calendar was introduced on October 4, 1582. The astronomers Christopher Clavius and Aloysius Lilius were involved in the development of the calendar on behalf of the pope. After the introduction of the new calendar in 1582, the date October 4 Thursday was immediately followed by a new date - October 15 Friday. That is how the Julian calendar by that time lagged behind the Gregorian.
The Gregorian calendar has 365 days per year, while a leap year has 366 days. But at the same time, the calculation of leap years has become more perfect. So a leap year is a year whose number is a multiple of 4. Years divisible by 100 are leap years provided they are divided by 400. Thus, 2000 was a leap year, 1600 was a leap year, and 1800 or 1900, for example, were not leap years. An error in one day now accumulates over 10,000 years, in Julian - over 128 years.
With each century, the difference in days between the Gregorian and the Julian calendar increases by exactly one day.
By 1582, the originally united Christian church had already split into two parts - Orthodox and Catholic. In 1583, Pope Gregory XIII, the head of the Catholic Church, sent an embassy to the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople, with a proposal to also switch to the Gregorian calendar, but he refused.
So it turned out that Catholics and Protestants celebrate Christmas on December 25 according to the new Gregorian calendar, and the Orthodox - Russian, Jerusalem, Serbian, Georgian Orthodox Churches and Athos - according to the old Julian calendar and also on December 25, but which the truth in the modern Gregorian calendar falls on Jan. 7.
The Orthodox churches of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romanian, Hellas and some other Orthodox churches adopted the New Julian calendar, which is similar to the Gregorian calendar, and just like Catholics celebrate Christmas on December 25th.
By the way, in the Russian Orthodox Church there were also attempts to switch to a similar to the Gregorian New Julian calendar. On October 15, 1923, it was introduced into the Russian Orthodox Church by Patriarch Tikhon. This innovation was accepted by the Moscow parishes, but caused controversy in the Church itself, and on November 8, 1923, by decree of Patriarch Tikhon, “was temporarily postponed.”
In the Russian Empire, even in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the chronology, unlike Europe, was carried out according to the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was introduced only after the revolution in 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars. Then there were such names as the "old style" - the Julian calendar and the "new style" - the Gregorian calendar. Christmas began to be celebrated after the New Year. And besides the New Year itself, the Old New Year also appeared, in general, the same New Year, but in the old Julian calendar.
Here is a calendar story. Merry Christmas, and possibly Christmas, and New Years, or New Years. Happy holidays to you!
