Posted on 01/08/2005 11:21:20 AM PST by Destro
7/1/05
Orthodox Christmas day
The difference in Christmas celebrations stretches back to 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ruled the Catholic Church should follow a new calendar – called the Gregorian calendar, more in sync with the sun than the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was established by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Because it was the pope who ruled on it, many churches not in sync with the Vatican ignored it, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox among them. Protestants accepted the new calendar in the early 1700s. In 1922, the patriarch of Constantinople decided to follow the new Gregorian calendar in observance of Christmas, but not for Easter. His lead was followed by many other Orthodox churches. "The only Orthodox churches that observe the Jan. 7 date are the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian churches, the Serbs and the Mt. Athos monks in Greece," In Bosnia only Republika Srpska.
You know what's funny? For years, I thought that Orthodox Christmas was celebrated on January 6th because that's the 12th Day, Three Kings' Day, when the gentiles discovered the birth of Christ - then I found out it was merely the calendar difference and was sorely disappointed for some reason.
Orthodox Christmas is celebrated by Armenians on 6 January and by Ethiopians, Russians and Ukrainians on 7 January.
Do you know why?
Well, from what I've heard on the subject of recognized saints between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches; with a few variations, all the saints of the Church up to the unfortunate events of 1054 are canonical among the Eastern and Western Churches. St. Patrick, for example, is an Orthodox saint just as St. Vladimir is recognized by Catholics.
No.
Why did the Roman and Greek Easters coincide last year?
The Orthodox observe Easter (Pascha) as follows:
Easter Sunday is: the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox - AFTER Passover.
The West follows the same rule EXCEPT the part "after Passover"...
LAST year, the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox just happened to also be after Passover so the West and East had Easter on the same date.
THIS year Orthodox Easter does not fall until May 2. The Catholic/Western Easter is March 27th...almost a full month before Passover (which historically makes no sense since the Last Supper was a passover seder).
The reason for the Western Easter being so early is their exclusion of the "after Passover" part of the rule on calculating the date of Easter.
This isn't the real reason. Even the western e*ster theoretically falls on the sunday after the paschal full moon. Yet last year East and West celebrated apr*l 11, when Passover was not yet over.
The real reason for the difference in the two systems is that the Julian calendar is presently thirteen days behind the Gregorian. Thus when following the Golden Numbers for determining the date of the paschal full moon, the date given falls thirteen days after its Gregorian date. Plus, m*rch 21 (the earliest date on which the paschal full moon can fall) is apr*l 3 on the Julian calendar.
It's true that some years (as this one) the Western e*ster falls duing Purim rather than during Pesach, but the current fixed Jewish calendar dates back to only 359BCE, after the First Council of Nicaea. The Orthodox Pascha may have always fell after all seven days of Pesach before that time, but it has not always done so since. The two calculations now are independent of each other.
Wrong. The date is calculated after Passover begins, not when it ends. The 13 day difference does not affect the calculation of the Equinox or Passover.
::sigh:: I didn't mean to get into a big argument over this. I'm just a calendar nut.
E*ster is the sunday after the fourteenth day of the paschal moon, the paschal moon being defined as that moon whose fourteenth day occurs on or nearest after m*rch 21. This was the date of the vernal equinox at the time of the First Council of Nicaea (at the inauguration of the Julian Calendar in 46BCE, it had been m*rch 25). Currently the Gregorian vernal equinox falls on the Julian m*rch 8 while the Gregorian equinox falls on the Julian apr*l 7 (because of the thirteen day discrepancy).
The Julian Calendar uses the same nineteen golden numbers over and over without a change (in the Gregorian system a daily shift occurs every two or three hundred years). Here is the complete table of golden numbers for the Julian Calendar:
1--apr*l 5
2--m*rch 25
3--apr*l 13
4--apr*l 2
5--m*rch 22
6--apr*l 10
7--m*rch 30
8--apr*l 18
9--apr*l 7
10--m*rch 27
11--apr*l 15
12--apr*l 4
13--m*rch 24
14--apr*l 12
15--apr*l 1
16--m*rch 21
17--apr*l 9
18--m*rch 29
19--apr*l 17
To find the date of Julian e*ster for any year in the Julian calendar, simply divide the year by nineteen and add one to the remainder (if a year is evenly divisable, the remainder is 1). This gives the golden number for that year. For example, 2005 divided by 19 is 105 with a remainder of ten. Thus the golden number for the year 2005 is eleven. Consult the chart above and you will see the paschal full moon for years whose golden number is eleven is apr*l 15. E*ster is the sunday immediately following. Thus e*ster 2005 is (according to the Julian Calendar, whose days of the week lag one day behind those of the Gregorian Calendar) apr*l 18. Once the adjustment is made for the thirteen day discrepancy, this means that the paschal full moon is apr*l 28 NS (new style) and e*ster is m*y 1 NS.
This system works for the entire Julian Calendar, theoretically forever. The same nineteen dates repeat infinitely without change (unlike the Gregorian Calendar, in which golden numbers repeat this way only within two or three hundred year periods). This is how the Julian e*ster date is determined. The current date of Passover is determined by a fixed calendar system introduced after the Council of Nicaea, so it sometimes coincides with one or the other or both e*sters (as it did last year, when Pesach was apr*l 6-13 and both e*sters were on apr*l 11).
This is all I am saying, folks. No one looks at the calendar to see when Passover is in order to schedule the Julian e*ster after it. The thirteen day drift is the real reason for the discrepancy between the two e*sters.
March 27th? Wow. Christmas was just over, and now we're going to have to start looking over and rehearsing all the music for Holy Week in a week or two.
I was always wondering on what grounds the Sunday Sabbath is in synch with the secular calendar in those countries where the liturgical calendar differs. For example, does the Russian Orthodox church hold Sunday liturgy on days that are old style Sundays?
Stupid me -- the days of the week are the same. Sometimes, as soon as you ask a question you figure out the answer.
Thank you for your scholarly post.
Unfortunately, I made at least one mistake. The Julian (not the Gregorian) vernal equinox falls on the Gregorian apr*l 3.
God works in mysterious ways - I guess my thank you provided an opportinity for your correction.
You were right on until you got to that last sentence. The Orthodox method is not what the Western Church uses and that is the reason for the difference.
The only time you need consider the 13 days is when converting between the two calendars. It doesn't determine the difference between the two or the dates would always be 13 days apart and could never coincide.
The timing of Passover is what drove the creation of the Orthodox Julian system for doing the calculation in the first place. If you do the calculations for any year, you'll see that Pascha is celebrated the first Sunday after the Vernal Equinox and after the start of Passover. Now, you can claim that the two are unrelated but I'd direct your attention to the most amazing string of coincidences when considering the outcomes.
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