Sunday, October 21, 2007

The Eastern Orthodox calendar

Orthodox Christians follow the Julian calender, which differs considerably from the Gregorian calendar used in the West. Despite efforts by Pope Gregory to convince the Orthodox church to use the Gregorian calendar, Eastern Orthodox Christians still rejected it because Easter would then coincide with Passover. Some Orthodox churches eventually switched to using the Gregorian calender, but the majority did not. The ecclesiastical year in the Orthodox church, starts on September 1. Orthodox Christians, for example, celebrate Christmas 13 days later than Western Christians on January 7. In the same way, Western Christians celebrate The Epiphany on January 6, and Eastern Orthodox Christians on January 19. The two calenders have some common ground though; for example, they both celebrate Christ's Resurrection on the same day. One unique thing is that the Julian Calender has what are called "movable" holy days. Movable holy days are determined by the date of Easter, and Easter itself is a movable holiday. For example, determining when the Easter holiday is involves using a complex mathematical formula. Easter Sunday should fall on the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If the full moon happens to fall on a Sunday, Easter is observed the following Sunday.
http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7070.asp

1 comment:

Juliet said...

I think it is very interesting that people refuse to use the Gregorian calender because it was coincide with passover and that they use the julian calender instead.