May 1st is day 151 in the Gregorian calendar. Gregorian calendar: history of origin and main characteristics

Calendar Celebration of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God (in memory of the deliverance of Moscow and Russia from the Poles in 1612) Yuri Ruban, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Candidate of Theology, Associate Professor of St. Petersburg State University If we associate October with the Feast of the Intercession, then November, without a doubt, with

Calendar Yuri Ruban, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Candidate of Theology, Associate Professor of St. Petersburg State University As you leaf through the December pages of the Orthodox calendar (December according to the new style according to which we actually live), you involuntarily linger on the name of the Apostle Andrew (December 13). As in

Calendar One of the worst things is diaries, electronic reminders and e-mail. It’s the day of the funeral, and Tolik has a reminder popping up in his calendar to pay for a trip to the sea. The morning after the funeral, a letter arrives confirming the reservation for your loved one.

Calendar- the table of days, numbers, months, seasons, years familiar to all of us - the oldest invention of mankind. It records the periodicity of natural phenomena based on the pattern of movement of celestial bodies: the Sun, Moon, stars. The Earth rushes along its solar orbit, counting down the years and centuries. It makes one revolution around its axis per day, and around the Sun per year. The astronomical, or solar, year lasts 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds. Therefore, there is no whole number of days, which is where the difficulty arises in drawing up a calendar, which must keep the correct time count. Since the time of Adam and Eve, people have used the "cycle" of the Sun and Moon to keep time. The lunar calendar used by the Romans and Greeks was simple and convenient. From one rebirth of the Moon to the next, about 30 days pass, or more precisely, 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes. Therefore, by changes in the Moon it was possible to count days, and then months.

The lunar calendar initially had 10 months, the first of which were dedicated to the Roman gods and supreme rulers. For example, the month of March was named after the god Mars (Martius), the month of May is dedicated to the goddess Maia, July is named after the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, and August is named after the emperor Octavian Augustus. In the ancient world, from the 3rd century BC, according to the flesh, a calendar was used, which was based on a four-year lunar-solar cycle, which gave a discrepancy with the value of the solar year by 4 days in 4 years. In Egypt, a solar calendar was compiled based on observations of Sirius and the Sun. The year in this calendar lasted 365 days, it had 12 months of 30 days, and at the end of the year another 5 days were added in honor of the “birth of the gods.”

In 46 BC, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar introduced an accurate solar calendar based on the Egyptian model - Julian. The solar year was taken as the size of the calendar year, which was slightly larger than the astronomical one - 365 days 6 hours. January 1 was legalized as the beginning of the year.

In 26 BC. e. The Roman Emperor Augustus introduced the Alexandrian calendar, in which 1 more day was added every 4 years: instead of 365 days - 366 days a year, that is, 6 extra hours annually. Over 4 years, this amounted to a whole day, which was added every 4 years, and the year in which one day was added in February was called a leap year. Essentially this was a clarification of the same Julian calendar.

For the Orthodox Church, the calendar was the basis of the annual cycle of worship, and therefore it was very important to establish the simultaneity of holidays throughout the Church. The question of when to celebrate Easter was discussed at the First Ecumenical Council. Cathedral*, as one of the main ones. The Paschalia (rules for calculating the day of Easter) established at the Council, together with its basis - the Julian calendar - cannot be changed under pain of anathema - excommunication and rejection from the Church.

In 1582, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, introduced a new style of calendar - Gregorian. The purpose of the reform was supposedly to more accurately determine the day of Easter, so that the spring equinox would return to March 21. The Council of Eastern Patriarchs in 1583 in Constantinople condemned the Gregorian calendar as violating the entire liturgical cycle and the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. It is important to note that in some years the Gregorian calendar violates one of the basic church rules for the date of celebration of Easter - it happens that the Catholic Easter falls earlier than the Jewish one, which is not allowed by the canons of the Church; Petrov’s fast also sometimes “disappears”. At the same time, such a great learned astronomer as Copernicus (being a Catholic monk) did not consider the Gregorian calendar more accurate than the Julian calendar and did not recognize it. The new style was introduced by the authority of the Pope in place of the Julian calendar, or the old style, and was gradually adopted in Catholic countries. By the way, modern astronomers also use the Julian calendar in their calculations.

In Rus' Since the 10th century, the New Year has been celebrated on March 1, when, according to biblical legend, God created the world. 5 centuries later, in 1492, in accordance with church tradition, the beginning of the year in Russia was moved to September 1, and was celebrated this way for more than 200 years. The months had purely Slavic names, the origin of which was associated with natural phenomena. The years were counted from the creation of the world.

On December 19, 7208 (“from the creation of the world”) Peter I signed a decree on calendar reform. The calendar remained Julian, as before the reform, adopted by Russia from Byzantium along with baptism. A new beginning of the year was introduced - January 1 and the Christian chronology "from the Nativity of Christ." The tsar’s decree prescribed: “The day after December 31, 7208 from the creation of the world (the Orthodox Church considers the date of the creation of the world to be September 1, 5508 BC) should be considered January 1, 1700 from the Nativity of Christ. The decree also ordered that this event be celebrated with particular solemnity: “And as a sign of that good undertaking and the new century, in joy, congratulate each other on the New Year... Along noble and thoroughfares, at the gates and houses, make some decorations from trees and pine branches , spruce and juniper trees... to fire small cannons and rifles, fire rockets, as many as anyone can, and light fires.” The counting of years from the birth of Christ is accepted by most countries of the world. With the spread of godlessness among the intelligentsia and historians, they began to avoid mentioning the name of Christ and replace the counting of centuries from His Nativity with the so-called “our era.”

After the great October socialist revolution, the so-called new style (Gregorian) was introduced in our country on February 14, 1918.

The Gregorian calendar eliminated three leap years within each 400th anniversary. Over time, the difference between the Gregorian and Julian calendar increases. The initial value of 10 days in the 16th century subsequently increases: in the 18th century - 11 days, in the 19th century - 12 days, in the 20th and 21st centuries - 13 days, in the 22nd - 14 days.
The Russian Orthodox Church, following the Ecumenical Councils, uses the Julian calendar - unlike Catholics, who use the Gregorian.

At the same time, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar by civil authorities led to some difficulties for Orthodox Christians. The New Year, which is celebrated by the entire civil society, was moved to the Nativity Fast, when it is not appropriate to have fun. In addition, according to the church calendar, on January 1 (December 19, old style), the memory of the holy martyr Boniface is celebrated, who patronizes people who want to get rid of alcohol abuse - and our entire huge country celebrates this day with glasses in hand. Orthodox people celebrate the New Year “in the old way,” on January 14.

is a number system for large periods of time, based on the periodicity of the Earth’s movement around the Sun.

The length of a year in the Gregorian calendar is 365.2425 days; there are 97 leap years per 400 years.

The Gregorian calendar is an improvement of the Julian calendar. It was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, replacing the imperfect Julian.

The Gregorian calendar is usually called the new style, and the Julian calendar is called the old 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.

Adoption of the Gregorian calendar in different countries

The Gregorian calendar was introduced at different times in different countries. Italy was the first to switch to the new style in 1582. The Italians were followed by Spain, Portugal, Poland, France, Holland and Luxembourg. In the 1580s, these countries were joined by Austria, Switzerland and Hungary.

Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden introduced the new style in the 18th century. The Japanese introduced the Gregorian calendar in the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the new style was joined in China, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Greece, Turkey and Egypt.

In Rus', where people lived according to the Julian calendar since the 10th century, the new European chronology was introduced by decree of Peter I in 1700. At the same time, the Julian calendar was preserved in Russia, according to which the Russian Orthodox Church still lives. The Gregorian calendar was introduced after the October Revolution of 1917 - from February 14, 1918.

Disadvantages of the Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is not absolute and has inaccuracies, although it is consistent with natural phenomena. The length of its year is 26 seconds longer than the tropical year and accumulates an error of 0.0003 days per year, which is three days per 10 thousand years.

In addition, the Gregorian calendar does not take into account the slowing of the Earth's rotation, which lengthens the day by 0.6 seconds per 100 years.

Also, the Gregorian calendar does not meet the needs of society. Chief among its shortcomings is the variability of the number of days and weeks in months, quarters and half-years.

Problems with the Gregorian calendar

There are four main problems with the Gregorian calendar:

• Inconsistency of the Gregorian calendar with the tropical year. True, such a correspondence is generally unattainable due to the fact that the tropical year does not contain an integer number of days. Because of the need to add extra days 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 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.

New calendar projects

In 1954 and 1956, drafts of a new calendar were discussed at sessions of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), but the final resolution of the issue was postponed.

In Russia, a bill was introduced to the State Duma proposing to return the country to the Julian calendar from January 1, 2008. Deputies Viktor Alksnis, Sergey Baburin, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko proposed establishing a transition period from December 31, 2007, when, for 13 days, chronology will be carried out simultaneously according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. In April 2008, the bill was rejected by a majority vote.

A calendar is a number system for large periods of 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.

The history of the development of the solar calendar 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 whose serial numbers were divisible by four were leap years.

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, almost all countries of the world used the Gregorian calendar.

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 modern structure of the calendar does not fully meet the needs of social 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—for 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 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 the 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, a bill was introduced into the State Duma 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

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, the ancient world used an analogue based on the four-year lunisolar cycle, which gave an error in the solar year by 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. The Emperor of Ancient Rome, Julius Caesar, introduced the Julian calendar based on the Egyptian model. 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, the simultaneity of church holidays was very important. The date of Easter 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 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 everyone was happy with the Julian calendar, 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 of the vernal equinox returned 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 of the 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 of 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 of the 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 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 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 that 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, but from nine thousand In the year nine hundred and one, the celebration will take place on March 8th. 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, for example in Greece, the dates of all historical events that occurred after the fifteenth of October one thousand five hundred and eighty-two are nominally celebrated on the same dates on which they occurred. 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, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and some other countries. For a long time, the General Assembly delayed approval of the project, and recently this work at the UN has ceased. Will Russia return to the “old style”? It is quite 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. http://vk.cc/3Wus9M

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