God created the world outside of time, the change of day and night, seasons allows people to put their time in order. For this purpose, humanity invented the calendar, a system for calculating the days of the year. The main reason for switching to another calendar was disagreement about the celebration the most important day for Christians - Easter.
Julian calendar
Once upon a time, back during the reign of Julius Caesar, in 45 BC. The Julian calendar appeared. The calendar itself was named after the ruler. It was the astronomers of Julius Caesar who created a chronology system based on the time of successive passage of the equinox by the Sun , therefore the Julian calendar was a “solar” calendar.
This system was the most accurate for those times; each year, not counting leap years, contained 365 days. Moreover, the Julian calendar did not contradict astronomical discoveries those years. For fifteen hundred years, no one could offer this system a worthy analogy.
Gregorian calendar
However, in late XVI century, Pope Gregory XIII proposed a different chronology system. What was the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, if there was no difference in the number of days between them? Every fourth year was no longer considered a leap year by default, as in the Julian calendar. According to the Gregorian calendar, if a year ended in 00 but was not divisible by 4, it was not a leap year. So 2000 was a leap year, but 2100 will no longer be a leap year.
Pope Gregory XIII was based on the fact that Easter should be celebrated only on Sunday, and according to the Julian calendar, Easter fell on each time different days weeks. 24 February 1582 the world learned about the Gregorian calendar.
Popes Sixtus IV and Clement VII also advocated reform. The work on the calendar, among others, was carried out by the Jesuit order.
Julian and Gregorian calendars – which is more popular?
The Julian and Gregorian calendars continued to exist together, but in most countries of the world it is the Gregorian calendar that is used, and the Julian remains for calculating Christian holidays.
Russia was among the last to adopt the reform. In 1917, immediately after the October Revolution, the “obscurantist” calendar was replaced with a “progressive” one. In 1923, they tried to transfer the Russian Orthodox Church to “ a new style”, but even with pressure on His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, there was a categorical refusal from the Church. Orthodox Christians, guided by the instructions of the apostles, calculate holidays according to the Julian calendar. Catholics and Protestants count holidays according to the Gregorian calendar.
The issue of calendars is also a theological issue. Despite the fact that Pope Gregory XIII considered the issue mainly astronomical, and not religious aspect, later discussions appeared about the correctness of this or that calendar in relation to the Bible. In Orthodoxy, it is believed that the Gregorian calendar violates the sequence of events in the Bible and leads to canonical violations: Apostolic rules do not allow the celebration of Holy Easter before the Jewish Passover. Go to new calendar would mean the destruction of Easter. Scientist-astronomer Professor E.A. Predtechensky in his work “Church Time: Reckoning and Critical Review” existing rules definitions of Easter" noted: “This collective work (Editor's note - Easter), in all likelihood by many unknown authors, was carried out in such a way that it still remains unsurpassed. The later Roman Easter, now accepted by the Western Church, is, in comparison with the Alexandrian one, so ponderous and clumsy that it resembles a popular print next to an artistic depiction of the same object. Despite all this, this terribly complex and clumsy machine does not yet achieve its intended goal.”. In addition, the descent of the Holy Fire at the Holy Sepulcher takes place on Holy Saturday according to the Julian calendar.
07.12.2015
Gregorian calendar - modern system calculus based on astronomical phenomena, namely, on the cyclic revolution of our planet around the Sun. The length of the year in this system is 365 days, with every fourth year becoming a leap year and equal to 364 days.
History of origin
The date of approval of the Gregorian calendar is October 4, 1582. This calendar replaced the Julian calendar in force until that time. Majority modern countries lives exactly according to the new calendar: look at any calendar and you will get visual representation about the Gregorian system. According to the Gregorian Calculus, the year is divided into 12 months, the duration of which is 28, 29, 30 and 31 days. The calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.
The transition to a new calculation entailed the following changes:
- At the time of adoption, the Gregorian calendar immediately shifted the current date by 10 days and corrected the errors accumulated by the previous system;
- In the new calculus, a more correct rule for determining a leap year began to apply;
- The rules for calculating the day of Christian Easter have been modified.
In the year the new system was adopted, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal joined the chronology, and a couple of years later other European countries joined them. In Russia, the transition to the Gregorian calendar took place only in the 20th century - in 1918. In the territory that was by that time under the control of Soviet power, it was announced that after January 31, 1918, February 14 would immediately follow. For a long time citizens new country could not get used to the new system: the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in Russia caused confusion in documents and minds. In official papers, dates of birth and others significant events for a long time indicated according to the style and new style.
By the way, the Orthodox Church still lives according to the Julian calendar (unlike the Catholic one), so the days church holidays(Easter, Christmas) in Catholic countries do not coincide with Russian ones. According to senior clergy Orthodox Church, the transition to the Gregorian system will lead to canonical violations: the rules of the Apostles do not allow the celebration of Holy Easter to begin on the same day as the Jewish pagan holiday.
China was the last to switch to the new timekeeping system. This happened in 1949 after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China. In the same year, the world-accepted calculation of years was established in China - from the Nativity of Christ.
At the time of approval of the Gregorian calendar, the difference between the two calculation systems was 10 days. By now, due to different quantities For leap years, the discrepancy increased to 13 days. By March 1, 2100, the difference will already reach 14 days.
Compared to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar is more accurate from an astronomical point of view: it is as close as possible to the tropical year. The reason for the change in systems was the gradual shift of the day of the equinox in the Julian calendar: this caused a discrepancy between the Easter full moons and the astronomical ones.
All modern calendars have a familiar appearance to us precisely thanks to the transition of leadership Catholic Church to a new time calculation. If the Julian calendar continued to function, the discrepancies between the actual (astronomical) equinoxes and Easter holidays would increase even more, which would introduce confusion into the very principle of determining church holidays.
By the way, the Gregorian calendar itself is not 100% accurate from an astronomical point of view, but the error in it, according to astronomers, will accumulate only after 10,000 years of use.
People continue to use it successfully new system time is already more than 400 years. A calendar is still a useful and functional thing that everyone needs to coordinate dates, plan business and personal life.
Modern printing production has reached unprecedented levels technological development. Any commercial or public organization can order calendars with their own symbols from a printing house: they will be produced promptly, with high quality, and at an adequate price.
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 must enter the date obtained according to the old style into the calculation form
(amendment + 13 days to the Julian calendar)
2019 non-leap
IN 2019 Orthodox Easter falls on April 15(according to the Julian calendar)
The date of Orthodox Easter is calculated using the algorithm of Carl Friedrich Gauss
Disadvantages of the Julian calendar
In 325 AD e. The Nicene Church Council took place. It was accepted for everything Christendom Julian calendar, according to which at that time the vernal equinox fell on March 21st. For the church it was important point in determining the time of Easter celebration - one of the most important religious holidays. By accepting the Julian calendar, the clergy believed that it was perfectly accurate. However, as we know, for every 128 years an error of one day accumulates.
An error in the Julian calendar resulted in real time The vernal equinox no longer coincides with the calendar. The moment of equality between day and night moved to earlier and earlier dates: first to March 20, then to 19, 18, etc. By the second half of the 16th century. the error was 10 days: according to the Julian calendar, the moment of 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. Thus, in 1324, the Byzantine scientist Nikephoros Grigora drew the attention of Emperor Andronikos II to the fact that the spring equinox no longer falls on March 21 and, therefore, Easter will gradually be pushed back to more late time. Therefore, he considered it necessary to correct the calendar and with it the calculation of Easter. However, the emperor rejected Grigor's proposal, considering the reform practically impracticable due to the impossibility of reaching an agreement on this matter between individual Orthodox churches.
The inaccuracy of the Julian calendar was also pointed out by the Greek scientist Matvey 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 coinciding with the Jewish Passover. Their simultaneous celebration was prohibited by the decrees of some “Ecumenical” councils and various church canons.
It is interesting to note that in 1373 the Byzantine scientist Isaac Argir, who more deeply understood the need to correct the Julian calendar and the rules for calculating Easter, considered such an event useless. The reason for this attitude towards the calendar was explained by the fact that Argir was deeply confident in the coming “doomsday” and the end of the world in 119 years, since it would be 7000 years “since 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 humanity!
The need to reform the Julian calendar was also understood by many representatives of the Catholic Church. In the XIV century. Pope Clement VI spoke in favor of correcting the calendar.
In March 1414, the calendar issue was discussed at the initiative of Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. The shortcomings of the Julian calendar and the inaccuracy of the existing Paschals were the subject of discussion at the Council of Basel in March 1437. Here an outstanding philosopher and scientist of the era Renaissance Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), one of the predecessors of Copernicus.
In 1475, Pope Sixtus IV began preparations for the reform of the calendar and the correction of Easter. For this purpose, he invited the outstanding German astronomer and mathematician Regiomontanus (1436-1476) to Rome. However unexpected death The scientist forced the pope to postpone the implementation of his intention.
In the 16th century Two more “ecumenical” councils dealt with issues of calendar reform: the Lateran (1512-1517) and the Trent Council (1545-1563). When in 1514 the Lateran Council created a commission to reform the calendar, the Roman Curia invited the then well-known Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) in Europe to come to Rome and take part in the work of the calendar commission. However, Copernicus avoided participating in the commission and pointed out the prematureness of such a reform, since, in his opinion, by this time the duration had not been established precisely enough tropical year.
Gregorian reform. TO mid-16th century V. the question of calendar reform received so much wide use and the importance of its decision turned out to be so necessary that it was considered undesirable to postpone this question any further. That is why in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII created special commission, which included Ignatius Danti (1536-1586), a famous professor of astronomy and mathematics at that time University of Bologna. This commission was tasked with developing a draft of a new calendar system.
After reviewing all the proposed options for the new calendar, the commission approved the project, the author of which was the Italian mathematician and physician Luigi Lilio (or Aloysius Lilius, 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 the new calendar.
Lilio's project was accepted by Pope Gregory XIII. On February 24, 1582, he issued a special bull (Fig. 11), according to which the count of days was moved forward 10 days and the day after Thursday October 4, 1582, Friday was ordered to be counted not as October 5, but as 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 an amendment to the calendar that would ensure coincidence for long periods of time. calendar date 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 Reinhold (1511-1553) and published in 1551. The length of the year in them was taken to be 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 16 seconds, i.e. more than the true value of the tropical year by only 30 seconds. The length of the year of the Julian calendar differed from it by 10 minutes. 44 sec. per year, which gave an error per day for 135 years, and for 400 years - slightly more than three days.
Consequently, the Julian calendar moves ahead by three days every 400 years. Therefore, in order to avoid new errors, it was decided to exclude 3 days from the count 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 are considered leap 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. After all, when correcting the calendar, they began to throw out three days every 400 years, while such an error accumulates 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. The total number of days in a four-century period will be 303 × 365 + 97 × 366 == 110,595 + 35,502 = 146,097. Divide this number by 400. Then we get 146097/400 = 365.242500 accurate to the sixth decimal place. This is average duration years of the Gregorian calendar. This value differs from the currently accepted value of the length of the tropical year by only 0.000305 average day, which gives a difference of a whole day over 3280 years.
The Gregorian calendar could be improved and made even more accurate. One is enough for this leap year once every 4000 years is considered 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 you correct the calendar for one more day in 4000 years, then an error of 0.22 days will remain. Such an error will increase to a full 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 Catholicism was the dominant religion (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 where Lutheranism was strongly developed, for a long time they were guided by the saying that “it is better to separate from the Sun than to get along with the Pope.” The Orthodox Church opposed the new style even longer.
In a number of countries, great difficulties had to be overcome when introducing the Gregorian calendar. History knows the “calendar riots” that arose in 1584 in Riga and were directed against the decree Polish king Stefan Batory about the introduction of a new calendar not only in Poland, but also in the Duchy of Zadvina, which was at that time under Lithuanian-Polish domination. The struggle of the Latvian people against Polish dominance and Catholicism continued for several years. The “calendar riots” stopped only after the leaders of the uprising, Giese and Brinken, were arrested and subjected to brutal torture and executed.
In England, the introduction of a new calendar was accompanied by a postponement of the start 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 calendar reform was carried out in England, was pursued by the townspeople shouting: “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 opposition from the church and government. Only in 1918, immediately after the establishment in Russia Soviet power, calendar reform was 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 according to the new style and the old one. But in the 18th century. the amendment increased to 11 days in the 19th century. - up to 12 days and, finally, in the 20th century. - up to 13 days.
How to set the date after which the amendment changes its value?
The reason for the change in the magnitude of the correction depends on the fact that in the Julian calendar the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 are leap years, i.e. these years contain 29 days in February, but in the Gregorian calendar they are not leap years and have only 28 days in February.
To convert the Julian date of any event that occurred after the reform of 1582 to the new style, you can use the table:
From this table it is clear that critical days, after which the amendment is increased by one day, are February 29, old style, of those century years in which, according to the rules of the Gregorian reform, one day was removed from the count, 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 issue 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 any historical event. Thus, in 1973, humanity 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're living now Gregorian calendar and therefore it was necessary to recalculate the date of interest to us to the new style. How was this done?
Since in the 16th century. the difference between the two calendar systems was 10 days, then, knowing the speed at which it changes, we can establish the value of this difference for different centuries that preceded the calendar reform. 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 21. Taking all this into account, we can continue the table. 1 in reverse side and receive the following translation amendments:
| 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 days |
| from 1.III.700 to 29.II.900 | + 4 days |
| from 1.III.900 to 29.II.1000 | + 5 days |
| from 1.III.1000 to 29.II.1100 | + 6 days |
| from 1.III.1100 to 29.II.1300 | + 7 days |
| from 1.III.1300 to 29.II.1400 | + 8 days |
| from 1.III.1400 to 29.II.1500 | + 9 days |
| from 1.III.1500 to 29.II.1700 | + 10 days |
From this table it is clear that for the date February 19, 1473, the correction will be +9 days. Consequently, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Copernicus was celebrated on February 19 +9-28, 1973.