Appendix 4: The Calendar

The Orthodox Church follows at present two different calendars: the Old or Julian Calendar, and the New or Gregorian. Since 1900 the Gregorian Calendar has been thirteen days in advance of the Julian.

The Julian Calendar was devised originally under Julius Caesar in 45–44 B.C., while the Gregorian represents a revision of this, effected by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. In due course the Gregorian Calendar came to be adopted in all countries of western Europe—by England, for example, in 1752. It was condemned, however, by Orthodox synods at Constantinople in 1583 and 1593; and the entire Orthodox Church continued to follow the Old Style reckoning until 1923. In that year an ‘Inter-Orthodox Congress’ at Constantinople—several Orthodox Churches, including the Russian, were not in fact properly represented at it—proposed the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, in a slightly emended form. This suggestion was followed, in 1924 or not long afterwards, by the Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Poland. On the other hand the Churches of Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Georgia, together with a substantial minority of the Orthodox in Greece, preferred to retain the Old Calendar, which they have continued to observe up to the present time.

This divergence over calendars has not been allowed to affect the dating of Easter, which is still kept by virtually the entire Orthodox Church on the same day, no account being taken in this instance of the New Calendar. But in regard to the observance of the fixed feasts in the annual cycle, a discrepancy of thirteen days arises. The Greeks, for example, keep Christmas on 25 December (New Style), the Russians on 7 January (New Style), thirteen days later—although for the Russians, of course, it is only 25 December. In the same way Theophany is kept by the Greeks on 6 January, by the Russians on 19 January; the Annunciation on 25 March and 7 April by the two groups respectively; and so on.

This situation, bewildering for Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike, seems likely to persist for some time. When an Ecumenical Council of the Orthodox Church at length assembles, no doubt the calendar question will be one of the many topics for discussion.