More 20 years ago in Russia there was no confusion with Calendar: while most people hear not heard about any of the Chinese or the Japanese calendar and the Julian calendar to know only that it "abolished" in 1918. However, during this time there have been significant socio-political changes, the Russian Orthodox Church became regain public importance, an increasing number of people with varying degrees of formalism began to call and consider themselves believers. In this regard, it was bound to a partial restoration of the positions of the Julian calendar, in fact it is the foundation of the Orthodox church calendar.

Thank you for Caesar Julian calendar

Gaius Julius Caesar has left a deep mark in the history of mankind variety of their actions, including the introduction of 45 BC the Roman Republic calendar, which later got the name after him the Julian and became the base of the Orthodox calendar .  In fairness it should be noted that Caesar himself, of course, the creation of the calendar was not engaged, and invited a group of scientists from Alexandria, headed by Sozigenom, but essentially it does not change .  This Julian calendar that divided the year into 12 months, 365 days, which made an additional day for four years and set the beginning 1 January, formed a calendar system of Western civilization over the next two thousand years up to the present day .  After all, the Gregorian calendar, introduced in the XVI century and is universal for the entire world, is, in fact, the same Julian, but with certain modifications as regards the definition of leap years - in the Julian calendar, these are all years divisible by 4, in the Gregorian same multiples 100, but are not multiples of 400 .  Because of this discrepancy gradually accumulates days difference between the two calendars: the year before last century, it was 12 days in XX-XXI centuries equal to 13 days, and in the next century will have 14 days .

Russian Orthodox Church is an institution in which a particularly revered by many centuries sanctified traditions which include the Julian calendar. Moreover, in the eyes of the Church, the Gregorian calendar is stable association with the Soviet government, which passed on this calendar system. Therefore, the church life of the ROC is carried out according to the Julian calendar, with Russian local church is one of the so-called Old Calendar Orthodox churches, that is, using the old calendar in their daily lives (in old calendar also includes Jerusalem, Serbian and Georgian church). The rest, new-calendarist churches, carry out daily life in the Gregorian calendar, with church holidays continued to rely on the old style.

Rollovers religious holidays

It dates of religious holidays and associated basic misunderstanding of Russian society .  Most of the parishioners are Russian Orthodox converts, that is recently started active church life, consisting of a visit to worship, sacraments and at least partially follow church rules of life .  For them, and for those interested, but do not want to delve deeply into the details of the life of the Church, the Orthodox calendar represents a certain puzzle .  The reason for this is that religious holidays are like in Orthodoxy which become by date and not rolling .  That is, those holidays that are determined as a function of DC by date (December 25, Old Style, January 7 according to the new) the Nativity of Christ, are "fixed" - for example, Epiphany (January 6, old style January 19, the new ) or the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord (August 6, Old Style, August 19, the new) .  But the celebrations, which are calculated by the date of the main Christian holiday of Easter, is rolling, since the date of the passing of Easter (to those holidays include most religious holidays) .

This Easter is the central point, the starting point of the church calendar .  Currently, all the Orthodox churches (except Finland) determine the date of Easter and depend on passing her holidays according to the Julian calendar, and all "fixed" holidays are marked by the calendar, which operates in the local church .  The calculation of the date of Easter each year in the Orthodox Church of Alexandria paschal carried out, that is specially created just for this event astronomically-calendar method, which takes into account the ratio of the solar and lunar calendars .  In this technique involves concepts such as the vernal equinox (circulation of the Earth around the Sun) and full moon (of the Moon around the Earth) .  The formula looks like this, that Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the full moon of the spring moment .  Thus the Roman Catholic Church uses to calculate the date of Easter Paschalia other, that is another technique in which Easter is celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox on different days .  However, with an average rate of once every three years, these dates coincide, for example, in 2010, was a case in point, and Easter was celebrated on April 4, whereas a year earlier Catholics celebrated a triumph on April 12 and April 19 Orthodox .

Alexander Babitsky

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