Old-new calendars
The Russian parliamentary fraction People’s Will — SEPR — Russian Patriots, which is comprised of Baburin’s party, socialists, patriots, and former communists, recently resubmitted a draft of a law “On the Russian Federation’s return to the system of chronology according to the Julian calendar.” Especially patriotic Russian parliamentarians are suggesting that this “new-old” system of chronology be implemented as of Jan. 1, 2008.
The deputies believe that the adoption of such a law will allow Russians to celebrate New Year “the right way,” after the Christmas fast ends. “Right now Orthodox Christians have to suffer this orgy of the New Year’s celebration during the last week of the fast, which is abnormal.” They even assert that despite scientists’ calculations, the Julian calendar is “more astronomically precise” in comparison to the Gregorian one.
However, the most important stimulus for the suggested calendar reform is that “all the most important events of Russian history, including the October Revolution, were fixed according to the Julian calendar. Although this calendar was illegitimately abolished by the same revolution, Orthodoxy has been and will remain the spiritual foundation of Russian statehood.” Especially attractive for the calendar reformers is the circumstance that, after switching to the Julian calendar, Russians “would underline the ‘uniqueness’ of their civilization and not live according to a “strange, imposed calendar.”
In the opinion of the erudite parliamentarians in Russia’s State Duma, “the calendar is the main instrument of any culture,” and therefore it is of vital importance for Russia to return to the Julian calendar — in order to “preserve itself as a civilization.” (Russia does not need much to be happy — just a change of calendar.)
The Julian calendar was introduced in Russia by Tsar Peter I in 1700, which is calculated from the moment the world was created. It is interesting to note that the Russian tsar-reformer introduced the Julian system of chronology while nearly all of Europe, dear to his heart, had long ago — in 1582 — switched to the Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII. Most likely the introduction of the Julian calendar occurred because the Gregorian calendar has always smacked of Catholicism to the “truly Russian person”: it is better to use the pre-Christian (i.e., pagan) calendar of the Roman conqueror Julius Caesar.
Meanwhile, this calendar is slowly drifting off track from the astronomically-accurate clock (a difference of 13 days now). Today’s reformers are also not alarmed by the fact that in time Easter will be celebrated at the end of the summer (notwithstanding the Gospels.)
Thus, I will take the liberty of recommending that the Russian parliamentarians — exclusively for the sake of the reliability and stability of “Russian civilization” — return not to the Julian calendar but to the calendar style that marks time from the biblical creation of the world. The year 7515 is lit up on this clock — this is the exact number of years that divide Russia from the moment of the creation of the world.
History shows that scholars have always had difficulties with establishing this starting point, i.e., defining the time period “from Adam to Christ” because of the complexities of calculating life span or the service of the ancient Jewish patriarchs and prophets, and the tsars’ rule. Here is one incomplete example of the supposed life span of biblical personages, accepted by medieval Slavic chronology: Adam — 230 years, Seth — 205, Joshua — 32, King Cyrus — 32, etc. Almost the only source of ancient chronology was the Bible, the Septuagint, particularly its Greek translation (2 B.C.), which was translated into Latin in Christian times (4 A.D.) by St. Jerome (the famous Vulgata — the “popular” Bible).
The system of counting years from Christ’s birth was established and calculated by the Roman monk of Slavic origin, Dionysius the Younger in 525. He was the first to divide all of historical biblical time into “before” and “after” Christ’s birth. In his calculations Dionysius based himself on the Gospel of Luke, on the words: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea...the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”
Later, however, it was ascertained that Dionysius the Younger had miscounted and made Jesus several years younger: the Son of God was probably born in 6 B.C., according to the calculations of the famous 17th- century astronomer Johannes Kepler. Therefore, it is more precise to say “before or after the New Era” than “before or after Christ’s birth,” as Dionysius suggested.
The Western church began counting time “from Christ’s birth” only from the days of Pope Eugene IV (1431), the same pope who convened the “Uniate” Council of Lyons. Constantinople and the Eastern churches also discussed the time of Jesus Christ’s appearance on earth until the 15th century.
What was happening to the Christian chronology in ancient Rus’? In Ukraine they were counting time only “since the creation of the world.” However, under Polish influence, the system of counting time from Christ’s birth, common in the Latin world, started to be used. This is attested by numerous manuscripts of the time. After the papal calendar reform of 1582 all the documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including Ukrainian ones) began to be dated according to the new Gregorian style.
Interestingly, Cossack, hetman, and colonels’ universals of the 16th century are also marked according to the system of counting time “from the birth of Jesus Christ”; the months of the year, based on Roman names, “henvar” and “april,” etc., were used. Together with Christianity, ancient Rus’ also adopted the calendar starting on Sept. 1 (now Sept. 14). However, even after the adoption of Christianity our ancestors marked the beginning of the year in spring for several centuries, i.e., they lived according to the pagan March style, honoring nature’s calendar.
Ivan Klymyshyn’s work Kalendar i Paskhalia (The Calendar and Easter) was used in the preparation of this article.
