I’m listening to a story on NPR about how Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas tomorrow (Jan 7). And their story says that this is because they use the Julian calendar, instead of the Gregorian calendar; and the Julian calendar differs from the Gregorian by several days – a discrepancy that most countries corrected centuries ago.
So now I’m confused: does the Orthodox calendar think that tomorrow is December 25? Or did the Orthodox church say “no, we’re gonna celebrate Christ’s birth in January”?
(Note- this has nothing to do with Jan 6 being Magi/3 Kings/Epiphany/12th Day of Christmas.)
The former, the Julian calender has a leap year every four years with no exceptions like the Gregorian Calender, which is slightly too often.
As a result it is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calender.
No one really knows the date of Jesus’s birth, but many agree that it wasn’t during the winter. It’s generally thought that the date coincides with existing pagan celebrations at the time.
By the Julian calendar, tomorrow is December 25. The change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian was made by Pope Gregory (hence the name), but the Orthodox didn’t recognize his authority. Eastern countries did eventually get around to changing their calendars for secular purposes, but for the religious calendar, it’s still December right now.
That’s it. Most Eastern churches follow the Julian calendar, because how dare the Western Patriarch (aka The Pope, in the person of Gregory the Great) tell us what to do.
Yep, it is the nativity in my house. We are 13 days behind.
Many non catholic countries and churches (this included England) did not change the calendar for quite some time. The orthodox, Coptic, and other eastern churches have not changed calendars, even though the countries did, mostly after World War One.
Every year my HOA sends me a “reminder” that Christmas decorations should not go up more than 30 days before the holiday and should be down within two weeks following, so by January 8th, and every year I say “What about the Orthodox Holiday?”. I never ask the HOA, because I’m not orthodox, so I don’t have a dog in that fight, but it seems like someone would have a case for religious discrimination if someone were to be gigged for having lights up what they would consider two days past the holiday.
Minor nitpick: The pope who mandated the calendar reform to Gregorian was Gregory XIII, in 1582. Gregory the Great was the first of that name and preceded Gregory XIII by almost a millennium.
And this is why i don’t want to live in a place with an HOA. I don’t put up Christmas decorations. But i don’t want some busybody telling me when I’m allowed to hang lights on my bushes.
Which I knew, once upon a time, but forgot I knew it and didn’t bother checking before posting. Mea minima culpa. (Surely a venal sin not ranking a maxima, right?)
I suppose most people in these countries aren’t even aware what the date under the religious calendar is. Life is scheduled on the basis of the secular, i.e. Gregorian, calendar. The religious one determines things such as holidays, but people think of them in terms of “this year, this or that holiday falls on this or that day on the secular calendar”; it’s not as if they’re using two different calendars in parallel and keep track of dates in both of them.
When my mom was a kid, every year, shortly after Christmas they’d take down the tree, and then haul it up the hill to their Orthodox neighbors, to serve as their tree.
The proper time to take down Christmas decorations is on Epiphany Sunday, approximately twelve days after Christmas. Ask any Catholic (or Episcopalian for that matter).
There are Catholic regions in Europe where tradition holds that the Christmas season runs until Candlemas, on 2 February. Nobody actually keeps Christmas decorations up until that late, but the notion that this day marks the end of the festive season is there.
I worked with a woman who was Greek Orthodox. She was celebrating Easter two weeks after Catholics because, “We don’t recognize the Pope”. The company jokester showed her a photo of the Pope and said, “Now you know what he looks like.”
The only thing that seems a little strange about it is that I suppose the Julian calendar uses the same names for months as the Gregorian calendar so it seems odd to say Christmas is January 7. Other than that , though, it’s probably simpler than the other cultural/religious calendars that are used to determine holiday observances which vary from the secular one. The Lunar New Year is on the same date in the Chinese calendar each year , Passover is on the same date in the Jewish calendar each year and I’m pretty sure the same thing goes for holidays and the Islamic calendar. The only difference is that those other calendars don’t line up with the secular one , so you have to say the Lunar New Year starts January 22 this year or Passover starts April 5 this year because the date changes from year to year while Orthodox Christmas is always January 7 on the secular calendar.