I did a couple of searches for my questions and couldn’t find anything that answered them so I came to you guys:
Imagine that through the wizardry of combined sciences, humanity was able to nail down the exact date of Christ’s birth as it relates to our modern calender. Does the papal ministry have the power to officially decree that Christmas will now be celebrated on that date? Say, March 3rd, or something. If so, what would be the widespread side effects of the change? Would December 25th still be a celebratory day, but called something else, for example?
The Catholic Church can decree when the Catholic Church and it’s followers will celebrate Christmas, and it’s followers may or may not agree with the decision, but that’s about it. It’s up to the individual countries that have made it an official holiday to decide what day that holiday falls on.
I don’t think there is a factual answer to this questions since it is based on pure speculation. Could the Papal ministry (the Pope?) change the date of Christmas based on whatever it wanted to? I suppose it could for Catholics, but how many people would actually adhere to it would be anyone’s guess. What would then happen to December 25th? Merchants would probably invent a new holiday called ‘Old Christmas’ and things would pretty much go on as they do today.
The Gregorian calendar reform was introduced in 1582 and took until 1923 (Greece) to supersede the Julian calendar as the civil calendar. Most Orhodox churches reject it even now. And the power of the papacy has not increased since 1582.
There’s many feasts that got changed as a consequence of Vatican II. One of them is the feast of St Fermin, which moved from July 7th to September 25th. Pamplona still celebrates Sanfermines from “the eve of St Fermin” (July 6th) to the 14th of the same month, September 25th is known as “the little St Fermin” and hey, look, we got another holiday!
That said, if the “new” date happened to be inconvenient (such as too close to Easter), the change simply wouldn’t be put into effect. It would be decreed that Tradition trumps Archaeology, there would be some people who’d spend centuries grumbling that “Christmas is in the wrong date”, but I expect these to be a minority.
Sure they could try New Christmas, but after a couple years they’ll just introduce Christmas Classic and we’ll all be happier. (Just no Diet Christmas, I like my holidays with sugar!)
I doubt there would be much of an issue here, since it’s been known for a long time that Christ was almost certainly not born on December 25th or anything like it.
Eastern orthodox churches (e.g., Greek Orthodox) still uses the Julian calendar to calculate when Easter occurs. As a result, they often celebrate it on a different date than Roman Catholics (and most Protestant churches, for that matter.)
If different Christian churches can disagree on Easter, they could disagree on Christmas.
Guessing there would also be a collective “F–k You” from everyone (like me) that doesn’t believe in the celebration of the birth of a god (I am if-fy on whether a human named Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, later crucified for sedition existed; proof of his existence doesn’t prove his divinity) and just like to celebrate a midwinter holiday (we NEED a holiday at this time of year).
This is where you lost me. Since the word Christmas is derived from the Middle English Cristenmasse, literally “Christian Mass”, why would there be a “collective Fuck You” from anyone on this? Why couldn’t you have Christmas on a different day and STILL have a midwinter holiday?
Would the church, (either a pope, a papal congregation, a Holy Office, or a council), have the authority to change the date for the Catholic celebration? Sure–for Catholics. Everyone else would have to make their own choices about which date to celebrate. Is there any likelihood that anyone would want to change the date of the current feast? Highly unlikely. Everyone already knows that the date was picked for non-historical reasons and most scholars, today, already figure that such clues as “shepherds watching by night” indicate a date in the Spring.
It has never been thought that Jesus was born on or near the 25th of December, and this has nothing to do with fixing the date of the celebration of the Nativity. There would, therefore, be no reason to change the date of the celebration if evidence emerged showing the date of the birth.
But, yes, the pope can change the date of the celebration (as observed by Catholics) if there seems to be good reason to. As already pointed out, the dates of other celebrations have been changed. It’s just hard to think of anything that might seem like a good enough reason to. And the fact that it would the Catholic celebration out of sync with other western Christians is a strong consideration *against *changing the date.
Wasn’t the original Christian date for “Birth of Jesus” somewhere in the spring?
I heard that it was moved to December when the Church expanded into northern Europe and needed to complete with the existing “Yule” celebration of the Winter Solstice.
Which explains the burning of a huge log, the erection of a living tree (not many species to choose from) indoors, etc.
A Nativity scene beside a gaudily decorated (now dead, thanks to the host) tree and next to a fireplace with stockings kind of sums it up…
That’s pretty much what I always thought as well- Christmas and Easter were put when they are to coincide with existing pagan traditions, and there was/is a lot of syncretism involved. Mexico’s Day of the Dead is the same sort of thing- a blending of pre-Columbian indigenous religion with Catholic All Saints Day/All Souls Day.
So my take on it is that likely there would be some sort of proclamation from the Vatican that March 3 (to use the OP’s date) is the archaeological day of the birth of Christ, but that the celebrations will still occur in the winter as they have for a thousand years. There’ll probably be some solemn mass or feast day on March 3, but it won’t be the focal point of anything.