Is the Gregorian Calendar wrong?

[Jezra]

My hunch is that any change to the existing formula for calculating the date of Easter would do more harm than good. A few years ago Pope Francis said the Catholic Church would be prepared to accept a fixed Easter, apparently referring to the proposal by some Protestant churches to move Easter to the first Sunday in April.

I think its quite nice that Easter and Passover coincide. After all, Christianity and Judaism are intrinsically linked.

 

[BartholomewB]

I think its quite nice that Easter and Passover coincide. After all, Christianity and Judaism are intrinsically linked.

Yes, I agree, but they don’t coincide very often. Not exactly, anyway. For a start, Passover is celebrated on the day of the full moon, whichever day of the week that may be. Second, both Jews and Christians calculate the lunar calendar using the average duration of the lunar month, instead of observing the astronomical full moon which fluctuates from one month to the next, but their formulas are different in some way. (Don’t ask me for the mathematical details.)

 

[Augustinian]

Catholic festivals, you mean? That’s interesting! Do you know which places?

I would guess it would be Protestant festivals. The Gregorian calendar is named for and was authorized by a Catholic Pope, and English Protestants and Catholic have had bad blood between them since before the Gunpowder Plot.

England (and their colonies in America)took a long, long time to adopt the Gregorian calendar. I don’t know if kids in school are still taught that Washington’s birthday is Feb 11 (OS) (old style- or Julian)

 

[dochawk]

My hunch is that any change to the existing formula for calculating the date of Easter would do more harm than good.

This wouldn’t be a change to the formula at all. The formula has been set for a millennia and a half.

It’s that both groups are using tables rather than following it . . . understandable before the telescope, but silly in the 21st century.

hawk

 

[BartholomewB]

The table itself has been set for a millennium and a half, hasn’t it? Athanasius himself drew up the table, or arranged for an astronomer to the job for him, in the years immediately following the Council of Nicea. As I understand it, it was only when the Western church switched to the Gregorian calendar that the gap appeared between the two dates of Easter. But I’m not a historian. That may not be the whole truth. In any case, all I’m really saying is that some people, both in the East and in the West, are bound to stubbornly resist any change. They won’t listen to the argument that it’s an improvement. They’ll just carry on doing things the way they’ve always done them. The outcome would be a minority using the existing Gregorian Easter, another minority using the existing Julian Easter, and the majority going along with whatever change the Pope, the Patriarchs, and the heads of the various Protestant churches may choose to decree. Three Easters.

 

[dochawk]

The order you cite is correct, but I don’t recall the names.

However, it was the astronomical order, not the tables, that the council set.

The Gregorian calendar came about because the tables were clearly missing the councilor mandate.

I would expect mainstream protestants to actually follow Rome’s lead on this.

hawk

 

[Daylight52]

I have read in the past that the Gregorian calendar is “off” or not accurate.i don’t recall the reason why.i will do some research to find out and to refresh my memory.

 

[dochawk]

The only real way to calibrate it is if the winter solitude falls on the right date and if Pascha lands on the astronomically calculated date.

The rest is arbitrary.

Pascha does get missed sometimes on the current tables meant to calculate it from the Gregorian.

thus my suggestion that we dump tables and ignore the calendars, using the actual events.

hawk

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

Pascha does get missed sometimes on the current tables meant to calculate it from the Gregorian.

off hand, do you know of a recent year that this happened?

 

[Augustinian]

I have read in the past that the Gregorian calendar is “off” or not accurate.i don’t recall the reason why.i will do some research to find out and to refresh my memory.

No calendar can ever be 100% correct, as they will eventually gain or lose days.

The reason is simple. The earth’s revolution around the sun is not an even number of days

 

[dochawk]

off hand, do you know of a recent year that this happened?

Not offhand, no. And I think we’re a few hundred years from the next one . . .

Giving up the tables has the important and charitable benefit of neither side having to concede . . .

hawk

 

[AlNg]

No calendar can ever be 100% correct, as they will eventually gain or lose days.

The reason is simple. The earth’s revolution around the sun is not an even number of days

The revised Julian calendar is accurate to within about 2 seconds per year. In other words, it will take 31,250 years before there is an inaccuracy of one day. That can easily be fixed by an adjustment at that time, i.e., the year 33,268 AD.

 

[dochawk]

You don’t need a whole day of inaccuracy to miss Pascha, though . . . both the annual earth orbit and the lunar orbit involve fractional days, and the “extra” fraction changes with each cycle.

The issue really has little to do with the accuracy of the calendars themselves. . .

 

[thistle]

I’m curious. Why does it matter which calendar, if any, is more accurate than another? It has nothing to do with faith and salvation.

 

[BartholomewB]

The revised Julian calendar is accurate to within about 2 seconds per year. In other words, it will take 31,250 years before there is an inaccuracy of one day.

And yet the Orthodox churches end up, in some years, contravening the rule laid down at Nicea. Forgive me for repeating here a comment I already posted on this thread.

In 2024, the spring equinox will fall on March 19. The first full moon after that date will be on March 25, and the second full moon on April 23. The Western (Gregorian) Easter will be celebrated on Sunday, March 31, but the Eastern (Julian) Easter not until five weeks later, on Sunday, May 5, which is after the second full moon following the equinox.

But the Council of Nicea, in 325, ruled that Easter was to be celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the first full moon after the spring equinox.

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

Don’t they also hold Pascha after the Jewish Passover?

 

[BartholomewB]

Don’t they also hold Pascha after the Jewish Passover?

In most years, I believe, the Western (Catholic and Protestant) Easter comes after Passover, if only because Passover is celebrated on the day of the full moon – whichever day of the week that may be – and Easter on the Sunday after the full moon.

 

[mythbuster1]

Compounding the issue of calendar math is that the day, synodic month, and tropical year are subject to secular changes. Every year, the Earth’s rotation slows a bit, the Moon gets farther from the Earth, and the Earth gets farther from the Sun. For this reason, when the second was redefined in terms of quantum mechanics instead of a fraction of a mean solar day, leap seconds began to be added to adjust for the slowing of Earth’s rotation, else the second would continue to increase.

 

[dochawk]

The revised Julian calendar is accurate to within about 2 seconds per year. In other words, it will take 31,250 years before there is an inaccuracy of one day.

not the ones on the revised Julian calendar, to which you were responding. They end up with the same date for Pascha as the Gregorian for the next few hundred years.

Then again, Nicea also prohibited kneeling on Sunday, and the West does this every week . . .

hawk

 

[BartholomewB]

not the ones on the revised Julian calendar, to which you were responding.

Which are the ones on the revised Julian calendar? Not, evidently, the church headed by the patriarch of Jerusalem, because of the OP’s starting point about the different dates.