Ukrainian Catholics will not change to Gregorian calendar [CWN]

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Citing “very painful calendar wars in North America,” the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church said that his Eastern Catholic church will continue to follow the Julian calendar in …

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Surprising. I thought that parishes in the diaspora always used the Gregorian Calendar, but I was wrong. Oh well.
 
:eek:-NOW what are the rest of us going to do?! :bigyikes:

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSY310yM2xfwkZO2GGEgNhqCSMyMWxVWjvi3L23f2U5oG0PkK-L ? http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQMSoP2PzO-y4Uc1mzY7hwiHvyPIQ_OskdX6Uj5sMWwRkbkTsXe ?http://faminegenocide.com/commemoration/images/calendar_cover.jpg?!


On St. Thomas encountering the Risen Christ:
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“Dearly beloved, what do you see in these events? Do you really believe that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed? It was not by chance but in God’s providence. In a marvelous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief.
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The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church)
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A man who has this kind of insight on the eternal things of the Universe surely must know what DAY it is! 😉

C’mon Ukraine. You don’t have to set your watches to Roman Standard Time but … lets get together and unify about a calendar.

PS: By the Jewish calendar it has just become 5775. Just for perspective.

OTOH we could compromise and have TWO Christmases … one for the old year, one for the new. And take an even LONGER Holiday. :extrahappy:
 
CaptFun said:
:eek:-NOW what are the rest of us going to do?! :bigyikes:

C’mon Ukraine. You don’t have to set your watches to Roman Standard Time but … lets get together and unify about a calendar.
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Each Church Sui Iuris sets its own calendar and calendrical practices.
 
Yeah, the Ukrainians can keep the calendar they find suitable.

Peace,
Ed
 
I have a very simple, to-the-point question which I don’t think really warrants its own thread:

If the difference between the Gregorian and Julian calendars is 12 days, always, and both the Catholic and Orthodox churches use the same convention for calculating Easter (howbeit with different calendars) then why does Western and Eastern Easter sometimes fall on the same day? Wouldn’t you expect the two Easters to always be the same number of days apart?
 
Both the Gregorian and Julian Calendars are solar calendars. However, the date of Pascha is tied both to the solar year, and to the lunar cycle. Also, Pascha is always on a Sunday, so the two Paschas will never be 12 days apart.
 
RyanBlack said:
Both the Gregorian and Julian Calendars are solar calendars. However, the date of Pascha is tied both to the solar year, and to the lunar cycle. Also, Pascha is always on a Sunday, so the two Paschas will never be 12 days apart.
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They wouldn’t be 12 days apart, but you’d nevertheless expect them to be the same number of days apart every year, and wouldn’t sporadically fall on the same day certain years.

Both churches calculate Easter using the Nicean formula, correct (1st Sunday after the Paschal full moon)? If the two calendars fluctuate by a constant value every year, and both churches are using the same formula (howbeit different calendars) for Easter, then the two Easters should be the same, constant amount of time apart from one another. Am I missing something?

EDIT: Nevermind! Figured it out. 😃 The number of days between each “Paschal Full Moon” will vary each year since the two are using different calendars. Sorry. I’m a little dense sometimes.
 
Elizium23 said:
Computus is different for Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is rather complex.
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Thanks for that. I realized the error in my thinking just after my last post. While it is true that the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is a set, constant difference (12 days), Easter also depends on lunar cycles, so while both churches calculate Easter using “the Sunday after the Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox”, and both churches consider the Vernal Equinox to be March 21st, these two churches consider “March 21st” to be different days (indeed 12 days apart). The subsequent Full Moon" doesn’t necessarily appear a constant number of days after each of those “March 21sts”, and so the difference between the two Easters varies from year to year.

It’s interesting though that if one looks at the distribution of Easter dates for each church over an entire two century of years the distribution curve is the exact same shape (amplitude) and frequency, but only shifted by 12 days (as would be expected).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_and_Western_Easter_Dates.png
 
Brandon_Cal said:
Thanks for that. I realized the error in my thinking just after my last post. While it is true that the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is a set, constant difference (12 days),
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Actually, it isn’t a constant 12 days difference, the number of days separating the Julian and Gregorian calendars is gradually expanding.

England (and America) was one of the last western European powers to switch over to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, George Washington’s birthday was on 11 February Old Style 1732 according to the Julian calendar, 11 days difference.

England was very slow in adopting the new calendar which was adopted by Catholic powers in Europe in the 16th Century(the British Monarchy wasn’t on good terms with the Vatican during that epoch), and many of the people in England rioted when 11 days were subtracted from the calendar in Sept 1752, as they felt the days were being stolen from them.
 
It’s 13 days difference, and will be so until next century. This is due the the Julian Calendar having a leap year every four years, and the Gregorian omitting a leap year in years divisble by 100, but not 400 (hence there was a leap year in AD 2000, not 1900, 1800, or 1700, but one in 1600.) And for the record, the Byzantine year is AM 7522 (both old and new calendars now 😃 ).

Christ saves,
Adam
 
Perhaps this is simply to provide harmony with their Orthodox brethren.
Once the jurisdictions are united again there may be hope for all agreeing to follow the calendar which God has allowed to spread throughout the world.
 
Not all Eastern Orthodox reject the Gregorian Calendar. In the United States, the majority of Orthodox follow the Gregorian Calendar for the fixed fests, but follow the celebrate Pascha with the rest of Orthodoxy. The Ecumencial Patriarchate, the Church of Greece, the Church of Antioch and others also follow the Gregorian Calendar. Because the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest, most Orthodox in the world still follow the Julian Calendar. I have never understood why it is so important to them but some people have a strong commitment to the Julian Calendar. There are some uncanonical groups who went into schism from the rest of Orthodoxy over the issue. In my opinion of all the disputes during Christian history debate over which calendar to follow must be the dumbest.
In the Middle East the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics and, I believe, the Oriental Orthodox have worked out a compromise. Everyone follows the Gregorian Calendar for all the fixed feasts such as Christmas, but follow the Eastern calculation for the feast of Pascha. I think that would be a good example for the rest of us to follow.
One reason that the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox most frequently celebrate Pascha on a different date, is that we follow the decision of the First Ecumenical Council, Nicea I in 325, which mandates that we must celebrate Pascha after the Jewish Passover. Sometimes the Western calculation causes Pascha to fall on or before the Jewish Passover. About every 4 years, we both celebrate Pascha on the same date. Someone mentioned that the two celebrations are never more than 12 days apart. That is not true, sometimes they are a month apart as I believe they were this year.

Archpriest John Morris
 
Not quite accurate, but you are close. It is true that some of the Orthodox use the Gregorian Calendar including for the dates of Easter, but they ate and extreme minority. The churches you are thinking of as using the Gregorian calendar actually use the Revised Julian calendar which currently matches the Gregorian calendar, but will eventually drift apart somewhere in the future. The Julian calendar is used for determining the date of Easter.
 
BrethrenBoy said:
Not quite accurate, but you are close. It is true that some of the Orthodox use the Gregorian Calendar including for the dates of Easter, but they ate and extreme minority. The churches you are thinking of as using the Gregorian calendar actually use the Revised Julian calendar which currently matches the Gregorian calendar, but will eventually drift apart somewhere in the future. The Julian calendar is used for determining the date of Easter.
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The only Orthodox Church that I know of that uses the Gregorian date for Pascha is the Finnish Orthodox Church. I did not want to go into details. Therefore, I did not mention the issue of the Revised Julian Calendar because the Revised Julian Calendar is virtually the same as the Gregorian Calendar for the next 800 years. My feeling is that we should use whatever the calendar the government uses because the power to determine units of measurements belongs to the state.
Concerning the date of Pascha neither calendar uses the actual astronomical date of the Spring Equinox. Both calendars set the date of the Spring Equinox as March 21. Most of the time the Gregorian Calendar is correct, but there are times when it is also off from the actual astronomical Spring Equinox by at least one day.
You are partially right, the Julian Calendar is used to calculate the date of the Spring Equinox, but one major real difference is that Orthodox believe that Pascha must follow the Jewish Passover. Eastern calculated according to the Gregorian Calendar can fall before or during the Jewish Passover. For example in 2016 the Gregorian Pascha is the 27th of March, but the Jewish Passover is not until 23rd of April. Orthodox will celebrate Pascha on May 1.
A few years ago, the World Council of Churches proposed that everyone agree to celebrate Pascha according to their interpretation of the decisions of the 1st Ecumenical Council, which would fall on the first Sunday following the actual astronomical Spring Equinox, but the Orthodox rejected the proposal because it did no include the provision that the Christian Pascha had to follow the Jewish Passover.

Archpriest John W. Morris
 
frjohnmorris said:
The only Orthodox Church that I know of that uses the Gregorian date for Pascha is the Finnish Orthodox Church. I did not want to go into details. Therefore, I did not mention the issue of the Revised Julian Calendar because the Revised Julian Calendar is virtually the same as the Gregorian Calendar for the next 800 years. My feeling is that we should use whatever the calendar the government uses because the power to determine units of measurements belongs to the state.
Concerning the date of Pascha neither calendar uses the actual astronomical date of the Spring Equinox. Both calendars set the date of the Spring Equinox as March 21. Most of the time the Gregorian Calendar is correct, but there are times when it is also off from the actual astronomical Spring Equinox by at least one day.
You are partially right, the Julian Calendar is used to calculate the date of the Spring Equinox, but one major real difference is that Orthodox believe that Pascha must follow the Jewish Passover. Eastern calculated according to the Gregorian Calendar can fall before or during the Jewish Passover. For example in 2016 the Gregorian Pascha is the 27th of March, but the Jewish Passover is not until 23rd of April. Orthodox will celebrate Pascha on May 1.
A few years ago, the World Council of Churches proposed that everyone agree to celebrate Pascha according to their interpretation of the decisions of the 1st Ecumenical Council, which would fall on the first Sunday following the actual astronomical Spring Equinox, but the Orthodox rejected the proposal because it did no include the provision that the Christian Pascha had to follow the Jewish Passover.

Archpriest John W. Morris
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What if the Jewish calendar is/was off, or had changed sometime in Jewish history, or if there are a variety? Why specifically should the Christian calendar be based on one particular Jewish Palestinian date over any other?
 
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