CHANGING THE CALENDAR WON’T BE EASY

Recent reports in the media suggest that both Roman Catholic Pope Francis and Anglican Archibishop of Canterdury, Most Rev. Justin Welby, are prepared to discuss the possibility of changing the date of Easter. The Coptic Orthodox Pope, Tawadros II, has said that he is also ready the join the negotiations. I wonder what they would agree on - if they ever did.

The difficulty we face is changing the present calendar in any way is a confusion of religious and secular measurements of the year. Our present system was approved by Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII on February 24, 1582. That change from the ancient Julian calendar, established in 46 BCE by Julius Caesar, occurred only in those states where papal authority applied.

Great Britain, a few other western European states and Scandinavia demurred. No longer politically subservient to the Roman Catholic Pope`s degrees they continued to use the Julian calendar for another two generations. Not until 1752 did Britain and its American colonies accept the Gregorian calendar we still follow worldwide.

At the same time Christian churches throughout Western Europe and across the world retained their traditional liturgical calendars featuring the beginning of the Christian Year as the First Sunday in Advent, the fourth Sunday prior to Christmas celebrated on the 25^th of December. That made it possible for churches to celebrate the great festivals of Christmas and Easter, as well as days for fasting and saints’ days throughout their special annual cycle.

Not so the Orthodox Churches of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Some of them still retained their practice of following the Julian calendar. While Western Christians celebrate their Christmas on December 25^th and the secular world generally celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1, Orthodox Christians wait until January 6 for their Christmas celebrations.

Modern political, commercial and industrial activities have not been particularly observant of any religious calendar. In this age of widespread understanding of religious and cultural differences, each community has its own calendar related to its specific culture. For instance, in 2016 the Chinese New Year begins on February 8^th. The Jewish New Year, called Rosh HaShanah, begins at sunset on Sunday, October 2^nd and continues until Tuesday, October 4^th. The Muslim New Year, Muharram, begins on October 8^th.

The date of Easter is also a problem. It follows the lunar calendar. Traditionally the Christian festival of Easter and its associated preparation of six weeks of Lent began on Ash Wednesday, a day of special penitence set as the Wednesday of the week before the first Sunday of Lent. So this year it began yesterday, February 10, so Easter will celebrated on March 27. In this unusual order Easter Day was established as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox by the Council of Nicea in 325.

I once wrote an article proposing a more orderly secular calendar totally separate from any religious calendar or our present secular way of measuring time. My proposal gave each month a full thirty days making an even 360 days in each year. Then, between the old and the new years, we all take a five day universal vacation. That would still need one extra day every four years, but surely no one would protest that.

 The beauty of such a system would definitively separate the religious and liturgical celebration of Christian festivals from the secular and commercial calendar marking the end of one year and the beginning of each new one. After all, it was the political influence of Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII that established our current calendar in February 1592. It would also separate other religious cultural celebrations of a new year from our increasingly secular practices.

We still mark the beginning of a new year as January 1^st because in the Roman calendar that was the feast day of the god Janus from which the name of the month is derived. Janus was thought of as a god who faced both forwards and backwards. That is still a very human way of marking the new year. At different times and in different cultures, the beginning of a new year has also been celebrated at the spring or the autumnal equinoxes. But that wouldn’t work except in the Northern Hemisphere. Even then it could vary as much as three or four different days from year to year. We would still be in a mess, wouldn’t we?