Talk:Revised Julian calendar

What did Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church adopt?

In this edit Extended Cut (talk · contribs) claims that the Ukraine Greek Catholic Church has adopted the Revised Julian calendar:

*1/14 September 2023: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

But the source does not actually say this, it just says that the church "switches to a new style for fixed holidays while adhering to the current Paschalia."

Reasons I'm not convinced this means the Gregorian calendar for fixed holidays include

• The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is in union with the Pope in Rome, so unlike the Greek Orthodox churches, there is no particular reason to think they would be averse to adopting, in part, the Gregorian calendar
• Yahoo! Finance published a headline stating "Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church makes historic decision to switch to Gregorian calendar."
• The web site cited above from the church indicates

• According to the Primate, the calendar reform of the UGCC in Ukraine will have two stages. The first step has already been taken. Regarding the celebration of Easter, the bishops “decided to wait for a while.”

Perhaps publicity about which version of the calendar is being switched to is being delayed until they are finished deciding about Easter and related feasts. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I have found an additional source, Vatican News. They state "the switch to the Gregorian calendar will involve changing the dates of several fixed liturgical feasts, but for the time being Greek Catholics will continue to celebrate Easter on a later date than most Christian Churches." [Emphasis added.]

I see your point, but all the changes in church calendars in Ukraine are considered and made bearing in mind that while Ukrainians should celebrate major holidays together with the rest of the vast majority of the Christian world, they also need to do it together among themselves. And the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is very unlikely to switch to the Gregorian calendar because none of the other big Orthodox churches did. Hence, all the holidays associated with Easter would have been celebrated differently if the UGCC had in fact switched to the Gregorian calendar further on. And celebrating Easter together with the rest of Ukraine is probably far more important for Greek Catholics than doing it with the Vatican. I can provide you with a number of Ukrainian sources where the change is referred to as the 'New Julian calendar". (Vechirniy Kyiv) (Interfax Ukraine) (Vikna TV)

Here, it is elaborated by Sviatoslav Shevchuk that they refrain from using the term "Gregorian" because it's incorrect and do not use "Revised (New) Julian" wording because it's "not precise". So… it's complicated but definitely not Gregorian. --Extended Cut (talk) 20:07, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of what name is used, it seems to me the objective differences between the Revised Julian calendar are

1. from our article, "in the Revised Julian version, years evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, except that years with remainders of 200 or 600 when divided by 900 remain leap years, e.g. 2000 and 2400 as in the Gregorian Calendar"
2. astronomical calculations, rather than tables, would be used to determine the date of Easter.

I am not aware of any church that has adopted both aspects, so saying that a church has adopted the revised Julian calendar really means it has adopted the first aspect. Can you present a source that spells out that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has adopted the rule that years evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, except that years with remainders of 200 or 600 when divided by 900 remain leap years? Jc3s5h (talk) 20:19, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I'll add that I would think Vatican News would be sensitive to calendar nomenclature, especially since the Vatican is talking with Orthodox churches about a common date for feasts. So I wouldn't think Vatican News would be careless about using the phrase "Gregorian calendar". Jc3s5h (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not really trying to prove anything. Just some insights from inside Ukraine. Maybe the situation will get clearer later on with pending decision by the OCU. --Extended Cut (talk) 00:02, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

My intuition is that all involved are only giving enough information to figure out when to observe fixed feasts for the next few years, pending the talks involving the OCU, Vatican, and others. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:36, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

This issue came up on Julian calendar. It previously stated that the Greek government analysed the merits of three calendar systems:

• ημερολόγιο ιουλιανό (Julian calendar)
• ημερολόγιο Γρηγοριανό (Gregorian calendar)
• ημερολόγιο πολιτικό (political calendar)

This last, advocated by the Macedonian astronomer Maksim Trpkovic, it declared to be virtually perfect (with an error of only one day in 44,000 years) and it came into effect on 16 February/1 March 2023. In May and June that year representatives of the Greek Orthodox church at a conference in Constantinople agreed to switch to the Revised Julian calendar, which was equally accurate but would diverge from the Gregorian in AD 2800, rather than AD 2000. This being approved by the government, this calendar was introduced throughout Greece on 10/23 March 2024. The decree promulgating the change was gazetted by the Archbishop of Athens and was linked to in the article, but Jc3s5h removed the reference and replaced it by a claim that the Greek government introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1923 with the result that the government and the church are using different calendars! 80.47.2.232 (talk) 10:27, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

You mean 1923 and 1924 right? It is correct that for one year the state and church used different calendars.

Ladnerg310 (talk) 16:44, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I think it is unwise to try to continue a stale thread. Also, the claim that the Greek government did anything (around 1923) other than switch directly from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calender for civil purposes hasn't been proven by reference to reliable sources. If you have a specific question I suggest starting a new thread. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

References

"Arithmetic" section

The "Arithmetic" section contains differences between the Gregorian and Revised Julian calendars long before it was first proposed about 1920. We know there are standards that support the use of the Gregorian calendar before it was first implemented in 1583, for example, ISO 8601. I an not aware of anyone making any use of the Revised Julian calendar before it was formulated. So in what year should this table of date differences begin? Jc3s5h (talk) 15:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

"Defense" section

The defense section of this article is basically the opinion of whoever authored it.

"(3) Some Orthodox themselves may unwittingly reinforce this impression by ignorance of their own faith and by a consequential exclusive, or excessive, focus on the calendar issue: it has been observed, anecdotally, that some Russians cannot cite any difference in belief or practice between their faith and the faith of western Christians, except for the 13-day calendar difference."

I would argue that it would be better to cite sources instead of mentioning some random anecdotal (patronizing) comment about Russians. 2A02:A445:6431:1:2554:7760:424E:FBEF (talk) 14:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

You are correct, I removed the unsourced part. Vanjagenije (talk) 17:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

what about Poland

Which calendar does the church use now? And are we talking about Orthodox of Catholics? Ladnerg310 (talk) 16:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Accuracy: Revised Julian calendar vs. Gregorian calendar

Which is more accurate after a cycle of 6300 years? --Roland (talk) 17:48, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

It depends on how much the rotation of the Earth slows down, which is not completely predictable. Nobody can be sure which will turn out to be more accurate. See ΔT (timekeeping) for details. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)