Who changed the calendar to a new style. Is the transition to the Gregorian calendar in Russia good or bad? Transition to the Gregorian calendar
The old and new style of the calendar in our time have a difference of 13 days. This difference occurred in 1582, when civilized Europeans, at the insistence of the Pope, changed the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
In general, the whole story with calendars and chronology stretches back to hoary antiquity. The peasants who farmed were very dependent on the time of year. So they were the first to begin trying to systematize and organize time.
The great Mayan civilization achieved great values in the accuracy of calendar calculations. They accurately determined the days of the summer and winter solstices and could calculate the time several thousand years in advance. But we did not accept their achievements, but adopted the Roman (Julian) calendar.
When Rome was the center of civilization and enlightenment, during the reign of Julius Caesar, when the state was at the peak of its development, the Roman Senate decided to replace the old Greek calendar, which had only ten months, with the Julian calendar, which Caesar, on the advice of Egyptian astrologers, adopted for the most convenient option. The fact is that the priests were engaged in chronology in Rome.
The beginning of the year was considered the month of March, named after Mars (the Greek god of fertility). And every four years an additional month of mercedonia was added. Firstly, no one knew when the end of Mercedonia would come, and secondly, the payment of taxes and the return of debts was too delayed due to the additional month.
There is information that the priests received substantial gifts and rewards for postponing the end of the year. It is precisely because of the instability of the replenishment of the state budget (treasury) that radical changes have occurred.
When was the Julian calendar introduced in Russia?
This event happened in 1918. This year there were simply no dates: 1, 2, 3, etc. until February 13th. It was January 31st, and the next day was February 14th.
This was done to get closer to Europe. The party leadership hoped for worldwide communism and tried to merge as closely as possible with the West.
What is today's date according to the old style?
With each century, the gap between the Gregorian and Julian calendars grows, unless the number of the previous century is divisible by 4 with the whole result.
For example, from 1700 to 1800, to determine the date of an event according to the new style, 11 days should be added, from 1800 to 1900 - 12 days, and from 1900 to 2100 - 13. After 2100, the gap will increase by another day and will be 14 days.
Difference between Julian and Gregorian calendars
There is no particular difference in these time measurement systems, but Orthodox Christians completely abandoned the use of the Gregorian calendar to determine the dates of holidays.
In 1923, the Soviet government put strong pressure on His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, but was never able to obtain consent from the Church to use the Gregorian calendar (new style).
How to easily convert dates from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar
To do this, you need to know the date of the event. If the date is earlier than 1700, then you need to add 10 days, if from 1700 to 1800 - 11, from 1800 to 1900 - 12, and from 1900 to 2100 - 13 days. But it is worth noting that in Russia, due to the transition to a new style of chronology, there were no numbers at all from 02/1/1918 to 02/13/1918.
They changed the old calendar style to a new one after the revolution. The decree on the introduction of a new calendar system was proposed at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars and approved personally by V. Lenin.
Examples of translation to a new style of calculus
For example, let's look at Taras Shevchenko's birthday. Everyone knows that he was born on February 25, 1814 according to the old style. This year was not a leap year and had 28 days in February. We add 12 days to this date and get March 9 according to the new style (Gregorian).
Errors with converting dates to the new style
When translating events of bygone days into a new style, a colossal number of mistakes are made. People didn't think about the growing difference between the Gregorian and Julian calendars.
Now such errors can be seen in very authoritative sources - Wikipedia is no exception. But now you know how you can easily and quickly calculate the date of an event, knowing only its old style date.
Can two weeks completely disappear from a person’s life? Of course, if, for example, he was seriously ill, he was unconscious. But in 1918, two weeks fell out of the life of a huge country - Russia. The period from February 1 to February 13, 1918 is absent in the Russian calendar, and this is explained very simply. On January 24, 1918, exactly 100 years ago, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR decided to switch the country to the Gregorian calendar from January 31, 1918, so after January 31, 1918, February 14, 1918 occurred in the country.
As is known, until 1918, the Julian calendar was used in the Russian Empire. This was primarily due to religious tradition: in the Russian Empire, Orthodoxy was the state religion. The Julian calendar was adopted in the Roman Empire by Julius Caesar, in whose honor it received its name. Until the late Middle Ages, all of Europe lived according to the Julian calendar, but in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree on calendar reform. The main reason for the adoption of the new calendar was the shift in relation to the Julian calendar of the day of the vernal equinox. This circumstance created certain difficulties in calculating the date of Easter.
In October 1582, the most conservative Catholic countries, where the Vatican enjoyed enormous influence, switched to the Gregorian calendar - Spain, Portugal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the states of Italy. In December 1582, the Gregorian calendar was adopted by France, and in 1583 by Austria, Bavaria, Flanders, Holland and a number of German lands. In many other European countries the transition was carried out gradually. First of all, the Protestant states of Europe objected to the Gregorian calendar, for which the refusal to use the calendar introduced by the Pope was of fundamental importance. But still, even they could not avoid the calendar reform. Thus, in Great Britain the Gregorian calendar was adopted only in 1752. A year later, Sweden switched to the Gregorian calendar. Gradually, Asian countries also switched to the Gregorian calendar, for example, in 1873 it was introduced in Japan, in 1911 in China (later China again abandoned the Gregorian calendar, and then returned to it again).
It should be noted that in many countries the transition to the Gregorian calendar was not painless. For example, in England, which switched to a new calendar in 1752, there were even riots of people dissatisfied with the changes that had taken place. In Russia, on the contrary, in 1700, Peter I, pursuing a policy of modernization, introduced the Julian calendar. It is obvious that with all his desire for a radical reform of social and cultural life, Peter was not ready to go against the Orthodox Church, which had a sharply negative attitude towards the transition to the Gregorian calendar. In the Russian Empire, the transition to the Gregorian calendar was never carried out. This entailed numerous difficulties in economic, cultural and political relations with Europe, but the church insisted on preserving the Julian calendar, and the Russian monarchs did not object to its position.
In the first half of the 19th century, champions of modernization began talking about the desirability of switching to the Gregorian calendar, especially since by this time the Protestant countries of Europe, including Great Britain, had also switched to it. However, the Minister of Public Education, General Karl Lieven, opposed the calendar reform. He, of course, was supported by the Orthodox Church. When Dmitry Mendeleev spoke about the need to switch to a new calendar in the second half of the 19th century, he was quickly cut off by representatives of the Holy Synod, who stated that the time had not yet come for such a large-scale reform. The church saw no reason to abandon the Julian calendar, since, firstly, it had been used in the Orthodox tradition for many centuries, and secondly, in the event of a transition to the Gregorian calendar, the Liturgical Charter would inevitably be violated, since the date of the celebration of Holy Easter is calculated according to a special lunisolar calendar, which is also closely related to the Julian calendar.
The February Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the monarchy in Russia, became the impetus for a wide variety of large-scale changes in the life of the country. It was during the period when the country was ruled by the Provisional Government that the development of a calendar reform project began. Its authors believed that there was a need to switch to the Gregorian calendar, since double writing of dates in official documents and letters had long been used, especially if they were dedicated to events in other states or sent to addressees living in other countries. However, in the period from February to October 1917, it was not possible to carry out calendar reform in the country - the Provisional Government had no time for that.
The October Revolution of 1917 finally led Russia to change the calendar. Of course, the atheist Bolsheviks did not care about religious contradictions between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, and they did not even think about creating the Gregorian calendar. But since “all advanced humanity,” as the Bolsheviks liked to say, had by this time switched to the Gregorian calendar, they also wanted to modernize Russia. If you renounce the old world, then in everything, including the calendar. Therefore, the issue of calendar reform was of great interest to the Bolsheviks. This is confirmed by the fact that already on November 16 (29), 1917, at one of the very first meetings of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the question of the need to switch to the Gregorian calendar was raised.
The “secular” nature of the Gregorian calendar also played a certain role. Although the calendar itself was introduced in Europe on the initiative of the Pope, the Russian Orthodox Church did not intend to switch to the Gregorian calendar. On January 23 (February 5), 1918, the Orthodox Church was separated from the state, which finally freed the hands of the new government on the issue of delimiting the secular and church calendars. The Bolsheviks decided to deal another blow to the positions of the Orthodox Church by abandoning the Julian calendar. At the same meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, at which the church was separated from the state, a special commission was created for the transition to a new calendar. She presented two possible scenarios. The first option involved a soft and gradual transition to the new calendar - discarding 24 hours every year. In this case, it would take 13 years to implement the calendar reform, and most importantly, it would completely suit the Russian Orthodox Church. But Vladimir Lenin leaned towards a more radical option, which involved an immediate and rapid transition to the Gregorian calendar.
On January 24 (February 6), 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic, and two days later, on January 26 (February 8), 1918, the decree was signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, Vladimir Lenin. In addition to Lenin, the document was signed by Assistant People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin, People's Commissar of Labor Alexander Shlyapnikov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR Grigory Petrovsky, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the RSFSR Valerian Obolensky. The reason for the transition to a new calendar was the need to establish a time system in Russia that was the same “with almost all cultural nations.”
It was decided to introduce a new calendar after the end of January 1918. For this purpose, the Council of People's Commissars decided to consider the first day after January 31, 1918, not February 1, but February 14, 1918. The decree also emphasized that all obligations under treaties and laws that occurred between February 1 and 14 were transferred to the period from February 14 to February 27 by adding thirteen days to the deadline for fulfilling obligations. All obligations in the period from February 14 to July 1, 1918 were counted with the addition of thirteen days, and obligations arising from July 1, 1918 were considered to have already occurred according to the numbers of the new Gregorian calendar. The decree also regulated the payment of salaries and wages to citizens of the republic. Before July 1, 1918, it was necessary to indicate in all documents the number according to the old calendar in brackets, and from July 1, 1918 - only the number according to the Gregorian calendar.
The decision to switch the country to the Gregorian calendar inevitably caused controversy among the clergy and theologians. Already at the end of January 1918, calendar reform became the subject of discussion at the All-Russian Local Council. There was an interesting discussion at this discussion. Professor Ivan Alekseevich Karabinov said that the Old Believers and other autocephalous churches will not agree with the proposal to switch to the Gregorian calendar and will continue to celebrate church holidays according to the old calendar. This circumstance, in turn, will violate the unity of the Orthodox churches. Another speaker, Professor Ivan Ivanovich Sokolov, agreed with this position, who also drew attention to the lack of the Russian Orthodox Church’s right to independently decide on the issue of calendar reform, without coordinating its actions with other autocephalous churches. A member of the Petrograd Press Committee, layman Mitrofan Alekseevich Semenov, in turn, proposed not to respond to the Bolshevik decrees at all, which would avoid the need to switch to a new calendar.
Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy and member of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church from higher theological schools Sergei Sergeevich Glagolev emphasized that in the changed conditions of the church it is unlikely to be able to remain on the old calendar, since it is increasingly at odds with the sky, however, there is no need to take hasty steps and it is better to take some time to stay on the old, Julian calendar. Moreover, Glagolev noted in his report, such a serious issue can only be resolved with the consent of all autocephalous Orthodox churches.
Ultimately, the department on worship and the department on the legal status of the Church in the state decided to be guided by the old style throughout 1918. On March 15, 1918, the department for worship, preaching and church of the Russian Orthodox Church decided that from a church-canonical point of view it was not possible to resolve the issue of calendar reform without agreement with all autocephalous churches. Therefore, it was decided to leave the Russian Orthodox Church on the Julian calendar.
In 1923, when the Soviet Union had already lived according to the new calendar for five years, the church again raised the issue of calendar reform. The Second Local Council took place in Moscow. Metropolitan Antonin stated that the church and believers can switch to the Gregorian calendar quickly and painlessly, and there is nothing sinful in the transition itself; moreover, calendar reform is necessary for the church. As a result, the Local Council adopted a resolution proclaiming the transition of the church to the Gregorian calendar from June 12, 1923. It is interesting that the resolution did not provoke debate, which indicated the full readiness of the council participants to switch to a new style.
Patriarch Tikhon, in connection with the current situation, published his Message in the fall of 1923, in which he condemned the decision of the Second Local Council as too hasty, but emphasized the possibility of the church transitioning to the Gregorian calendar. It was officially planned to transfer the Russian Orthodox Church to Gregorian calculus from October 2, 1923, but already on November 8, 1923, Patriarch Tikhon abandoned this idea. It is interesting that in the calendars of 1924-1929, church holidays were celebrated as if the transition of the church to the Gregorian calendar had nevertheless been carried out. For example, Christmas was celebrated on December 25 and 26. The church again raised the issue of switching to the Gregorian calendar in 1948, but it was never resolved positively. Despite the active pro-government lobby, the majority of church hierarchs still did not want to become “separatists” and accept the Gregorian calendar without agreement with other autocephalous churches.
Of course, Soviet Russia was not the last country to switch to the Gregorian calendar. In 1919, the Gregorian calendar was introduced by Romania and Yugoslavia, and in 1924 by Greece. In 1926, Turkey switched to the Gregorian calendar, while maintaining some specifics, and in 1928, Egypt. Currently, they continue to live according to the Julian calendar in Ethiopia, one of the oldest Christian states in the world. In addition, chronology according to the Julian calendar is carried out by the Russian, Georgian, Serbian, Jerusalem, Polish Orthodox churches, the Bessarabian Metropolis of the Romanian Orthodox Church, as well as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Russian Greek Catholic churches. Interestingly, the Polish Orthodox Church returned to the Julian calendar only in 2014, having previously calculated time according to the New Julian calendar, which coincides with the Gregorian calendar, for a long time.
Why do we have the October Revolution in November, Christmas is not with everyone, and there is a strange holiday under the no less strange name “Old New Year”? What happened in Russia from the first to the fourteenth of February 1918? Nothing. Because this time did not exist in Russia - neither the first of February, nor the second, nor further until the fourteenth happened that year. According to the “Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic.”
The decree was signed by Comrade Lenin and adopted, as stated in the document, “in order to establish in Russia the same calculation of time with almost all cultural peoples.”
Of course, the decision was political. But also for those who are sick, of course. As they say, they combined one with the other, or, again, as the great Gorin wrote: “First celebrations were planned, then arrests, then they decided to combine.” The Bolsheviks did not like church celebrations, they were already quite fed up with arrests, and then an idea came up. Not fresh.
In 1582, the inhabitants of the glorious city of Rome went to bed on the fourth of October, and woke up the next day, but this day was already the fifteenth. The difference of 10 days accumulated over many years and was corrected by the decision of Pope Gregory XIII. Of course, after lengthy meetings and negotiations. The reform was carried out based on the project of the Italian doctor, astronomer and mathematician Luigi Lillio. By the middle of the 20th century, almost the whole world was using the Gregorian calendar.
The Russian Orthodox Church strongly condemned the reform of 1582, noting that the Roman Church loves “innovations” too much and therefore completely “recklessly” follows the lead of astronomers. And in general - “the Gregorian calendar is far from perfect.”
Meanwhile, astronomers did not remain silent and, having found the support of some learned Russian men, already in the 30s of the 19th century, on behalf of the commission created on the calendar issue at the Academy of Sciences, spoke out in favor of the Gregorian calendar. Nicholas I listened to the report of the Minister of Education, Prince Lieven, with interest and... agreed with the prince that calendar reform in the country, as His Majesty noted, “is not desirable.”
The next calendar commission met in October 1905. The timing was more than unfortunate. Of course, Nicholas II calls the reform “undesirable” and rather sternly hints to the commission members that they should approach the issue “very carefully,” meaning the political situation in the country.
Meanwhile, the situation was heating up, and as a result, what everyone now knows as the October Revolution happened. In November 1917, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, it was decided to replace the “obscurantist-Black Hundred” calendar with a “progressive” one.
Contradictions with Orthodox holidays do not bother me. On the contrary, the “old regime” Frosts and Christmas trees must leave the new country. At matinees and receptions, poems by the poet Valentin Goryansky are read:
It'll be Christmas soon
Ugly bourgeois holiday,
Connected from time immemorial
It's an ugly custom with him:
A capitalist will come to the forest,
Inert, true to prejudice,
He will cut down the Christmas tree with an axe,
Telling a cruel joke...
Goryansky, joking. He is a satirical poet. It’s not that he doesn’t like the revolution, he’s deeply depressed. He flees to Odessa, then goes into exile. But poems about the bourgeois holiday have already been published. Raised like a banner, and without jokes at all. The production of New Year's cards ceases, and the population of the new country is ordered to work hard, and if they celebrate, then new dates...
There is confusion with the dates. After the transition to the “new style,” it turns out that the revolution is in November, the New Year becomes old, in the old style sense, and moves to after Christmas, and Christmas, in turn, turns out to be January 7th. Dates appear in parentheses in reference books. First the old style - then the new one in brackets.
But the most interesting thing is that passions do not subside. The next revolution is happening in our new time. Sergei Baburin, Victor Alksnis, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko introduced a new bill to the State Duma in 2007 - on the transition of Russia from January 1, 2008 to the Julian calendar. In the explanatory note, the deputies note that “there is no world calendar” and propose to establish a transition period from December 31, 2007, when, for 13 days, chronology will be carried out simultaneously according to two calendars at once. Only four deputies take part in the voting. Three are against, one is for. There were no abstentions. The rest of the elected representatives ignore the vote.
This is how we live for now. On a broad Russian footing and with an open Russian soul, celebrating Catholic Christmas until the New Year, then the New Year, then Orthodox Christmas, the old New Year and... then everywhere. Regardless of the dates. And on faces. By the way, in February there is New Year according to the Eastern calendar. And we have a document, if anything - a decree of 1918 “on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic.”
Anna Trefilova
A hundred years ago, the Julian calendar was abolished in Soviet Russia and the country began to live according to the Gregorian calendar, like throughout Europe. Although it is believed that the change of chronology was an initiative of the young government, in fact, the proposal to switch to the Western European calendar was submitted to the tsarist government since the middle of the 19th century.
Since the end of the 10th century, Rus' has used the Julian calendar, based on observations of the visible movement of the Sun across the sky. It was introduced in Ancient Rome by Gaius Julius Caesar in 46 BC. e. The calendar was developed by the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes based on the calendar of Ancient Egypt. When Rus' adopted Christianity in the 10th century, the Julian calendar came with it.
However, the average length of a year in the Julian calendar is 365 days and 6 hours (that is, there are 365 days in a year, with an additional day added every fourth year). While the duration of the astronomical solar year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds. That is, the Julian year was 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the astronomical year and, therefore, lagged behind the real change of years.
By 1582, the difference between the Julian calendar and the real change of years was already 10 days, so calendar reform was only a matter of time. And in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII created a special commission, which developed a new calendar. After October 4, 1582, it was ordered to count immediately as October 15. The new calendar was named Gregorian in honor of the reforming pope.
Unlike the Julian calendar, in the new calendar the final year of the century, if it is not divisible by 400, is not a leap year. Thus, the Gregorian calendar has 3 fewer leap years in each four-hundredth anniversary than the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar retained the names of the months of the Julian calendar, an additional day in a leap year - February 29, and the beginning of the year - January 1.
It took a long time to switch to the new calendar. First, the reform took place in Catholic countries (Spain, Italian states, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a little later in France, etc.), then in Protestant countries (in Prussia in 1610, in all German states by 1700, in Denmark in 1700, in Great Britain in 1752, in Sweden in 1753). And only in the 19th-20th centuries the Gregorian calendar was adopted in some Asian (in Japan in 1873, China in 1911, Turkey in 1925) and Orthodox (in Bulgaria in 1916, in Serbia in 1919, in Greece in 1924 year) states.
In 1830, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences came up with a proposal to introduce a new style in Russia. Prince K. A. Lieven, who was the Minister of Public Education at that time, reacted negatively to this and in his report to Tsar Nicholas I presented the calendar reform as an “untimely, undue” matter. which may produce undesirable disturbances and confusion of minds."
In his opinion, “the benefits of changing the calendar are very unimportant, almost insignificant, and the inconveniences and difficulties are inevitable and great.” After receiving such a “report,” the tsar wrote on it: “Prince Lieven’s comments are completely fair.”
In 1899, a commission was created under the Russian Astronomical Society consisting of representatives of many scientific institutions, departments and ministries. She proposed introducing in Russia not the Gregorian calendar, but a more accurate one, based on the project of I. G. Medler.
Despite the extremely active role of the great Russian scientist D.I. Mendeleev in this commission, the reform again did not take place due to the opposition of the tsarist government and the church.
In an effort to paralyze the activity of the commission, the “imperial” Academy of Sciences urgently created its own calendar commission on the basis of the highest resolution, which stated that the new commission at the Academy of Sciences in its activities would “take into account the considerations of the former Minister of Public Education, Prince Lieven, on the issue of introducing in Russia Gregorian style".
These “considerations” are already known to us and boiled down to an explicit ban on calendar reform. The “academic” commission also received the opinion of the Holy Synod, whose Chief Prosecutor Pobedonostsev said that he considered the introduction of a new calendar untimely.
Such a long use of the Julian calendar in Russia was due to the position of the Orthodox Church, which had a negative attitude towards the Gregorian calendar.
After the Great October Revolution, the new government again returned to this issue and on November 16, 1917 it was put up for discussion, and on January 24, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the “Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic,” signed by Vladimir Lenin. The document was published on January 25, 1918.
It began with the words “In order to establish in Russia the same calculation of time as almost all cultural nations, the Council of People’s Commissars decides to introduce a new calendar into civil use after the month of January of this year.”
Since by this time the difference between the old and new styles was 13 days, the decree ordered that after January 31, 1918, not February 1, but February 14. The same decree prescribed, until July 1, 1918, after the date of each day according to the new style, to write in brackets the number according to the old style: February 14 (1), February 15 (2), etc.
True, there was some confusion here too. Before the transition to the Gregorian calendar in Russia, Christmas was celebrated on December 25, but now it has moved to January 7. As a result of these changes, in 1918 there was no Christmas at all in Russia. The last Christmas was celebrated in 1917, which fell on December 25th. And the next time the Orthodox holiday was celebrated on January 7, 1919.
1918 On February 6 (January 24, old style), the Council of People's Commissars issues a Decree on the transition to the Gregorian calendar.
According to the decree in 1918, January 31 was followed by February 14.The new calendar received the name “new style” in everyday life, in contrast to the “old style” - the Julian calendar adopted in Russia under Peter I.
In the Russian Orthodox Church, after a period of hesitation, the Gregorian calendar was formally introduced by Patriarch Tikhon on October 15, 1923. However, the innovation caused disagreement in the church, and therefore already on November 8, 1923, Patriarch Tikhon ordered “the widespread and mandatory introduction of the new style into church use to be temporarily postponed” . Thus, the new style was in effect in the Church for only 24 days, and it returned to the Julian calendar.
Here is what modern newspapers wrote about the introduction of the “new style”:
Memo to the decree on the introduction of a new calendar in the Russian RepublicThe benefits that the replacement of the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar, accepted almost throughout the world, will bring, from the point of view of international communication, are so great and varied, and, at the same time, so obvious that there is no need to substantiate it. Suffice it to say that the Gregorian calendar, already under the previous regime, was adopted in the military and commercial fleet and was used in various cases by the former ministries of foreign affairs, finance, communications and internal affairs, as well as for astronomical and meteorological observations. The question of introducing a new style in Russia, which was raised more than once and was quite close to being resolved back in 1830, can be considered from four points of view: church astronomical, legal and economic. For the church, the introduction of a new style is associated with the calculation of the days of mobile holidays, mainly Easter, and with the relations between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. As for the calculation of holidays, authoritative representatives of the church have long pointed out that the transition to another calendar does not destroy the canons.
The main obstacle was the fear that the introduction of the Gregorian numeral would be interpreted as a concession of Orthodoxy to Catholicism. Now, under changed political circumstances, there can be no talk of any encroachments by Catholicism in relation to Orthodoxy, so that this obstacle also disappears. ...
Introduction of a new styleThe decree is one of the most harmless acts of the Bolshevik government. The discrepancy between the Russian and Western European calendars has always presented significant inconveniences when dealing with foreign countries. These inconveniences were especially noticeable in the field of international trade, ...
It seems, however, that it is by no means accidental that it was the Bolsheviks who decided on this reform. This is not at all explained by the “revolutionary courage” of this government, but by completely different reasons. For the Bolsheviks it turned out to be much easier to introduce in Russia the same calculation of time as almost all cultural peoples, since with the devastation to which they brought Russia, the circumstances that had hitherto prevented the implementation of the reform largely lost their severity. ...
Toward calendar reformThe decree on calendar reform, published yesterday, which should follow no later than February 1, met with an extremely negative attitude in spiritual circles. The Church does not recognize the new style in any case. Opinions are expressed that the new style will not be recognized by all of Russia, since the majority of the peasant population does not follow calendars, which they do not have, but according to church holidays.
The Commissariat of Public Education proposed calendar reform to be carried out no earlier than mid-summer of the current year. A special plan was outlined for compiling new calendars and corresponding literature for the village.
First of all, it was intended to appeal to all confessional denominations existing in Russia, without exception, asking for their clarification on how acceptable the calendar reform period proposed by the commissariat was for them.
All these measures, unfortunately, were not implemented. The events of recent days, and especially the energetic insistence of the emigrant Chicherin, forced the Council of People's Commissars to act with greater determination.
History in faces
From the Statement of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon dated September 17 (30), 1924 to the Central Executive Committee on questions of the attitude of the Orthodox Russian Church to the calendar reform (the transition to the Gregorian “new” style).Now the question of introducing a new style into church use is again being raised by the Government, and on its part it has declared an urgent desire that We take decisive measures to harmonize the church calendar with the civil one. Taking into account our previous experiences, We consider ourselves forced to declare that we absolutely do not find it possible to repeat them. Our new order on the reform of the calendar, until a general agreement on this issue of all Orthodox Churches has been reached, both in the eyes of believers and in the essence of the matter, would be devoid of canonical basis and would justify the opposition of the people. It is Our deep conviction that such an order, persistently carried out by Us and, perhaps, supported by measures of state influence, would cause great unrest and disagreement in the Church.
The Church is currently experiencing unprecedented external upheaval. It is deprived of material means of subsistence, surrounded by an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, dozens of bishops and hundreds of priests and laity without trial, often without even explanation, thrown into prison, exiled to the most remote regions of the republic, dragged from place to place; Orthodox bishops appointed by Us are either not allowed into their dioceses, or expelled from them the first time they appear there, or are arrested; the central administration of the Orthodox Church is disorganized, since the institutions under the All-Russian Patriarch are not registered and even their office and archive are sealed and inaccessible; Churches are closed, turned to clubs and cinemas, or taken away from numerous Orthodox parishes for numerically insignificant renovation groups; the clergy is subject to unbearable taxes, suffers all kinds of restrictions in their homes, and their children are expelled from service and from educational institutions simply because their fathers serve the Church. Under such conditions, to produce an internal shock in the bosom of the Church itself, to cause confusion and create, in addition to the schism on the left, a schism on the right by a canonically unlawful, imprudent and violent order would be a grave sin before God and people on the part of one on whom God’s Providence has entrusted a heavy The cross of governing the Church and caring for Her good in our days.
But the change in the church calendar, proposed by the First All-Russian Council of 1917-1918, under certain circumstances could be carried out in a natural and painless form.
This would be greatly facilitated by non-interference during the reform on the part of the civil authorities, because outside interference does not bring it closer, but distances it, does not make it easier, but makes it more difficult to implement it. Let the Church itself be left to overcome the difficulties that stand in the way of introducing a new style into liturgical practice. The calendar reform was put forward by the needs of life in all Orthodox Churches, and one can think that in the near future it will be accepted by the Churches without any external promptings. Non-interference in this ecclesiastical matter by civil authorities would fully correspond to the principles of separation of Church and state and freedom of religious conscience, proclaimed by our fundamental laws. True, the Presidium of the All-Russian Executive Committee has already issued an order aligning days of rest and Christian holidays with the new style. But the prestige of the Government would not have suffered at all if, without formally canceling this order, it had announced by the beginning of 1925 a list of days of rest on Christian holidays according to the old style, listing them on the corresponding dates of the new style, so, for example, that Christmas would be listed not on December 25, but on January 7, similarly, the memory of the famous uprising of the workers is not transferred to the new style, but is dated to January 9 (22), and the holiday of the October Revolution falls not on October 25 of the new style, but on November 7. On the contrary, non-interference would have its advantageous side for the Government, since with the forcible introduction of a new style, the entire crowd of those who do not sympathize with this reform falls not on the clergy, but on the civil authorities, which forced the clergy to go against the established church life.