Russian Orthodox Christmas

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."-Calvin Coolidge

In my workplace we have citizens of many nations - Japan, Russia, Poland, India and more. Today I learned that some of my colleagues (of Russian Orthodox faith) will be home celebrating a late Christmas? The web site Russian Crafts has a great explanation for celebrating Christmas on Jan 7.

In ancient times, many, mostly unreliable methods had been used to calculate the dates according to either the lunar or solar cycles. By Roman times, the calendar had become three months out with the seasons, so in 46 BC, Julius Caesar commissioned the astronomer, Sosigenes to devise a more reliable method. This, we know as the Julian Calendar and was used widely for 1500 years. The month of his birth, Caesar had named Quintilis, but the Roman Senate later re-named it Julius (July) in his honour. In those days, February had 30 days every 4 years.

However, this calendar was still 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the solar year, so that by the year 1580, the calendar had accumulated 10 days off again. In 1582, therefore, Pope Gregory XIII corrected the difference between the sun and calendar by ordering 10 days dropped from October, the month with the least Roman Catholic Feast days. His calendar, we know as the Gregorian Calendar, which is used in almost all of the world today. Pope Gregory made further changes to keep the calendar in line, which on average is only 26.3 seconds longer than the solar year. The Gregorian Calendar is so accurate that it will take until the year 4316 to gain a whole day on the sun.

That year, 1582, October 5th became October 15th and was immediately adopted in most Roman Catholic nations of Europe. Various German states kept the Julian Calendar until 1700. Britain and the American Colonies didn't change until 1752, but Russia and Turkey did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until the early 1900's. So, January 7th by the Georgian Calendar would have been December 25th by the old Julian Calendar [used in Russia] and is therefore why it is still Christmas Day for the Russian Orthodox Church. Many Russians will have celebrated along with the rest of us and will then celebrate again on the Orthodox date.

Bottom Line

When Pope Gregory skipped 10 days in 1582, fixed calendar date holidays shifted to 10 days earlier than under the Julian calendar. If you kept your birthday on the same calendar date, then in 1583 your next birthday occurred only 355 days after your party in 1582 (instead of 365 days). If you wanted to track your "real" date of birth by the sun and 365-day years, then you had to add 10 days to your date of birth. The Russian Orthodox Church choose to add 10 days to Dec 25 to keep Christmas on the same 365-day cycle it had always been celebrated on in Russia.
Does this matter today? Surprising yes. If you do genealogy you'll often see two sets of dates for birth and death for persons living several centuries ago. One date will be their birthday on the Gregorian calendar and the other (+10 days) on the Julian calendar. Since not everyone used the same calendar, your April 1st might not be the same date as my April 1st. How confusing!