The Fascinating World of Eastern Orthodox Old Calendarists

[The Liturgist]

Old Calendarists are those Eastern Orthodox who regard the use of the Gregorian or Revised Julian Calendars to be heretical, and also regard ecumenism to be heretical, indeed, they are more opposed to ecumenism than to the Gregorian and Revised Julian Calendar, as these were implemented to bring the dates of Orthodox feasts into alignment with the days on which the Western churches celebrated them, which is obviously an Ecumenical goal.

The principle difference between the Revised Julian Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar is that in the former, the date of Pascha (Easter) is still calculated as if the old Julian or Coptic calendar* was in use, resulting in only the fixed feasts like Christmas (December 25th), the Circumcision of our Lord (January 1st), Candlemas (January 8th), The Annunciation (March 25th), St. George the Great Martyr (April 21st), The Holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29th), The Holy Prophet St. Elias (Elijah, July 20th), The Transfiguration (August 6th), The Dormition, also known as the Assumption, of the Theotokos (August 15th), The Holy Cross (September 14th), Michaelmas (September 29th), Luke the Evangelist (October 18th), The Presentation of the Theotokos (November 21st) being in alignment.

Needless to say, this alignment also depends on the feasts being celebrated on the same day; the examples I provided above, which constitute some but not all of the most important feasts, generally align (although the Novus Ordo Missae reverted January 1st to an ancient Roman Marian feast, the Solemnity of the Virgin Mary, which had previously been replaced by the Feast of the Circumcision, following the Eastern Church Calendar, as the other Marian feasts, the Annunciation on March 25th and the Assumption on August 15th, were more popular, but then in the 18th century a private revelation led to Rome instituting a Feast of the Holy Name, which displaced it, however, everyone else agrees that it makes sense to commemorate the naming and circumcision of our Lord eight days after we commemorate His birth).

There are a number of cases where the Fixed Feasts of the Eastern Orthodox church do not align with any Western churches, or the Oriental Orthodox church, or the Assyrian Church of the East (which uses the Gregorian Calendar) or the Ancient Church of the East (which was using the Julian Calendar, but I have heard they synchronized calendars as part of their planned reunification). For example, all Western churches that celebrate All Saints Day celebrate it on November 1st; the Eastern Orthodox celebrate it on the First Sunday After Pentecost, which in the Byzantine Rite combines a celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit with a celebration of the Trinity. Thus on Pentecost, Green is the liturgical color (and usually is kept for All Saints Day), and, like Jewish synagogues on the corresponding feast of Shavuot, the church is decorated with greenery.

Palm Sunday likewise uses Green as the liturgical color in almost all cases which always made more sense to me, because palm branches are green in color; both of these feasts in the Western church usually use red as the liturgical color (although some Roman Catholic, Anglican and other Western churches, and some Ruthenian Greek Catholic and American Carpatho Rusyn Orthodox Diocese churches, both of which serve the Rusyn and Lemko ethnic groups, use violet or purple on Palm Sunday, in what is probably not a coincidence; I think this was the standard color until the late 19th or early 20th century, when the idea of Palm Sunday as Passion Sunday was popularized and a shift was made to red). Another case of the feasts not lining up involves every Evangelist except St. Luke. Advent is also six Sundays long in all the Eastern rites, and also in the Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites, which are Western Rites descended from the ancient Gallican Rite, the former kept alive only in one chapel of the Cathedral in Toledo, Spain, and a neaeby monastery, and in aspects of the Mexican wedding, but the latter serving millions of people in Italy’s main industrial center, Milan. These liturgies are often likened to Western liturgies with Eastern influences and this is certainly true of their music.

Among the Eastern Orthodox the Gregorian Calendar is only used by the Finnish Orthodox Church, which is an autonomous church under the omophorion of the autocephalous Ecumenical Patriarchate, and also slightly about half of the Estonian Orthodox Church, which in the 2000s, switched its allegiance to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Among the Oriental Orthodox, the Armenians outside of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem use the Gregorian Calendar, and so do the three Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions in Malankara, India (as well as the other St. Thomas Christians, which include two Sui Juris Eastern Catholic Churches, the Protestant Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Church of South India, both of which are in the Anglican Communion (along with the Church of North India), and the Assyrian Church of the East.

No one else among the Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox uses the Gregorian Calendar is because most Orthodox churches want to celebrate Holy Week with other Orthodox churches, even where they are on the Revised Julian or the Old Julian Calendar. It is different in the case of India, Estonia and Finland. The Mar Thoma Christians in Malankara, India are an ethnoreligious minority originally evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle, who died there in 53 AD, and Christians in India are themselves a persecuted minority, the third largest religion (with Muslims being the second largest religion and Hindus obviously the largest). That there are so many Christians, more than the Sikhs and Jains combined, is the sole undeniably positive legacy of the British Raj. Likewise, the Estonians and Finlands are closely related ethnic groups who have only grown closer since the fall of the USSR, both speaking closely related Uralic languages, as indicated in this diagram:

Thus it is unsurprising some Estonians would want to celebrate Pascha together with the Finns according to the Gregorian calendar, which is something most Eastern Orthodox churches are strongly opposed to. The same applies to the St. Thomas Christians in India. In both cases, however, governmental pressure is what actually caused the deviation from normal practice: in Finland, both the Lutheran Church and the Orthodox Church are funded by the state and are established churches, and the Finnish government (which unbeknownst to many was unofficially a one party state diplomatically subservient to the USSR after its military defeat during WWII, when it very reluctantly fought on the side of the Axis Powers during the Continuation War) insisted both the Lutherans and Orthodox celebrate Easter according to the Gregorian calendar. Likewise, pressure from the British doubtless led to the St. Thomas Christians switching to the Gregorian Calendar.

Of course, the raison d’etre of the Gregorian Calendar was to celebrate Pascha closer to the Vernal Equinox. Old Calendarists argue that they got it too close, and the result is that Pascha and Passover could theoretically overlap, which is a violation of ancient canon laws which were implemented when the Rabbis of the Pharisees, who became the sole surviving Jewish denomination in the 2nd century aside from the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, changed the means of calculation from what is thought to have been observations of the Judaean Barley Crop, when this became problematic as the Jews were driven out of their ancestral homeland following the failed Bar Kochba rebellion, to a fixed calendar system. However, I think the Revised Julian Calendar poses even greater problems, for it results in an excessively long period of time between Theophany (January 6th) and the start of Lent, and compresses the liturgically busy summer in a disastrous way, namely that in some years, when Pascha falls in May, the Apostles Fast, which starts a few days after All Saints Day (the Sunday after Pentecost) and ends on June 29th. The problem of course is that in some years in the Revised Julian Calendar, the Apostles Fast ends before it begins. Thus I am of the view that it would be better for all Eastern Orthodox churches to just use the Julian Calendar, and indeed, I think many Western churches could benefit from reverting. Certainly, for Christian churches in non-Christian countries where Christmas is not a holiday, or in Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Central Asian Republics, where Christmas is celebrated on January 7th (December 25th on the Old Calendar), it makes no sense, in my opinion, for any Christian church to use the Gregorian calendar. Conversely one could argue that it makes no sense to use the Julian calendar in countries where December 25th on the Gregorian Calendar is a Holiday. However, there is the issue of the commercialization of Christmas, which some object to, so there really is no easy answer. Frankly, I wish Pope Gregory XIII had focused his attentions elsewhere.

Thus, in some respects the Old Calendarists have a point, and the Uniting Churches have generally tended to be taken over by extremely liberal seminaries, and consequently have experienced moderate to catastrophic losses of membership (for example, the United Reformed Church in the UK, the United Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and standing on the precipice is the United Methodist Church).

However, some ecumenical reconciliation has had very positive results, for example, between the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian and Ancient Churches of the East, and the Roman Catholics and the conservative Old Catholic Union of Scranton (consisting of the Polish National Catholic Church, which was expelled from the Union of Utrecht for being too conservative, and the Norwegian Catholic Church). Also, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod / Lutheran Church of Canada has entered into ecumenical relations with like minded Lutheran churches in several countries, including in the US.

On a personal level, I have found Greek and Russian Old Calendarists to be extremely friendly people, and I greatly enjoy their company, but I find myself unable to get along with American converts to Old Calendarism, or even cradle Old Calendarists born in America. Indeed every friendship I have had with an American Old Calendarist has sadly ended; I pray that we will be reunited on friendly terms in Heaven and our fallings out will be akin to when in elementary school we occasionally fall out with even our best friends, before falling back in with them.

In a subsequent post in this thread, if interest exists, I might get into the terrible persecution endured by the Greek Old Calendarists during the Military Junta, and the multiplicity of Old Calendarist groups which are not in communion but differ on minor points of doctrine, unless one of my Eastern Orthodox friends beats me to it.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Old Calendarists are those Eastern Orthodox who regard the use of the Gregorian or Revised Julian Calendars to be heretical, and also regard ecumenism to be heretical, indeed, they are more opposed to ecumenism than to the Gregorian and Revised Julian Calendar, as these were implemented to bring the dates of Orthodox feasts into alignment with the days on which the Western churches celebrated them, which is obviously an Ecumenical goal.

The principle difference between the Revised Julian Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar is that in the former, the date of Pascha (Easter) is still calculated as if the old Julian or Coptic calendar* was in use, resulting in only the fixed feasts like Christmas (December 25th), the Circumcision of our Lord (January 1st), Candlemas (January 8th), The Annunciation (March 25th), St. George the Great Martyr (April 21st), The Holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29th), The Holy Prophet St. Elias (Elijah, July 20th), The Transfiguration (August 6th), The Dormition, also known as the Assumption, of the Theotokos (August 15th), The Holy Cross (September 14th), Michaelmas (September 29th), Luke the Evangelist (October 18th), The Presentation of the Theotokos (November 21st) being in alignment.

Needless to say, this alignment also depends on the feasts being celebrated on the same day; the examples I provided above, which constitute some but not all of the most important feasts, generally align (although the Novus Ordo Missae reverted January 1st to an ancient Roman Marian feast, the Solemnity of the Virgin Mary, which had previously been replaced by the Feast of the Circumcision, following the Eastern Church Calendar, as the other Marian feasts, the Annunciation on March 25th and the Assumption on August 15th, were more popular, but then in the 18th century a private revelation led to Rome instituting a Feast of the Holy Name, which displaced it, however, everyone else agrees that it makes sense to commemorate the naming and circumcision of our Lord eight days after we commemorate His birth).

There are a number of cases where the Fixed Feasts of the Eastern Orthodox church do not align with any Western churches, or the Oriental Orthodox church, or the Assyrian Church of the East (which uses the Gregorian Calendar) or the Ancient Church of the East (which was using the Julian Calendar, but I have heard they synchronized calendars as part of their planned reunification). For example, all Western churches that celebrate All Saints Day celebrate it on November 1st; the Eastern Orthodox celebrate it on the First Sunday After Pentecost, which in the Byzantine Rite combines a celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit with a celebration of the Trinity. Thus on Pentecost, Green is the liturgical color (and usually is kept for All Saints Day), and, like Jewish synagogues on the corresponding feast of Shavuot, the church is decorated with greenery.

Palm Sunday likewise uses Green as the liturgical color in almost all cases which always made more sense to me, because palm branches are green in color; both of these feasts in the Western church usually use red as the liturgical color (although some Roman Catholic, Anglican and other Western churches, and some Ruthenian Greek Catholic and American Carpatho Rusyn Orthodox Diocese churches, both of which serve the Rusyn and Lemko ethnic groups, use violet or purple on Palm Sunday, in what is probably not a coincidence; I think this was the standard color until the late 19th or early 20th century, when the idea of Palm Sunday as Passion Sunday was popularized and a shift was made to red). Another case of the feasts not lining up involves every Evangelist except St. Luke. Advent is also six Sundays long in all the Eastern rites, and also in the Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites, which are Western Rites descended from the ancient Gallican Rite, the former kept alive only in one chapel of the Cathedral in Toledo, Spain, and a neaeby monastery, and in aspects of the Mexican wedding, but the latter serving millions of people in Italy’s main industrial center, Milan. These liturgies are often likened to Western liturgies with Eastern influences and this is certainly true of their music.

Among the Eastern Orthodox the Gregorian Calendar is only used by the Finnish Orthodox Church, which is an autonomous church under the omophorion of the autocephalous Ecumenical Patriarchate, and also slightly about half of the Estonian Orthodox Church, which in the 2000s, switched its allegiance to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Among the Oriental Orthodox, the Armenians outside of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem use the Gregorian Calendar, and so do the three Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions in Malankara, India (as well as the other St. Thomas Christians, which include two Sui Juris Eastern Catholic Churches, the Protestant Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Church of South India, both of which are in the Anglican Communion (along with the Church of North India), and the Assyrian Church of the East.

No one else among the Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox uses the Gregorian Calendar is because most Orthodox churches want to celebrate Holy Week with other Orthodox churches, even where they are on the Revised Julian or the Old Julian Calendar. It is different in the case of India, Estonia and Finland. The Mar Thoma Christians in Malankara, India are an ethnoreligious minority originally evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle, who died there in 53 AD, and Christians in India are themselves a persecuted minority, the third largest religion (with Muslims being the second largest religion and Hindus obviously the largest). That there are so many Christians, more than the Sikhs and Jains combined, is the sole undeniably positive legacy of the British Raj. Likewise, the Estonians and Finlands are closely related ethnic groups who have only grown closer since the fall of the USSR, both speaking closely related Uralic languages, as indicated in this diagram:

Thus it is unsurprising some Estonians would want to celebrate Pascha together with the Finns according to the Gregorian calendar, which is something most Eastern Orthodox churches are strongly opposed to. The same applies to the St. Thomas Christians in India. In both cases, however, governmental pressure is what actually caused the deviation from normal practice: in Finland, both the Lutheran Church and the Orthodox Church are funded by the state and are established churches, and the Finnish government (which unbeknownst to many was unofficially a one party state diplomatically subservient to the USSR after its military defeat during WWII, when it very reluctantly fought on the side of the Axis Powers during the Continuation War) insisted both the Lutherans and Orthodox celebrate Easter according to the Gregorian calendar. Likewise, pressure from the British doubtless led to the St. Thomas Christians switching to the Gregorian Calendar.

Of course, the raison d’etre of the Gregorian Calendar was to celebrate Pascha closer to the Vernal Equinox. Old Calendarists argue that they got it too close, and the result is that Pascha and Passover could theoretically overlap, which is a violation of ancient canon laws which were implemented when the Rabbis of the Pharisees, who became the sole surviving Jewish denomination in the 2nd century aside from the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, changed the means of calculation from what is thought to have been observations of the Judaean Barley Crop, when this became problematic as the Jews were driven out of their ancestral homeland following the failed Bar Kochba rebellion, to a fixed calendar system. However, I think the Revised Julian Calendar poses even greater problems, for it results in an excessively long period of time between Theophany (January 6th) and the start of Lent, and compresses the liturgically busy summer in a disastrous way, namely that in some years, when Pascha falls in May, the Apostles Fast, which starts a few days after All Saints Day (the Sunday after Pentecost) and ends on June 29th. The problem of course is that in some years in the Revised Julian Calendar, the Apostles Fast ends before it begins. Thus I am of the view that it would be better for all Eastern Orthodox churches to just use the Julian Calendar, and indeed, I think many Western churches could benefit from reverting. Certainly, for Christian churches in non-Christian countries where Christmas is not a holiday, or in Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Central Asian Republics, where Christmas is celebrated on January 7th (December 25th on the Old Calendar), it makes no sense, in my opinion, for any Christian church to use the Gregorian calendar. Conversely one could argue that it makes no sense to use the Julian calendar in countries where December 25th on the Gregorian Calendar is a Holiday. However, there is the issue of the commercialization of Christmas, which some object to, so there really is no easy answer. Frankly, I wish Pope Gregory XIII had focused his attentions elsewhere.

Thus, in some respects the Old Calendarists have a point, and the Uniting Churches have generally tended to be taken over by extremely liberal seminaries, and consequently have experienced moderate to catastrophic losses of membership (for example, the United Reformed Church in the UK, the United Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and standing on the precipice is the United Methodist Church).

However, some ecumenical reconciliation has had very positive results, for example, between the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian and Ancient Churches of the East, and the Roman Catholics and the conservative Old Catholic Union of Scranton (consisting of the Polish National Catholic Church, which was expelled from the Union of Utrecht for being too conservative, and the Norwegian Catholic Church). Also, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod / Lutheran Church of Canada has entered into ecumenical relations with like minded Lutheran churches in several countries, including in the US.

On a personal level, I have found Greek and Russian Old Calendarists to be extremely friendly people, and I greatly enjoy their company, but I find myself unable to get along with American converts to Old Calendarism, or even cradle Old Calendarists born in America. Indeed every friendship I have had with an American Old Calendarist has sadly ended; I pray that we will be reunited on friendly terms in Heaven and our fallings out will be akin to when in elementary school we occasionally fall out with even our best friends, before falling back in with them.

In a subsequent post in this thread, if interest exists, I might get into the terrible persecution endured by the Greek Old Calendarists during the Military Junta, and the multiplicity of Old Calendarist groups which are not in communion but differ on minor points of doctrine, unless one of my Eastern Orthodox friends beats me to it.

Issues of ecumenism aside, the Julian calendar has a systematic minor error that compounds. The Gregorian calendar, and now the occasional addition of a leap second, means the calendar is stable. We should all use the Gregorian calendar. It’s a matter of following the science. Rejection of the Gregorian calendar is a matter of rejecting the pope, which is often a far more powerful negative motivator than following the science as a positive motivator. I think it boils down to nothing other than that.

As always, thanks for the history lesson.

 

[Leaf473]

Old Calendarists are those Eastern Orthodox who regard the use of the Gregorian or Revised Julian Calendars to be heretical, and also regard ecumenism to be heretical, indeed, they are more opposed to ecumenism than to the Gregorian and Revised Julian Calendar, as these were implemented to bring the dates of Orthodox feasts into alignment with the days on which the Western churches celebrated them, which is obviously an Ecumenical goal.

The principle difference between the Revised Julian Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar is that in the former, the date of Pascha (Easter) is still calculated as if the old Julian or Coptic calendar* was in use, resulting in only the fixed feasts like Christmas (December 25th), the Circumcision of our Lord (January 1st), Candlemas (January 8th), The Annunciation (March 25th), St. George the Great Martyr (April 21st), The Holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29th), The Holy Prophet St. Elias (Elijah, July 20th), The Transfiguration (August 6th), The Dormition, also known as the Assumption, of the Theotokos (August 15th), The Holy Cross (September 14th), Michaelmas (September 29th), Luke the Evangelist (October 18th), The Presentation of the Theotokos (November 21st) being in alignment.

Needless to say, this alignment also depends on the feasts being celebrated on the same day; the examples I provided above, which constitute some but not all of the most important feasts, generally align (although the Novus Ordo Missae reverted January 1st to an ancient Roman Marian feast, the Solemnity of the Virgin Mary, which had previously been replaced by the Feast of the Circumcision, following the Eastern Church Calendar, as the other Marian feasts, the Annunciation on March 25th and the Assumption on August 15th, were more popular, but then in the 18th century a private revelation led to Rome instituting a Feast of the Holy Name, which displaced it, however, everyone else agrees that it makes sense to commemorate the naming and circumcision of our Lord eight days after we commemorate His birth).

There are a number of cases where the Fixed Feasts of the Eastern Orthodox church do not align with any Western churches, or the Oriental Orthodox church, or the Assyrian Church of the East (which uses the Gregorian Calendar) or the Ancient Church of the East (which was using the Julian Calendar, but I have heard they synchronized calendars as part of their planned reunification). For example, all Western churches that celebrate All Saints Day celebrate it on November 1st; the Eastern Orthodox celebrate it on the First Sunday After Pentecost, which in the Byzantine Rite combines a celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit with a celebration of the Trinity. Thus on Pentecost, Green is the liturgical color (and usually is kept for All Saints Day), and, like Jewish synagogues on the corresponding feast of Shavuot, the church is decorated with greenery.

Palm Sunday likewise uses Green as the liturgical color in almost all cases which always made more sense to me, because palm branches are green in color; both of these feasts in the Western church usually use red as the liturgical color (although some Roman Catholic, Anglican and other Western churches, and some Ruthenian Greek Catholic and American Carpatho Rusyn Orthodox Diocese churches, both of which serve the Rusyn and Lemko ethnic groups, use violet or purple on Palm Sunday, in what is probably not a coincidence; I think this was the standard color until the late 19th or early 20th century, when the idea of Palm Sunday as Passion Sunday was popularized and a shift was made to red). Another case of the feasts not lining up involves every Evangelist except St. Luke. Advent is also six Sundays long in all the Eastern rites, and also in the Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites, which are Western Rites descended from the ancient Gallican Rite, the former kept alive only in one chapel of the Cathedral in Toledo, Spain, and a neaeby monastery, and in aspects of the Mexican wedding, but the latter serving millions of people in Italy’s main industrial center, Milan. These liturgies are often likened to Western liturgies with Eastern influences and this is certainly true of their music.

Among the Eastern Orthodox the Gregorian Calendar is only used by the Finnish Orthodox Church, which is an autonomous church under the omophorion of the autocephalous Ecumenical Patriarchate, and also slightly about half of the Estonian Orthodox Church, which in the 2000s, switched its allegiance to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Among the Oriental Orthodox, the Armenians outside of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem use the Gregorian Calendar, and so do the three Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions in Malankara, India (as well as the other St. Thomas Christians, which include two Sui Juris Eastern Catholic Churches, the Protestant Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Church of South India, both of which are in the Anglican Communion (along with the Church of North India), and the Assyrian Church of the East.

No one else among the Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox uses the Gregorian Calendar is because most Orthodox churches want to celebrate Holy Week with other Orthodox churches, even where they are on the Revised Julian or the Old Julian Calendar. It is different in the case of India, Estonia and Finland. The Mar Thoma Christians in Malankara, India are an ethnoreligious minority originally evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle, who died there in 53 AD, and Christians in India are themselves a persecuted minority, the third largest religion (with Muslims being the second largest religion and Hindus obviously the largest). That there are so many Christians, more than the Sikhs and Jains combined, is the sole undeniably positive legacy of the British Raj. Likewise, the Estonians and Finlands are closely related ethnic groups who have only grown closer since the fall of the USSR, both speaking closely related Uralic languages, as indicated in this diagram:

Thus it is unsurprising some Estonians would want to celebrate Pascha together with the Finns according to the Gregorian calendar, which is something most Eastern Orthodox churches are strongly opposed to. The same applies to the St. Thomas Christians in India. In both cases, however, governmental pressure is what actually caused the deviation from normal practice: in Finland, both the Lutheran Church and the Orthodox Church are funded by the state and are established churches, and the Finnish government (which unbeknownst to many was unofficially a one party state diplomatically subservient to the USSR after its military defeat during WWII, when it very reluctantly fought on the side of the Axis Powers during the Continuation War) insisted both the Lutherans and Orthodox celebrate Easter according to the Gregorian calendar. Likewise, pressure from the British doubtless led to the St. Thomas Christians switching to the Gregorian Calendar.

Of course, the raison d’etre of the Gregorian Calendar was to celebrate Pascha closer to the Vernal Equinox. Old Calendarists argue that they got it too close, and the result is that Pascha and Passover could theoretically overlap, which is a violation of ancient canon laws which were implemented when the Rabbis of the Pharisees, who became the sole surviving Jewish denomination in the 2nd century aside from the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, changed the means of calculation from what is thought to have been observations of the Judaean Barley Crop, when this became problematic as the Jews were driven out of their ancestral homeland following the failed Bar Kochba rebellion, to a fixed calendar system. However, I think the Revised Julian Calendar poses even greater problems, for it results in an excessively long period of time between Theophany (January 6th) and the start of Lent, and compresses the liturgically busy summer in a disastrous way, namely that in some years, when Pascha falls in May, the Apostles Fast, which starts a few days after All Saints Day (the Sunday after Pentecost) and ends on June 29th. The problem of course is that in some years in the Revised Julian Calendar, the Apostles Fast ends before it begins. Thus I am of the view that it would be better for all Eastern Orthodox churches to just use the Julian Calendar, and indeed, I think many Western churches could benefit from reverting. Certainly, for Christian churches in non-Christian countries where Christmas is not a holiday, or in Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Central Asian Republics, where Christmas is celebrated on January 7th (December 25th on the Old Calendar), it makes no sense, in my opinion, for any Christian church to use the Gregorian calendar. Conversely one could argue that it makes no sense to use the Julian calendar in countries where December 25th on the Gregorian Calendar is a Holiday. However, there is the issue of the commercialization of Christmas, which some object to, so there really is no easy answer. Frankly, I wish Pope Gregory XIII had focused his attentions elsewhere.

Thus, in some respects the Old Calendarists have a point, and the Uniting Churches have generally tended to be taken over by extremely liberal seminaries, and consequently have experienced moderate to catastrophic losses of membership (for example, the United Reformed Church in the UK, the United Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and standing on the precipice is the United Methodist Church).

However, some ecumenical reconciliation has had very positive results, for example, between the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian and Ancient Churches of the East, and the Roman Catholics and the conservative Old Catholic Union of Scranton (consisting of the Polish National Catholic Church, which was expelled from the Union of Utrecht for being too conservative, and the Norwegian Catholic Church). Also, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod / Lutheran Church of Canada has entered into ecumenical relations with like minded Lutheran churches in several countries, including in the US.

On a personal level, I have found Greek and Russian Old Calendarists to be extremely friendly people, and I greatly enjoy their company, but I find myself unable to get along with American converts to Old Calendarism, or even cradle Old Calendarists born in America. Indeed every friendship I have had with an American Old Calendarist has sadly ended; I pray that we will be reunited on friendly terms in Heaven and our fallings out will be akin to when in elementary school we occasionally fall out with even our best friends, before falling back in with them.

In a subsequent post in this thread, if interest exists, I might get into the terrible persecution endured by the Greek Old Calendarists during the Military Junta, and the multiplicity of Old Calendarist groups which are not in communion but differ on minor points of doctrine, unless one of my Eastern Orthodox friends beats me to it.

Do old calendarists take pride in celebrating feasts on the "right" days? I too had heard of persecutions they've experienced, so there must be some kind of "payoff", I'm thinking.

 

[The Liturgist]

Issues of ecumenism aside, the Julian calendar has a systematic minor error that compounds. The Gregorian calendar, and now the occasional addition of a leap second, means the calendar is stable. We should all use the Gregorian calendar. It’s a matter of following the science. Rejection of the Gregorian calendar is a matter of rejecting the pope, which is often a far more powerful negative motivator than following the science as a positive motivator. I think it boils down to nothing other than that.

As always, thanks for the history lesson.

So interestingly enough, the Gregorian Calendar’s innovation is only temporary, in that the Earth’s rotation is slowing and over the course of a few hundred thousand years, give or take an order of magnitude or two (I haven’t done the math and I didn’t sleep last night, but someone here can do the math and work it out) the Julian Calendar will correct itself. Now, given this is very nearly a geological timescale, you might scoff at it, but I am extremely tired of people saying we are in the end times, when Jesus Christ said “No one knows the day or the hour except our Father in Heaven.” He also said, and the apostles said, that very soon we would be with him, or he would be coming, but I interpret this as a Memento Mori, in that Jesus Christ has saved us and will save us through His choirs of angels after we die.*

So, since we don’t know when Christ Pantocrator will return in glory to judge the quick and the dead, we should consider the possibility of our existence in the far future. I liked the introduction of the Feast of Christ the King in the 1920s by several churches, and the division of Tempus per Annum into a Post Pentecost season and a Kingdomtide season at several churches, for example the Methodist Episcopal Church, with the theme being the Christianization of the world, which I think is vital. Unfortunately the United Methodist Church and the other mainline churches apparently wavered on this concept; Kingdomtide as a liturgical season was dropped in the 1989 Book of Worship. But I wish it would be restored. I am opposed to Ordinary Time in liturgical calendars.

Also, the Revised Julian Calendar is slightly more accurate than the Gregorian, given the current speed of the Earth’s rotation, which means in a few centuries it will drift apart, meaning that the Orthodox fixed feasts will slip out of alignment with the Gregorian; indeed I think the days of the week could become misaligned. Which is one more reason why I favor an Gregorian or Julian approach.

*I don’t interpret the Patristic doctrine sometimes referred to as “aerial tollhouses” literally like the monks at Elder Ephrem’s monastery in Florence, Arisona, may his memory be eternal, who I once met, by accident, although perhaps I should because he is the only human I have personally encountered who I think had the gift of tongues, insofar as he communicated with me a wealth of emotions, ideas and concepts without us speaking at all; it was not telepathy, but certain very subtle gestures and facial expressions, and I already venerate him as Blessed and intend to commission an icon of him at some point. The extremely literal interpretation promoted by the monks seems possible but unlikely.

However, I do like the doctrine interpreted in an Alexandrian way, in the manner suggested by Fr. Seraphim Rose, memory eternal, who I also regard as blessed, and indeed I hope he is glorified; he successfully overcame his homosexuality and the corrupt decadence of the notorious North Beach of San Francisco in the 1950s, which was like a cross between Nashville and West Hollywood, the home of the Beatniks, whose Nihilistic doctrine and music developed into the horrible counterculture of the 1960s.**

Repudiating that life, he became a monk, and a priest, and finally the founder of of St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California, north of Redding and Red Bluff, in the mountains separating what I wish I could still call the Golden State with a straight face from Oregon; this is the most austere Orthodox monastery in the Lower 48, possibly in the entire country, a monastery with no air conditioning and only wood stoves, and no electricity in most of the complex. Basically, its amenities are equivalent to those at St. Catharine’s Monastery in Sinai, or on Mount Athos, or at some of the more austere Roman Catholic monasteries in Europe. And he wrote three brilliant books: a denunciation of Nihilist philosophy, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, which predicted the problems with New Age cults, and The Soul After Death, which outlines the Patristic doctrine but advocates a non-literal interpretation of what is often rather crudely termed “Aerial Toll Houses,” which is still a terrifying doctrine under most interpretations, but then again, so is our own mortality. Indeed, I believe purgatory became popular as an alternative doctrine because it was less frightening.

Interpreted in a certain way however, the idea that after we die our faith in Christ results in angels delivering us from demons who accuse us of sins we committed and slander us, so we cannot offer a defense because we are guilty of enough so that the distorted version could not be disproven without implicating ourselves in something else. Our only hope is our faith in Christ, which involves good works, as St. James said; if we have an nominal faith in Christ but neglect our neighbor, our faith is dead. But we will be saved if we have faith, which requires us to practice the virtues as best we can, and to seek to be baptized to wash away our sins and any demons (Orthodox baptism contains an exorcism and I assume so too does Roman Catholic), and to receive both Chrismation (confirmation) to provide the seal of the Holy Spirit, and Holy Communion, the medicine of immortality, for the remission of sins and life everlasting, which we must prepare for with Confession, which in some cases should be auricular, and also if needed Holy Unction, Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders, available for the healing of infirmities, the sanctification of marriage (I believe marriages between one man and one woman performed by the Christian Church are uniquely blessed and holy, to the extent that while people married outside the church are in wedlock, they are not in Holy Matrimony; sacramental marriage belongs to the Church and can only happen with her blessing), and the consecration of vocations for ecclesiastical service.

That faith allows the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to do good works, and causing us to be counted among the lambs; we receive a Guardian Angel, and when we die, our angel and many others will protect us from the slander of the minions of the Accuser. So that is my interpretation of Patristic soteriology. Of course, Purgatory is a possibility; I personally consider it much more likely than soul sleep, but less likely than the Patristic doctrine.

**This counterculture also is a major reason why I reject rock music as completely unsuitable for worship; I believe electric guitars, regular guitars and drum kits should be removed from every church in every theologically traditional denomination, for example, the Roman Catholic and Maronite Catholic churches, the Presbyterian Church of America, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the Anglican Church of North America, and the Southern Baptist Convention, just to name a few.

Only music instruments traditional to the rite should be allowed, and if unavailable, a cappella singing should be the standby, and everyone who attends church who can sing should be encouraged to learn Plainsong, Gregorian Chant, Anglican Chant, Byzantine Chant, Coptic Tasbeha, West Syriac Chant, Kievan Chant, Slavonic “Greek” Chant, or whatever the most basic traditional form of chant used in their church is. For Southern Baptists this would be a cappella square note singing using the famous Southern Harmony hymnal, for example, and for Congregationalists this would probably be using the Bay Psalter. But I digress.

 

[The Liturgist]

Do old calendarists take pride in celebrating feasts on the "right" days? I too had heard of persecutions they've experienced, so there must be some kind of "payoff", I'm thinking.

In theory, no, because Eastern Orthodox Christians are taught that pride is the most dangerous of the passions, and all of the Church Fathers and later Orthodox writings agree on this. “Pride comes before the fall” is deeply ingrained in the Orthodox phronema.

Rather than being holier than thou, cradle Old Calendarists believe that it is imperative to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith, and that their sacraments will become invalid, including any baptisms and ordinations, if they enter into communion with a World Orthodox church, which is any church that either uses the Revised Julian Calendar, engages in “The Pan-Heresy of Ecumenism”, or is in communion with such a church, for example, the Church of Georgia, which no longer participates in the World Council of Churches or ecumenical initiatives and has always used the Julian Calendar exclusively, but is in communion with the other canonical Orthodox churches, many of whom solely use the Revised Julian Calendar, including all the Greek churches except for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the Antiochian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, Cypriot, and Czech-Slovak Orthodox Churches, and three of whom make partial use of it, namely the Polish Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in America, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which also is the parent church of the autonomous Finnish Orthodox and Estonian Orthodox jurisdictions mentioned in the OP which use the Gregorian Calendar.

Thus, it is a desire to ensure their sacraments do not become invalid through entering into communion with churches that they consider to be heretical, or churches that may themselves be Orthodox, but which they consider to be in communion with heretics, like the Orthodox Churches of Georgia and Serbia.

Historically ROCOR, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, was part of the Old Calendarist community, so when they reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007, it caused many parishes to leave and several breakaway groups to form.

 

[Leaf473]

So interestingly enough, the Gregorian Calendar’s innovation is only temporary, in that the Earth’s rotation is slowing and over the course of a few hundred thousand years, give or take an order of magnitude or two (I haven’t done the math and I didn’t sleep last night, but someone here can do the math and work it out) the Julian Calendar will correct itself. Now, given this is very nearly a geological timescale, you might scoff at it, but I am extremely tired of people saying we are in the end times, when Jesus Christ said “No one knows the day or the hour except our Father in Heaven.” He also said, and the apostles said, that very soon we would be with him, or he would be coming, but I interpret this as a Memento Mori, in that Jesus Christ has saved us and will save us through His choirs of angels after we die.*

So, since we don’t know when Christ Pantocrator will return in glory to judge the quick and the dead, we should consider the possibility of our existence in the far future. I liked the introduction of the Feast of Christ the King in the 1920s by several churches, and the division of Tempus per Annum into a Post Pentecost season and a Kingdomtide season at several churches, for example the Methodist Episcopal Church, with the theme being the Christianization of the world, which I think is vital. Unfortunately the United Methodist Church and the other mainline churches apparently wavered on this concept; Kingdomtide as a liturgical season was dropped in the 1989 Book of Worship. But I wish it would be restored. I am opposed to Ordinary Time in liturgical calendars.

Also, the Revised Julian Calendar is slightly more accurate than the Gregorian, given the current speed of the Earth’s rotation, which means in a few centuries it will drift apart, meaning that the Orthodox fixed feasts will slip out of alignment with the Gregorian; indeed I think the days of the week could become misaligned. Which is one more reason why I favor an Gregorian or Julian approach.

*I don’t interpret the Patristic doctrine sometimes referred to as “aerial tollhouses” literally like the monks at Elder Ephrem’s monastery in Florence, Arisona, may his memory be eternal, who I once met, by accident, although perhaps I should because he is the only human I have personally encountered who I think had the gift of tongues, insofar as he communicated with me a wealth of emotions, ideas and concepts without us speaking at all; it was not telepathy, but certain very subtle gestures and facial expressions, and I already venerate him as Blessed and intend to commission an icon of him at some point. The extremely literal interpretation promoted by the monks seems possible but unlikely.

However, I do like the doctrine interpreted in an Alexandrian way, in the manner suggested by Fr. Seraphim Rose, memory eternal, who I also regard as blessed, and indeed I hope he is glorified; he successfully overcame his homosexuality and the corrupt decadence of the notorious North Beach of San Francisco in the 1950s, which was like a cross between Nashville and West Hollywood, the home of the Beatniks, whose Nihilistic doctrine and music developed into the horrible counterculture of the 1960s.**

Repudiating that life, he became a monk, and a priest, and finally the founder of of St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California, north of Redding and Red Bluff, in the mountains separating what I wish I could still call the Golden State with a straight face from Oregon; this is the most austere Orthodox monastery in the Lower 48, possibly in the entire country, a monastery with no air conditioning and only wood stoves, and no electricity in most of the complex. Basically, its amenities are equivalent to those at St. Catharine’s Monastery in Sinai, or on Mount Athos, or at some of the more austere Roman Catholic monasteries in Europe. And he wrote three brilliant books: a denunciation of Nihilist philosophy, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, which predicted the problems with New Age cults, and The Soul After Death, which outlines the Patristic doctrine but advocates a non-literal interpretation of what is often rather crudely termed “Aerial Toll Houses,” which is still a terrifying doctrine under most interpretations, but then again, so is our own mortality. Indeed, I believe purgatory became popular as an alternative doctrine because it was less frightening.

Interpreted in a certain way however, the idea that after we die our faith in Christ results in angels delivering us from demons who accuse us of sins we committed and slander us, so we cannot offer a defense because we are guilty of enough so that the distorted version could not be disproven without implicating ourselves in something else. Our only hope is our faith in Christ, which involves good works, as St. James said; if we have an nominal faith in Christ but neglect our neighbor, our faith is dead. But we will be saved if we have faith, which requires us to practice the virtues as best we can, and to seek to be baptized to wash away our sins and any demons (Orthodox baptism contains an exorcism and I assume so too does Roman Catholic), and to receive both Chrismation (confirmation) to provide the seal of the Holy Spirit, and Holy Communion, the medicine of immortality, for the remission of sins and life everlasting, which we must prepare for with Confession, which in some cases should be auricular, and also if needed Holy Unction, Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders, available for the healing of infirmities, the sanctification of marriage (I believe marriages between one man and one woman performed by the Christian Church are uniquely blessed and holy, to the extent that while people married outside the church are in wedlock, they are not in Holy Matrimony; sacramental marriage belongs to the Church and can only happen with her blessing), and the consecration of vocations for ecclesiastical service.

That faith allows the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to do good works, and causing us to be counted among the lambs; we receive a Guardian Angel, and when we die, our angel and many others will protect us from the slander of the minions of the Accuser. So that is my interpretation of Patristic soteriology. Of course, Purgatory is a possibility; I personally consider it much more likely than soul sleep, but less likely than the Patristic doctrine.

**This counterculture also is a major reason why I reject rock music as completely unsuitable for worship; I believe electric guitars, regular guitars and drum kits should be removed from every church in every theologically traditional denomination, for example, the Roman Catholic and Maronite Catholic churches, the Presbyterian Church of America, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the Anglican Church of North America, and the Southern Baptist Convention, just to name a few.

Only music instruments traditional to the rite should be allowed, and if unavailable, a cappella singing should be the standby, and everyone who attends church who can sing should be encouraged to learn Plainsong, Gregorian Chant, Anglican Chant, Byzantine Chant, Coptic Tasbeha, West Syriac Chant, Kievan Chant, Slavonic “Greek” Chant, or whatever the most basic traditional form of chant used in their church is. For Southern Baptists this would be a cappella square note singing using the famous Southern Harmony hymnal, for example, and for Congregationalists this would probably be using the Bay Psalter. But I digress.

I'll be honest with you here, The Liturgist, my man: I just skimmed parts of your post, even though I'm replying to it. I can see that there is a ton of great information there. But sometimes I get lost in the details

But the basic thrust of your opening is something I hadn't thought of. It's kind of like a clock that loses one second every day will eventually be right in the future (86,400 days in the future, I believe).

Anyways, during the time that the Julian calendar would be clearly out of sync, feasts that are tied to a particular season would lose that connection... Not that I can think of any Christian feasts like that offhand.

...I am extremely tired of people saying we are in the end times...

Hear, hear!

 

[Leaf473]

In theory, no, because Eastern Orthodox Christians are taught that pride is the most dangerous of the passions, and all of the Church Fathers and later Orthodox writings agree on this. “Pride comes before the fall” is deeply ingrained in the Orthodox phronema.

Rather than being holier than thou, cradle Old Calendarists believe that it is imperative to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith, and that their sacraments will become invalid, including any baptisms and ordinations, if they enter into communion with a World Orthodox church, which is any church that either uses the Revised Julian Calendar, engages in “The Pan-Heresy of Ecumenism”, or is in communion with such a church, for example, the Church of Georgia, which no longer participates in the World Council of Churches or ecumenical initiatives and has always used the Julian Calendar exclusively, but is in communion with the other canonical Orthodox churches, many of whom solely use the Revised Julian Calendar, including all the Greek churches except for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the Antiochian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, Cypriot, and Czech-Slovak Orthodox Churches, and three of whom make partial use of it, namely the Polish Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in America, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which also is the parent church of the autonomous Finnish Orthodox and Estonian Orthodox jurisdictions mentioned in the OP which use the Gregorian Calendar.

Thus, it is a desire to ensure their sacraments do not become invalid through entering into communion with churches that they consider to be heretical, or churches that may themselves be Orthodox, but which they consider to be in communion with heretics, like the Orthodox Churches of Georgia and Serbia.

Historically ROCOR, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, was part of the Old Calendarist community, so when they reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007, it caused many parishes to leave and several breakaway groups to form.

Fascinating!

Do they see the Church as limited to just Old Calendarists, then?

 

[Gregory Thompson]

So, how do they assign a day to the extra 4 or 5 days missing from the Julian calendar every year?

 

[The Liturgist]

Fascinating!

Do they see the Church as limited to just Old Calendarists, then?

Yes, and what is more, there are at least three schisms between the Old Calendarists, and so they are only sure that their particular Synod is the Church, the others they are unsure about.

 

[The Liturgist]

So, how do they assign a day to the extra 4 or 5 days missing from the Julian calendar every year?

The Julian Calendar is 365.25 days long, as is the Coptic calendar on enich it is based. Basically, a leap year is every four years on the Julian Calendar, but that is not correct. However, the error is subtle and was not even noticed until the late 16th century, by which time the calendar had been in use for around 1700 years (for it was developed around 90 BC in Alexandria and imported to Rome by Gaius Julius Caesar following his affair with Cleopatra).

 

[Leaf473]

Yes, and what is more, there are at least three schisms between the Old Calendarists, and so they are only sure that their particular Synod is the Church, the others they are unsure about.

Wow! Hey, thanks for the information... great thread.

 

[Leaf473]

@The Liturgist

I'll be honest with you here, The Liturgist, my man: I just skimmed parts of your post, even though I'm replying to it. I can see that there is a ton of great information there. But sometimes I get lost in the details

Also, I didn't mean that to be critical in any way. It's more about my hyper, restless brain.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

The Julian Calendar is 365.25 days long, as is the Coptic calendar on enich it is based. Basically, a leap year is every four years on the Julian Calendar, but that is not correct. However, the error is subtle and was not even noticed until the late 16th century, by which time the calendar had been in use for around 1700 years (for it was developed around 90 BC in Alexandria and imported to Rome by Gaius Julius Caesar following his affair with Cleopatra).

oh, they're only disputing the leap year? Not a big problem.

I tried examining how to create a calendar that didn't have time decay factors like that, but it turns out there's a lot of ways to do it.

When I heard "julian" I thought it was a 360 day calendar, when did that change anyway?

 

[The Liturgist]

@The Liturgist

Also, I didn't mean that to be critical in any way. It's more about my hyper, restless brain.

You bet. Dude my posts are so filled with obscure facts, asides, segues, and full on rabbit holes with direct service to Wonderland, and connections to Disneyland and Walt Disney World as they existed from 1955 until the end of the Michael Eisner era, when everything started to become woke and ruined, in addition to tragic vintage attraction closures in the 1990s like the Skyways at both parks and the Peoplemover at Disneyland, and oh dear, I’m at it again, suffice it to say, I’m amazed and humbled anyone finds what I have to say interesting. For example, recently, apros pos to nothing, I had an exhillerating discussion with a member of this forum about the future prospects of mass transit in Melbourne and several US cities, I discussed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with an Oriental Orthodox bishop, who is also a fan (that was a bizarre conversation), and I helped a priest friend with insomnia fall asleep by delivering an impromptu lecture on the history of Eastern eucharistic prayers, which does prove that I can be a bore, at least intentionally, and I suspect unintentionally as well.

 

[The Liturgist]

oh, they're only disputing the leap year? Not a big problem.

I tried examining how to create a calendar that didn't have time decay factors like that, but it turns out there's a lot of ways to do it.

When I heard "julian" I thought it was a 360 day calendar, when did that change anyway?

The Julian calendar has always been 365.25 days in length. The .25 was the miscalculation, but it was close as they could get given the limits of math and astronomy (which was at the time still the same field as astrology) in the first century BC, even in Alexandria.

Alexandria was like the Silicon Valley of the Classic World; it had the Great Library, which was rebuilt after Julius Caesar inadvertently burned it down while defending the city against the army of Queen Cleopatra’s demented half brother King Ptolemy (not to be confused with the earlier and more important men to bear the name), and a group referred to as the Polytechnic, who were engineers who created the scientific wonders of Emperor Nero’s legendary futuristic palace, the Domus Aurae (Golden House). Nero was actually very similiar to Hitler, in that he was a genocidal monster who sponsored, for the wrong reasons (personal decadence in the case of Nero and military conquest in the case of Hitler) very expensive research and development, and it is alleged, but unconfirmed, that Nero intended the fire to facilitate redevelopment of Rome, such as would later happen in London after 1666, Lisbon after the earthquake of 1755, Chicago after 1873, Seattle in 1889, and San Francisco after the earthquake and firestorm of 1906. This is analogous to Hitler’s plans for rebuilding Berlin after the war based on the plans of his architect and confidant Albert Speer.

This is why by the way I am strongly inclined to believe the Number of the Beast refers to Nero, because he was the prototypical anti-Christian genocidal tyrant and we see reflections of him in Diocletian, Julian the Apostate, the Islamic Caliphs and Ottoman Sultans, Tamerlane, Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and more recently, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung and his deranged offspring*, Ayatollah Khomenei, Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi.

*If I were travelling or working in Asia right now I would actually worry about being bumped off for criticizing Kim Jong Il, as he is known to do that.

 

[The Liturgist]

By the way @prodromos and @HTacianas do you feel my coverage of this subject is respectful and accurate?

Are there any additions or emendations you feel I should make?

Any time I talk about Orthodox Christianity, I want to make sure my posts are accurate, respectful and loving.

Also the fact I haven’t had a successful friendship with a Anglophone Old Calendarist does not mean that one is impossible; it could well be I have had bad luck with them. I will say one of the sweetest and most loving bishops I ever met was a Bishop under Metropolitan Agafangel in the ROCA-A jurisdiction (the owner of St. Panteleimon Press, which publishes my preferred edition of the Pentecostarion and the Menaion, is, or at least was, a member of ROCA-A).

 

[seeking.IAM]

You bet. Dude my posts are so filled with obscure facts, asides, segues, and full on rabbit holes with direct service to Wonderland... and oh dear, I’m at it again...QUOTE]

Diogenes will be happy to know the search is over. We found him and he is right here on CF!

 

[Gregory Thompson]

The Julian calendar has always been 365.25 days in length. The .25 was the miscalculation, but it was close as they could get given the limits of math and astronomy (which was at the time still the same field as astrology) in the first century BC, even in Alexandria.

Alexandria was like the Silicon Valley of the Classic World; it had the Great Library, which was rebuilt after Julius Caesar inadvertently burned it down while defending the city against the army of Queen Cleopatra’s demented half brother King Ptolemy (not to be confused with the earlier and more important men to bear the name), and a group referred to as the Polytechnic, who were engineers who created the scientific wonders of Emperor Nero’s legendary futuristic palace, the Domus Aurae (Golden House). Nero was actually very similiar to Hitler, in that he was a genocidal monster who sponsored, for the wrong reasons (personal decadence in the case of Nero and military conquest in the case of Hitler) very expensive research and development, and it is alleged, but unconfirmed, that Nero intended the fire to facilitate redevelopment of Rome, such as would later happen in London after 1666, Lisbon after the earthquake of 1755, Chicago after 1873, Seattle in 1889, and San Francisco after the earthquake and firestorm of 1906. This is analogous to Hitler’s plans for rebuilding Berlin after the war based on the plans of his architect and confidant Albert Speer.

This is why by the way I am strongly inclined to believe the Number of the Beast refers to Nero, because he was the prototypical anti-Christian genocidal tyrant and we see reflections of him in Diocletian, Julian the Apostate, the Islamic Caliphs and Ottoman Sultans, Tamerlane, Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and more recently, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung and his deranged offspring*, Ayatollah Khomenei, Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi.

*If I were travelling or working in Asia right now I would actually worry about being bumped off for criticizing Kim Jong Il, as he is known to do that.

I've seen people use numerology on Nero's name to equal 666 in the past. However, the only biblical reference to this number other than the conspiracy theorist's pet verse, is about Solomon receiving 666 gold per year, when God instructed kings to not amass riches like that - among other things he also did.

Considering what Jesus says about mammon in the gospels I've always just looked at the 666 to be referring to Solomon, and in ripple events, a Solomon type.

So I was curious how Nero would compare to Solomon?

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Yes, and what is more, there are at least three schisms between the Old Calendarists, and so they are only sure that their particular Synod is the Church, the others they are unsure about.

Someone changed the times, but I didn't start the fire. type deal then.

 

[The Liturgist]

I've seen people use numerology on Nero's name to equal 666 in the past. However, the only biblical reference to this number other than the conspiracy theorist's pet verse, is about Solomon receiving 666 gold per year, when God instructed kings to not amass riches like that - among other things he also did.

Considering what Jesus says about mammon in the gospels I've always just looked at the 666 to be referring to Solomon, and in ripple events, a Solomon type.

So I was curious how Nero would compare to Solomon?

King Solomon is a Saint and a Holy Prophet. Did he sin? Yes, like all men. But he repented. And he wrote Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Psalms 72 and 127, and at least some of the sayings collected in the Book of Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus), making him one of the most important writers of the Old Testament, along with the Prophets St. Jeremiah, St. Moses and the other contributors to the Pentateuch and Joshua.*

So how would Nero compare to Solomon? The difference between Nero and Solomon is like the difference between the devil and St. Michael the Archangel. Both are the same sort of being: Nero and St. Solomon are men, and the devil and St. Michael are angels; all four are rulers, but the devil is a fallen angel and Nero was a selfish genocidal anti-Christian monster, both of whom are beasts, while St. Michael is a ruling angel and King Solomon is a King of Israel, both of whom are Saints; King Solomon and St. Michael defend the righteous, whereas Nero and the devil falsely accuse the innocent, and finally, King Solomon built the first Temple in which the true God, who we know as the Blessed Trinity was worshipped by Israel and a choir of Angels, while Nero built a temple to himself, a luxury palace where Nero, falsely claiming divinity like his predecessors, was worshipped by sycophants and mocked by a band of demons.

At a minimum, someone wrote the ending of Deuteronomy, and ai suspect Joshua was written by someone involved in the Torah due to a known stylistic similarity which causes some scholars to speak of a Hexateuch (and even a Heptateuch, including Judges, since this and Joshua comprise together with the Torah the Deureronomistic History; there is also the Octateuch, which includes Ruth, but this is simply because in the Septuagint and the Ethiopian Ge’ez Bible, which was translated from partially lost Hebrew sources (some of which were recovered in the Qumran Caves), and it is used in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (and probably among tne Ethiopian Jews, the Beta Israel) as a liturgical construct in ordering of services, the Orit).

** There is evidence the ancient Hebrews knew of the Trinity at one time, but had by the time of Christ due to the pernicious false dichotomy of Phariseeism and Sadduceanism effectively forgotten this truth, but the existence of the concepts of the Memre (Logos) and Ruach-ha-kodesh, which the early Church was able to use to explain the Trinity with great ease to the Jews, converting most of the Jews in Greece, Italy, Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, the Nineveh Plains and Assyria more generally, Persia and Mesopotamia, and India, and a large number in Judaea and Galilee, who thrived in places like Caesarea even after the Bar Kochba Revolt, I estimate as many as half of the Jewish population converted, including about 15-20% of those in Judaea, many of whose descendants are in the Syriac, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Coptic, Indian, Antiochian, Assyrian, Chaldean and Maronite churches, including where applicable Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant branches (for example, in the churches of the Mar Thoma Christians of Malankara), and among the membership of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Alexandria and Constantinople, and the Churches of Greece and Cyprus. I would also note the Shewbread and Libations at the Temple in Jerusalem anticipated the Eucharist, consisting, like Holy Communion, of bread and wine, however, it must be stressed that they were an anticipation or a prophecy of the means by which we partake of the one all sufficient sacrifice of Christ in the divine liturgy of Holy Communion. We also see such anticipation in the sacrifice of bread and wine to Melchizedek.

*** Roman Emperors were pronounced divine in what was called Apotheosis, which is not to be confused in the Patristic belief in salvation through Theosis, which John Wesley called Entire Sanctification. There is an allegorical painting on the interior of the dome of the US Capitol called The Apotheosis of George Washington, which, while beautiful, I believe would infuriate President Washington, who was an Anglican, and extremely humble, rejecting a proposed stlye which I recall was something like “His Excellency, the Honorable President of the United States and Defender of our Liberties” in favor of “The President of the United States” and introducing the convention of serving two terms only, which was violated only by FDR before being added to the Constiution. I also believe it violates the First Amendment. Therefore because of my admiration for President Washington and my desire to protect the rights of Christians, at some point I intend to start a movement seeking to have the current fresco removed and installed in a replica of the dome in the Smithsonian, due to its historical value, and instead have the interior of the dome gilded using some of the considerable quantity of bullion the US government has in reserve. Indeed since the all gold in Fort Knox is of little political value compared to even one nuclear warhead, I believe that at least half of it should be used to gild the domes and roofs of public buildings and also leased to private buildings including religious buildings on an equal access basis, for use only as architectural material (with requirements for security and the government reserving the right to reclaim the gold, using a deposit the private parties would pay upfront, if the building changed owners, was not properly secured or was set to be demolished or undergo major construction) in order to beautify the landscape. I believe this initiative would be supporter by President Washington.

As should be evident, aside from publicly defending the Christian faith and morality and the human right to life, I only have political positions on issues no one cares about, like mass transit, power distribution infrastructure, the architecture of government buildings, uniforms for the military and first responders, and aviation policy.