What we call the Byzantine Calendar was actually called the
Roman year since the creation of the universe
and was the calendar used by the Eastern Orthodox Church from c. 691 to 1728 in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It was also the official calendar of the Byzantine Empire from 988 to 1453 and of Kievan Rus' and Russia from c. 988 to 1700.
The calendar was based on the Julian calendar, except that the year started on 1 September which was the beginning of the civil year in Constantinople.
They had used the Septuagint version of the Bible to calculate the age of the world Its Year One, marking the supposed date of creation, was September 1, 5509 BC, to August 31, 5508 BC.
This would make the current year (AD 2020) 7529 (before September 1). Therefore today is the beginning of the Byzantine (Roman) Year 7530 since the creation of the world.
Of course if we were still using the Julian Calendar instead of the Gregorian Calendar we would have to wait until September 14th on our calendar to observe September 1st of the Julian Calendar.
Not much is made of the this date any more.
Except that the Orthodox Patriarchs of Constantinople have made it a day of the celebration of the environment in recent years. Pope Francis has actually endorsed this too.
However as far as I can see not too many people are making much of it as a day for celebrating the environment either.
Interesting!
ReplyDeleteWhen I used to be in school, or have kids in school, I always viewed the beginning of September as a kind of "new year", the start of the school year.
I had not heard of Sept 1 as being a day to celebrate the environment, interesting that the Orthodox and also Pope Francis endorse it. This year people aren't in a very celebratory mood about much of anything.
The Orthodox calculations vary greatly from those of Church of Ireland Archbishop James Ussher, who found the date o creation to have been Oct. 22, 4004 B.C. (one day after my birthday). In the evening. People I know use that as proof that humans once ran with the dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have your attention, Jack, I notice on the Web page that almost all of the monks at LeBarroux hold the breviary on their laps. Frank Sinatra and every choral director in the world would tell them that bending the neck to look down is definitely not how to sing. What am I seeing? An outdated rule being followed? Or simple ignorance? Or everybody looking for the start page at the same time?
Rosh Hashanah is always in September. Not sure if that is related in any way?
ReplyDeleteAnd the feast of the Holy Cross is Sept. 14, also not sure if that is related.
ReplyDeleteJack - celebrating this day (or even this season - it seems that Francis has said that today is the first day of an entire Season of Creation, which runs until Oct 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi) would be a natural, I'd think, for Catholic schools. I will quiz my Catholic school teacher daughter this evening as to whether her school is taking notice in any way.
ReplyDeleteJack's post prompted me to poke around the usccb.org a very little bit to see what sort of attention was being officially paid. This panel discussion is actually not too bad. It features Archbishop Coakley of OKC, who chairs the relevant committee on the national conference; and two pretty well-known bishops: Robert Barron, an auxiliary of Los Angeles, and Robert McElroy. (When I say, "not too bad", that means that the first 10 minutes were pretty listenable. I'm listening to it with one ear as I write this.)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/environment/index.cfm#LaudatoSi5
Thanks, Jim.
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