Incorrect Attempts to Reform the Calendar of the Orthodox Church

7/29/2019 Incorrect Attempts to Reform the Calendar of the Orthodox Church

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Incorrect attempts to reform the calendar

of the Orthodox Church

fr. Dan Bdulescu

An optimistic of breaking news announces that:

"The Date of Easter - the prospect that, after 2010, it became a common date, unique for all

Christians

Caution: in 2012 the Catholic/Protestant Easter (Gregorian): April 8;

Orthodox Easter (Julian): April 15

Hebrew Passover: April 7 to 13!

Regarding these proposals, we remind our readers important moments in the history of our

church calendar, which we hope to be useful for today's times and those which are to come. The

calendar reform issues were resolved in the spirit of the Fathers of Nicaea plenary in the Orthodox

East and Easter tables made up crossed unbroken centuries to us...

After finding the gap resulting from the precession of the equinoxes and moon proemptozis,

there have been several attempts to reform the Eastern Orthodox calendar, of which the best known

were made by monk Isaac Argyros and Byzantine humanist philosophers Gemistus Pletho and

Nicephorus Gregoras.

"The paschaleongraphers of the 14th century.

From the 14th century we have Chapter 7 of the letter P in alphabetical collection of

Matthew Blastares"On Easter"... ; already was shown before that vlastarian calculation is different

from that of theCretan1... in the remembered century the paschaleongraphers know about the sun

and moon proemptozis, that is, that both equinox and moon phases give back in the progression of

time in the Julian calendar, falling increasingly on earlier data, and that because of this, the Easter,

as is set out in those Tables employed by the Church, necessarily departs increasingly from both the

equinox and the real 14 nisan, fell all later in the seasons. However, some of them, such as Matthew

Blastares, were for the preservation of the unaltered church Paschaleon and even see in the

increasing of the distance of Easter conditioned by the proemptosis a great use for Christian piety,as the range between the Christian and the Jewish Easter becomes bigger through it and better so we

can observe the apostolic ordination of not celebrate Easter with Jews. But others, like Nicephorus

Gregoras and Isaac Argyros, wanted a correction of the church Paschaleon, making all careful to the

errors that the Paschaleon had over time through proemptozis. Nicephorus Gregora propose even to

the imperial court and the high clergy of Constantinople an Easter table corrected by him, and his

endeavour is praised at all; but a decision to introduce his table was not taken, and the reason for

this failing was no doubt among others that one that urged also Isaac Argyros to be more reserved

about reform. The latter defends himself at the end of his letter against the imputation that he

should want a movement of Easter celebration and states that he wrote only to demonstrate how it

is impossible to compose a table not to get wrong again, through which he reinforces that the table

proposed by Nicephorus Gregora does not remove the evil from the root and in time shall fall into

1 St. Andrew of Crete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Argyroshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Argyroshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemistus_Plethohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemistus_Plethohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicephorus_Gregorashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicephorus_Gregorashttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Alphabetical_Collectionhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Alphabetical_Collectionhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Matthew_Blastareshttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Matthew_Blastareshttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Andrew_of_Cretehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Andrew_of_Cretehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Andrew_of_Cretehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Andrew_of_Cretehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Matthew_Blastareshttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Alphabetical_Collectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicephorus_Gregorashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemistus_Plethohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Argyros


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the same errors as the one used by the Church Easter table. So ends this reform movement without

any results.

Letter of Isaac Argyros about calculating Easter and

about the errors of this calculation.

...Finally Isaac Argyros reach the last chapter of his letter, to which he gives the title: "OnEaster correction (or) on the fault (Easter) table". He tells us here the following:

It is necessary to show why this table is wrong, and if it was wrong at the beginning, i.e.

when it was compound. And since it is now incorrect, it should also be shown yet, when, according

to it, occurs a proper celebration of Easter, and when not... The ancient ones divided usually the day

(light) in 12 hours, and the night again in 12 hours; but day hours were equal to the night ones only

during equinoxes; otherwise they were distinguished this way: in summertime the day hours are

more than the night ones, and conversely, in wintertime, the night hours more than day ones. But

also the division of day-night ( ) in 24 equal parts, which is now a common

custom was not unknown to date. But they were using this division only in the astronomical

calculation, that it can not be done without a uniform partition of the time, and they called these

equal parts of day-night for their identity with the civilian day and night hours during the equinoxesthe "equinoctial hours".

...There is also another error (that's right that happens rarely), which is rooted in transitory

equinox. It left behind (in the Julian calendar) during years, namely from the following reason: the

length of the solar year was not taken quite exact, if it is accepted that the sun turns from a point of

its track at the same point in 365 days. For after calculating more exactly it accomplishes its

revolution in less time, that is, without a bit of day, i.e. after "" of Ptolemy with 1/300

day... For Ptolemy says that in his time the vernal equinox was on March 21...

The Paschal Table of Nicephorus Gregora

...From this it is shown that Nicephorus Gregora put spring equinox on March 19, whileaccording to Matthew Blastares this fall on 18, and according to Isaac Argyros on March 15. After

his discernment not only moon proemptozis, but that of the sun too was two days. Since he took the

length of the average solar year together with Ptolemy andHipparchusamounting to 365 - 1/300days and because probably he is the oldest of the 14 th century paschaleongraphers, then perhaps he

is the author of the idea that the church data of paschal terms would be fixed in the eighth century,

and that then those dates would have coincided with the real post equinoctial full moons and the

date of March 21 with the real date of the vernal equinox... He removed the error in his table by

reducing the Pascal terms with two days and he was convinced that by such correction the table

again regains the capacity to show the exact time of the Easter for a period of about three centuries,

after passing which, according to his plan, a new correction table would be pursued. But even the

fact that the table had to be corrected again after a delay of 300 years, was one of the weaknesses of

the reform, which the representatives of the conservative branch in the Easter issue, such as

Matthew Blastares, took chance to fight the reformation. Besides, it was known now in the 14th

century that the calculation of Nicephorus Gregoras on the day of the vernal equinox is wrongand

so the paschal data of his table are not accurate in all cases. Therefore were not missing any of the

inner causes for rejecting the reform, and together with those from outside they have the

consequence that the table of Gregoras, although its author got the praise for it, was never put into

practice.

The Calendar of George Ghemistos Plethon.

A calendaristical treaty entirely different from the writings composed before, was made by

George Ghemistos, called Plethon ( , 1355-1450), a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagesthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagesthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest


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Byzantine scholar, indulged in a mystical neo Platonismamalgamated

with pagan theurgy under the title: "

" (The order of months and years and the counting

days)2.

Because its author participated in the Council of Ferrara and

Florence (1438-1439) and lived in the latter city until about the year

1441, where he was in contact with Italian scholars and workedthrough philosophical discourses to spread his Platonism, it is said as

probably, that his work on calendar was done then known in the West,

as well as other knowledge of Byzantine scholars which were spread

after the fall of Constantinople, and contributed that the idea of the

calendar reform initiated in the 13th century and taken in deliberation

first in the council of Constance (1414-1418) to be spread more and

more. To form a right judgment about the issue if someone can attribute such an effect to the

calendar of Plethon, it is necessary to know the nature and somehow the structure of this calendar.

It is an extract from the main writing of the noted philosopher: "'H ",

which however is known only from several fragments and other writings of him, because after his

death, his most fierce opponent George Scholarius (b. about in 1400, in the year 1460), which after the fall of Constantinople became

ecumenical Patriarch under the name of Gennadius (),

partly burned it for its anti-Christian content. The Laws of

Plethon contain a whole system of doctrines derived from neo

Platonism, by the way of which by the total exclusion of Christianity

in a clearly pagan way to regulate the religious, moral, social and

political life of peoples, especially of the Greek people. Plethon

misplaced idea that Christianity was the cause of the weakness and

fully decline of the Greek people and the corruption of the Byzantine

State and that only through a radical regeneration of the people in

pagan Hellenism revival could his homeland to escape theincreasingly threatening of the Ottoman power that was set before

him. The pagan character of the whole system manifests itself in the

calendar in question. It is based on the Athenian one, therefore is

lunisolar as the last one, only with the difference that the Athenian

year began with the summer solstice, when Plethon put the

beginning of its year at midnight after the new moon following the

winter solstice...

The full Moon Day was dedicated to Pluto, that of the first quarter to the self research, the

new moon to Zeus... From the above described this calendar proves to be pagan in all his being..."

(adapted after Prof. C. Popovici)

We will continue to Isaac Argyros word to explain a big misinformation that has spread in

the last century, when the controversy over the calendar reform. It is the final conclusion that Isaac

Argyros pulled in the last chapter of his letter, which gives the title: "On Easter correction (or) on

the fault (paschal) table", about the correctness of the paschal table, of the competence of those who

had made it, and of the need of correction:

"But neither did we got here into this exposure, because we asked to move the Easter feast;

nor have we called in this discussion, to blame the authors of this table, as they would have made in

the first place without the knowledge of work and errors. Away from us so some words! And the

slanderers should not trigger their sycophant tongue against us. For we strove to show only this,

2 . . - 1868 p. 11; about Plethon see also

.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgyhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Council_of_Florencehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Council_of_Florencehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Council_of_Florencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Constancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Constancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadius_Scholariushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadius_Scholariushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadius_Scholariushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Constancehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Council_of_Florencehttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Council_of_Florencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism


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that you can not avoid that the table, however composed, not to become wrong in time, because the

time makes that what we find in a few years as a slight and very insensitive deviation from the

exactness to increase after many years into a significant difference..."

His conclusion is the same, as we shall see, to that of Matthew Blastares, and was fully

endorsed by the Church for 600 years!

In connection with Paschaleon of Isaac Argyros, we want to mention a factor that seemed

particularly important, especially in the period following, especially in calendar disputes. Namely, itis the rate of shift of the equinox. As we have seen, the line Hipparchus - Ptolemy - Blastares

supports the range of1 day/300 years, leading to the above mentioned data: 14th century March 18,

17th century March 17, 20th century March 16 a.s.o.

Now, for the first time in the Orthodox East, Isaac Argyros brings a different rate, about 1

day/170 years, which made the equinox to be reckoned in the 14th century on March 15. The

difference is clear and brings serious consequences in calculations. Isaac Argyros reform will not

be accepted, and as you will see, nor hits rate of 170 years.

As for Nicephorus Gregora we remember that he was one of the opponents ofSt. Gregory

Palamasinhesychastic controversy, and was finally condemned as a heretic. Regarding his calendar

reform, it was in turn rejected by traditionalist fathers such as Matthew Blastares, and then by the

whole Church, having among other decreases and a miscalculation, he calculates equinox on March19.

The third known reformer, Ghemistos Plethon was a Byzantine humanist thinker, who

advocated the revival of Greek paganism, and when it was rejected in Byzantium went with the

person and his ideas in Italy, laying together with other Byzantine heretics humanist thinkers the

foundations of the Italian Renaissance.

Needless to show what fate befell this calendar.

But it was not at all superfluous to mention these failed attempts because they were

presented as some commendable and valuable attempts that waited 600 years to have the favorable

(political and cultural?) circumstances to be applied with success. But none of the orthodox

believers have notice what was the tenet of the authors of these aborted attempts to reform?

Heretics, humanists, neo- pagans, anathematized... A surprising thing...

The normative contribution of Hieromonk Matthew Blastares (14th century)

We mentioned during the article about the reject of these

attempts to reform by the hieromonk Matthew Blastares in the

14th century, who wrote in 1335 the alphabetical canonical treaty

Syntagma, where at the letter P deals with Easter. This treaty

should be known by all theologians and even by learned monks,

having in this respect the same weight as the An Exact

Exposition of the Orthodox Faithby St. John Damascene and

Hexaemeronby St. Basil the Great. And if these works were

reprinted in several editions after 1990, this work should be

reprinted in the near future - of course the entire Syntagma too! -

to cover in the most competent way the Paschaleon problems.

Among other observations of Matthew Blastares we will retain

mainly the following :

Like St. John Damascene, he makes a work of canonical

patristic synthesis and in the case of the traditional Orthodox

Paschaleon, with its methods and specific problems. From the

astronomical point of view, the author falls into the tradition of

Aristotle Ptolemy... St. John Damascene, i.e. plain geocentrism. Regarding the issues ofprecession of the vernal equinox, Blastares was aware of these delays and accepted undoubtedly the

delay rate of Hipparchus/Ptolemy, namely 1 day to 300 years:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamashttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamashttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamashttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamashttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamas#Hesychastic_Controversyhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamas#Hesychastic_Controversyhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamas#Hesychastic_Controversyhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.i.htmlhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.i.htmlhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.i.htmlhttp://en.orthodoxwiki.org/John_of_Damascushttp://en.orthodoxwiki.org/John_of_Damascushttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.viii.i.htmlhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.viii.i.htmlhttp://en.orthodoxwiki.org/Basil_the_Greathttp://en.orthodoxwiki.org/Basil_the_Greathttp://en.orthodoxwiki.org/Basil_the_Greathttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.viii.i.htmlhttp://en.orthodoxwiki.org/John_of_Damascushttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.i.htmlhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.i.htmlhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamas#Hesychastic_Controversyhttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamashttp://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamas


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"According to the nature of the universe, the moments of the equinox always necessarily

occur at the same time, because the size of the yearly time is always the same time every year, but

according to every time position of the heavenly bodies against the Earth, (i.e. the position that

always changes) and after the length of the days and months which we use like the Romans it

happens always that the equinox occurs not at the same time or in the same day... so that it

necessarily happens that the equinox after 300 years falls one day before, such as in our days3 on

March 18, after 300 years it will be on 17, then after another as many in 16 and so on. Whereforethe vernal equinox in the year 4156 from the creation has been calculated to be on March 27 at noon

according to the meridian of Alexandria, and the next equinoxes, each differing in 300 years, occur

each one a day before at the same hour, as is shown in the diagram, and the intermediate equinoxes

occur of course in the intermediate intervals. If you want to know clearer the moments of time, in

the times ofNabonassar the equinox was in the late evening of 25 March, and in those of Philip

Arideus4 at noon 24 (March),

Years from the creation of the world: The March equinoxes:

4156 27

4456 264756 25

5056 24

5356 23

5556 22

5956 21

6256 20

6556 19

6856 18

and in the days that Christ killed the death by His own death, being March 23, around the

middle of that night, and when was made this table of the Fathers, the equinox moments coin wereon March 21, and now in our time, as was shown, the equinox occurs on March 18, this anomaly

produced the very small effect arising from the movement of the luminaries in that subsequent

addition and made that the luminaries shall be made as backward." (Matthew Blastares On Easter)

This should be retained as it will have a great importance in the debate that followed about

the consequences of this delay in the case of the second light, the moon, which has a similar process

of delay called lunar proemptozis, due to the same consequences of the different celestial

movements of the star system (signs) - sun - moon, the Earth remaining permanently fixed in an

inertial frame, effectively, and not just a relative frame of reference, as claimed by contemporary

relativistic science:

"So that for these four judgments to respect in the same way by all, and by the simple, and

that Christians throughout the world to celebrate at the same time and to have no need of

astronomers throughout the singularity, our Fathers have made this table and gave it to the Church,

thinking that by it they do not deviate from any of the mentioned decisions that were added... and...

contemplating that it is neither absurd nor injurious to godliness if because the abnormal movement

of the moon after the lapse of 300 years this table will not show the law Easter at the full moon of

the first month, but after a day or two, and it will happen because that the decision of the Fourth of

Easter sometimes will not be observed, because the addition of the two days will make one pass

over with the first Sunday after the full moon and therefore dedicate it to Palm Sunday feast, and

celebrate the salvific Easter next Sunday, even this happened to us not long ago and troubled many

as would have eliminated some necessary and worthy dogma not to be overlooked. But... this was

314th century.

4315 B.C.
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not unknown to all those very worthy Fathers, nor was because the art of observing the stars would

have been its lack of knowledge, but as was said, because of the luminaries movement... the full

moon can not be determined to be at the time given by the Fathers, it was, as it was said, in 304

years backward with an interval of about one day, only this scandal was made about this table."

(Matthew Blastares On Easter)

"As our author defends those Fathers who he reckons to be givers of the 4 th rule against the

discernment that could be born, that they without knowing the science of astronomy would haveestablished such a decision and therefore their decision now would not be able to be observed in all

cases. Not in their ignorance - he sayslies the cause for this, but in the course of the moon... The

Fathers who gave the 4th rule as some who were versed in the science of astronomy, knew very well

that after proemptozis after the passage of 608 years it will have to make the addition of the two

days, and after this addition sometimes the Easter Sunday shall be postponed a week. But they

tacitly admitted this deviation from their rule, because they regarded it not only harmless to piety,

but still very useful, because of the addition of two days the very main decision regarding the time

of Easter celebration, which is to not celebrate Easter Sunday together with the Jews can be

observed better, because in the worst case yet all are at least three days that separate our Easter by

the Jewish Easter 14 nisan, when at that time when the Fathers gave the 4th rule, the shortest interval

between our Easter and that of the Jews and was no more than one day... It is evident that theaddition of the two days made after proemptozis the shortest interval between our Easter and that of

the Jews increased from 1 to 3 days, and thereby satisfies even more the canonical requirement to

not celebrate Easter with the Jews. For the same reason the decision followed the other decision of

the Fathers to celebrate Easter on a Sunday, so that if the Jews would celebrate their Easter in one of

the other weekly days, while we are celebrating our Easter next Sunday this does not coincide with

theirs, and in case their Easter would fall on a Sunday, we, following the decision of the Fathers,

celebrate the Easter not in that Sunday, but in the second, and therefore neither in this case our

match with their. In any case they considered that it can be only to the good of the Christians if a

long interval separates their celebration of the "uncelebration" of the Jews." (adapted after Prof. C.

Popovici)

So, once cleared both phenomena of "delay" it clearly states that both the Fathers of Nicaea,and those who followed were fully aware of these delays and have them taken into account that will

happen in the future, and at what rate (300 years the equinox, the full moon 304 years). Matthew

Blastares too noted that this gap was expanding gradually, but issued an opinion which proved to be

normative in the Orthodox Paschaleon practice from then until 1924, so for 600 years, namely:

"But it ought not to modify the table of the Fathers, because it is not possible to compose

another showing such obvious the aforementioned paschal decisions to everyone, but even if we

should want, as some do, to change it, reducing it by two days, starting from the year 68415, then

besides it's near impossible to persuade the rulers of the world who rules the affairs of the Christians

to take novelty abandoning the old ones, will follow another, and again after 304 years, and again

after so many a.s.o. the same error and you will need to change this ( table) often, so it's better not

to renew it, for such an innovation not only can not fall back into the same error, but it will cause a

significant turmoil in the Church. And now there is this table, and therefore the most essential of

those to be observed on Easter are held through it strongly, i.e. the festive ordinances of the feast

are committed after the equinox and full moon after the equinox by all at the same time and on the

same day without commotion. But besides that, if the periodic table would be correct in all, it would

happen often that the Easter would celebrated by us soon after those celebration (i.e. the Jews),

and now our feast is at least three days after their feast, which is even more convenient to that

Apostolic Canon that decides that you should not celebrate Easter with the Jews, and the error that

happened on Easter make certain to comply even more this law." (Matthew Blastares On the Holy

Easter)

5 1333


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We retain the fundamental idea of keeping the patristic table, with all its delays reported.

Again, the fact that the traditional Orthodox paschal table - Paschaleon of the Fathers always

calculated correctly when falls legal Easter, and as such was targeted, align and will guide after this

utmost important landmark!

Incorrect Attempts to Reform the Calendar of the Orthodox Church

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