Merry Julian Christmas!

Goodsport · Jan 7, 2007

S Rozhdestvom Hristovim!

Merry Julian Christmas today, everyone!

-G

Ferret · Jan 7, 2007

I don't follow but....Yay! Merry Julian Christmas!

Just wikied this, its from the julian calender, right?

Mycanid · Jan 7, 2007

Yes Ferret - it is. Many of the branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church use the Julian Calendar as their default liturgical Calendar: the Russians, the Serbians, the Georgians, some in Greece, some in America, etc.

....

All said:

CHRISTOS ROZHDAIYETSYA!

SLAVA TE YEGO!

Being Eastern Orthodox myself I wish all a very merry Christmas!

Goodsport · Jan 8, 2007

Thank you, Ferret and Mycanid!

I hope you both had a very Merry Julian Christmas.

-G

Ferret · Jan 8, 2007

Could you tell me more about the calender? The Wiki description was a bit round-about and waffley. =/

BOZ · Jan 8, 2007

merry christmas indeed!

by the time you guys get around to it, i'd have figured you'd be tired of hearing everyone else talking about christmas... i know i am.

Mycanid · Jan 10, 2007

Goodsport said:
Thank you, Ferret and Mycanid!

I hope you both had a very Merry Julian Christmas.

-G

I certainly did ... and am still in the period of Sviatki!

Mycanid · Jan 10, 2007

Ferret said:
Could you tell me more about the calender? The Wiki description was a bit round-about and waffley. =/

Essentially the Julian Calendar is the yearly and seasonal calendar set up under Julius Caesar's reign. Up until the 16th c. it was used for dating everything, including the church's feast days and the like.

In the 16th c. a Pope named Gregory had the calendar revised to account for some things he perceived as problems. This calendar, known as the Gregorian Calendar, is the one that is the standard in the world nowadays. Whenever you go to a bookstore almost all the calendars are presented according to this standard.

Well, the Gregorian Calendar took some time to bring into effect throughout Europe (the Protestant countries often resisted the longest). In the countries that were Eastern Orthodox Christian they adopted the Gregorian Calendar slowly for various reasons, yet kept the Julian Calendar as the means for their dating of the Ecclesiastical feasts throughout the year.

In the 1920's or so some of the Orthodox Churches adopted the Gregorian Calendar as the standard for dating the Ecclesiastical feasts as well, and this caused quite an uproar throughout the Orthodox countries - the shockwaves of it still are felt in today. Some of the churches stayed with the Julian Calendar as the means for determining the feast days.

This is a simplified "nutshell" version of it, I guess.

Mycanid · Jan 10, 2007

BOZ said:
merry christmas indeed!

by the time you guys get around to it, i'd have figured you'd be tired of hearing everyone else talking about christmas... i know i am.

Well Boz ... you'd be surprised. Many who celebrate Julian Calendar Christmas that I have talked to actually LIKE the fact that all the hype and such is "out of the way". It helps them concentrate on the "things at hand" better, as it were.