Year 2000 celebrations.

Sisyphus · Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:22 am Post subject: Year 2000 celebrations.

Ethiopia's calendar is more than seven years behind that of the rest of the world.

In Ethiopia it is still 1999 and Ethiopians are planning to mark what they believe is the 2000 anniversary of the birth of Christ with big celebrations in September.
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Carer · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 33 Location: UK

I never thought of there being a different calendar
in other parts of the world. Wonder how come Ethiopia
is different.
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Sisyphus · Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:35 pm Post subject:

I believe the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the oldest Christian Church. Perhaps they know something that we don't.....

They also have no history of reformation or religious wars that Western Christianity went through. Perhaps theirs is the more accurate time line, I don't know.
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".... love thy neighbour as thyself." is the hardest thing I have ever done....

jtheb · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 1448 Location: second childhood

There have been caledar adjustments in the west. They probably din't take place in Ethiopia.
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Sisyphus · Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2007 8:14 am Post subject:

You may be correct J.

I just found this site that suggests Christ was born in 4BC.

http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/calfacts.htm
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".... love thy neighbour as thyself." is the hardest thing I have ever done....

jtheb · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 1448 Location: second childhood

4BC has been suggested for a long time.

There have been alterations to the calendar. I seem to remember that there were riots over the "loss of .... days" in England.

And the RC calendar was not adopted in England for some time. "We are not being told by Rome what the date is" was said by some politician or other.
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-theophilus- · Joined: 24 Sep 2006 Posts: 562

Today is the 29th May in the Orthodox calender.
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Sisyphus · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:37 pm Post subject:

-theophilus- · Joined: 24 Sep 2006 Posts: 562

Well different countries changed at different times to the western Gregorian calender, and even some parts of the Orthodox church did this in the 1920's. Those that remain, including my own parish, continue to use the Julian calender.

The whole country of Russia used the Julian calender until after the Bolsheveik revolution. But even today the church calender is Julian - which is why the Russians seemingly celebrate Christmas on the 7th Janurary. In fact, by the Julian calender, it's the 25th December - the same day that all Christians (who choose to remember this day) celebrate Christ's birth. (It's also the day I was received into the Orthodox church).

I suppose there is a similar history for other Orthodox countries like Greece, Serbia, Armenia etc. but I don't know any dates - I would guess the changes have been reasonably recent.
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