Old Calendarism: A Problem Interpreting Tradition?

Within contemporary Orthodoxy there is a disagreement about which calendar to use. It is a potentially serious disagreement, as it has led to breaches in communion between Churches.

It is an interesting problem for Catholics to reflect on, as it raises questions about the interpretation of Tradition. This means that it may raise questions relevant to resolving disagreements between the Vatican and Traditionalists, which often revolve around the correct interpretation of Tradition.

1. Who Are the Old Calendarists

The Old Calendarists (also known as True Orthodoxy) are a group of Orthodox Christians who refused to accept a new (Revised Julian) calendar in 1924. They insisted on remaining with the Old (Julian) Calendar, which Christians have used since the time of Christ.

Differing Orthodox Churches have confronted the issue of the calendar at varying times since 1924. Mapping Old Calendarism is complicated, because Old Calendarist communities have arisen, merged, and separated in a variety of places, at differing dates.

Some estimates of Old Calendarism claim that there are around 1 million adherents, out of a total of up to 300 million Orthodox believers. It is difficult to be precise as there are subtle disagreements between Old Calendarists, so not all those following the Old Calendar would want to be associated with each other under a single label.

Many Old Calendarists consider Christians who have adopted New Calendars to be in theological error. There are disagreements amongst Old Calendarists about whether that error is schism or heresy. At the more extreme end of the Old Calendarist spectrum, there are those who insist that the only valid sacraments within Christianity are to be found in Old Calendarist Churches.

Old Calendarism is a complex phenomenon, which it is difficult to describe accurately without a discussion of a considerable number of different communities (see Orthodoxwiki on Old Calendarism). However, one thing that all Old Calendarists have in common is a preference for the old Julian Calendar.

2. The Julian Calendar

In order to correct errors in ancient Roman calendars, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar. It takes the solar year as the definition of a year. What that means is complicated. If we use heliocentric terminology, then roughly it means that a year is the time it takes the Earth to complete an orbit of the Sun.

The Julian Calendar assumes that a year is 365.25 days. To make up for the quarter days the calendar adds leap years, typically every 4 years. However, the Julian assumption about the length of a year is inaccurate. The real length of a year is 365.2425 days. So, adding a leap year every 4 years will mean that the Julian Calendar (mistakenly) gains an extra day every 128 years. At this point in time, there is a difference of around 13 days between the Julian Calendar and the “correct” date.

Over long periods of time, the Julian Calendar gradually diverges from the seasons. So, for example, Christians have traditionally celebrated Christmas on December 25^th. But, due to calendar slippage, the Orthodox Christmas now occurs in what the rest of the world thinks of as January.  As the Julian Calendar will continue to slip further away, in around 20,000 years’ time Christmas will be occurring in the summer.

3. The Gregorian Calendar

The central celebration of Christianity is the Paschal mystery, celebrated annually at Easter. Its date moves, so it must be calculated each year, and that calculation typically involves the March Equinox (19–21^st March). But how can the Church accurately calculate it if the Julian Calendar has (mistakenly) gained days, and so it is no longer accurately recording the March Equinox?

Arguments like this persuaded Pope Gregory XIII that the Julian Calendar needed correcting. So, in 1582 a new Gregorian Calendar was produced. It corrected the annual calculation of days by removing some leap years. It also corrected the drift in the previous Julian Calendar by removing the 11 days which it had gained up to that point.

Catholic countries followed the pope and adopted the new calendar. Protestant countries were slower to adopt the new calendar. England did not do so until 1751. Even then its adoption was marred by riots, as people thought that 11 days were being stolen from the duration of their lives. Russia didn’t adopt the new calendar until the Communist Revolution in the twentieth century.

An immediate implication of the new calendar can be seen with the feast of St. Teresa of Avila. Her Wikipedia entry records her death as occurring on either the 4^th or 15^th of October. How can there be an 11 day “confusion” about what day she died on? The differing dates is not a confusion. It arises due to the 11-day calendar correction, which occurred at that point in time.

The Gregorian Calendar is essentially the one used by the modern world. In reality the mathematics of the Calendar is very complicated. And there have been multiple variants, revisions, and reforms. So there is a risk of oversimplifying when calendar change is thought of as just moving from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.

When Orthodox Churches updated their calendar in 1924, many went from the old Julian Calendar to a new Revised Julian Calendar. As that new calendar is largely indistinguishable from the Gregorian Calendar, then the change can be thought of as moving from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar. But in terms of precision, describing it that way is inaccurate.

4. The Error of New Calendarists

When several Orthodox Churches met to change their calendar in 1924, there was initially little clerical resistance. Most of the objections arose from the laity, who were disquieted by the impact of the calendar changes on ancient liturgical feasts and fasts.

Gradually, over time, clergy joined the Old Calendarist movement. And then arguments began to be deployed to reject New Calendarism.

There are a wide range of differing arguments, which have been explained as constituting the wrongness of changing the calendar. Some cite sixteenth-century Orthodox condemnations of Pope Gregory’s calendar reforms as already settling the matter (see “The Calendar Question” by Fr. Basile Sakkas).

Some cite Canon 7 of the 7^th Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II, 787 A.D.) which says that anyone changing Tradition should be deposed. But that claim is made in the context of changing traditions about icons. Does it really apply to changing a calendar?

Some of the arguments against calendar reform seem to be a slippery slope argument. Calendar change can be viewed as a Liberal, Modernist attempt to promote the heresy of Ecumenism, by pushing calendar alignment as a first step towards doctrinal alignment. This means that Old Calendarism can be seen as, in effect, a rejection of the heresy of Ecumenism (see Fr. Basil Grigoriates, “Anti-Patristic: The Stance of the Zealot Old Calendarists”).

Some cite the third-century Quartodeciman heresy as relevant. That was essentially a disagreement about how to calculate Easter. Some Old Calendarists believe that it established the principle that no one can change a calendar to introduce disunity into the Church’s dates of its celebrations (see Fr. Maximus Marretta, “Why the True Orthodox Are Truly Orthodox”).

And still others cite events like the miraculous apparition of a Cross in the night sky over Athens in 1925 as proof of the rightness of the Old Calendarist position.

Old Calendarism is complicated. There are many subtle differences and divisions amongst those who subscribe to it. And they appeal to a wide range of different arguments and factors as relevant to justifying a rejection of the New Calendar.

5. New Calendarism vs. Old Calendarism?

What is an Orthodox Christian to make of the arguments between New and Old Calendarists? Both sides involve sincere religiously committed people, who are absolutely convinced of the rightness of their positions.

Ultimately, the various arguments and counterarguments do not seem to admit of simple resolution. Old and New Calendarist arguments seem no closer to agreement, even though it is almost a hundred years since the issues arose.

As an intellectual resolution of the arguments seems so difficult to achieve, some critics think that Old Calendarism is really an emotional disagreement, rather than an intellectual one. The New Calendar drives changes to the liturgy. People do not like a changed liturgy, so their arguments against the New Calendar are an attempt to rationalize what is really an emotional reaction.

Maybe that is true, maybe it is false. But dismissing Old Calendarism as just an emotional reaction does nothing to try to heal what is a very real division within Orthodoxy.

What is clear from Old Calendarist literature is that they are convinced that the Church does not have the authority to implement a change to its calendar. Regardless of whether people are brought to that insight by emotions or arguments, the fact remains that the old calendar was used by the apostles and by the Church for almost two thousand years. Does the Church have the authority to change such an ancient apostolic tradition?

6. Tradition vs. Custom

The issue at the heart of Old Calendarism is the question of whether specific ancient church practices are really expressions of authoritative Tradition (which the Church does not have the power to change), or whether they are merely expressions of old customs (which can be changed by the Church).

These issues arise in the Scriptures themselves. Is everything in the Bible a formal “teaching” (like creation occurring in seven calendar days). Or are some expressions in the Bible “carrying” ideas and using them (through metaphors), without formally teaching a point? So, the question arises: Does the Bible teach that the world was made in 7 days of 24 hours each, or doesn’t it? Christians disagree on how to answer that question because they interpret the Bible differently. The problem of distinguishing in the Bible between what is “teaching” and what is “carrying” is part of the problem of Biblical interpretation.

Less well appreciated is the fact that the same problem arises within Tradition. People can cite canons and councils from Church history, but their claims still must be interpreted. The repetition of words or actions does not necessarily constitute the “teaching” of authoritative Tradition, as it may be just a “carrying” of ideas, without formally endorsing them.

Distinguishing between the teaching of Tradition and the carrying of custom was at the heart of the Church’s reflection on Antisemitism at Vatican II. It asked whether the repetition of Antisemitism by representatives of the Church constituted the teaching of Tradition or the carrying of custom? Vatican II’s repudiation of Antisemitism answers that question, and shows that unless a church has a way of distinguishing between Tradition and custom, then it may find itself unable to resolve questions about its Tradition(s).

(See also “Traditionism: Are Scripture and Tradition Enough?”)

7. Conclusion

Orthodoxy is still grappling with the issues raised by Old Calendarism. The issues do not arise within Catholicism because Pope Gregory XIII settled the specific matter of the Calendar in 1582.

But other questions about Tradition, and its interpretation, do arise within Catholicism; especially since Vatican II (1965). It raises the question of whether the Old Calendarist split within Orthodoxy is comparable, at least to some extent, to the Traditionalist split within Catholicism?

On the surface, the substance of the issues and the detail of the disagreements are so different as to be utterly incomparable. But is there a similarity in the underlying assumptions of both Old Calendarism and Traditionalism? Both reject their mainstream Church’s interpretation of what is authoritative within the received Tradition. Clearly they argue, and represent their positions, in very different ways; appealing to very different authorities to do so. But perhaps the similarity of their rejection of change raises an interesting question about whether they might have more in common than might be initially thought?