CHRISTIAN

CALENDAR
Julius Caesar – developed the Julian calendar Pope Gregory XIII– developed the Christian calendar

Introduction
 INTRODUCTORY:
 The Christian calendar, which is also known as
Gregorian calendar or Western calendar, is mostly
used by people around the world today.

 Christian calendar was first introduced in 1582 by

Pope Gregory XIII. Hence, the word ‘Gregorian’ was
named after him.

 The calendar is developed as a way to correct the

Julian calendar.
Julian calendar
Christian calendar

Origin
Many years back, Julian calendar was used
instead of the Christian calendar.
Julian calendar:
 There was a minor error and this causes the Julian calendar to be
inaccurate

 Due to a calculation error, leap years occurred once in every three

years during the first 36 years after the Julian calendar was
introduced.

 Augustus then corrected the error by changing leap years to occur

every four years but many extra days had been added to the Julian
years
 The Julian calendar was longer than actual solar years

 When many centuries had past, the Julian calendar became

more and more inaccurate as the days were lagging behind

 People then noticed seasons being appeared earlier in the

year

 The date of Easter was also argued throughout the early

Christian history
Christian / Gregorian / Western calendar:
 Aloysius Lilius was the first to suggest the changes to the
Julian calendar

 Then, Pope Gregory XIII adopted the Christian calendar

in agreement with the instructions from the Council of
Trent

 The Christian calendar was decided on 24 February 1582

 The Christian year was taken as 365 ¼ days

 When ¼ of the extra day was added every four year,
one extra day will be formed

 Hence, leap years occurred every four years which

followed the Julian calendar custom

 The extra day was moved to the 29th of February

 Ten days were taken out from the Julian calendar

such that the following Thursday, 4th October 1982
would be Friday, 15th October so as to bring the
Julian calendar back in line

 From then onwards, the reformed calendar, called as

the Christian calendar, would be used
As the Christian calendar was an
innovation of the Catholic Church, the
church accepted the calendar
immediately.

While for the others, they took a long

time accepting it.
Features of the
Christian
calendar
 1) One year is divided into twelve months. The
twelve months are:
 January (31 days on first month)

 February (28/29 (in leap years) days in second month)

 March (31 days in third month)

 April (30 days in forth month)

 May (31 days in fifth month)

 June (30 days in sixth month)

 July (31 days in seventh month)

 August (31 days in eighth month)

 September (30 days in ninth month)

 October (31 days in tenth month)

 November (30 days in eleventh month)

 December (31 days in twelfth month)

For every first day of the months, they are always
numbered as 1. The names of the months are
usually named after people who had contributed
to the development of the Christian calendar.
Example, August was named after Augustus who
had corrected the error of the leap years.
2) One month
usually has an
average of four
weeks.
3) One week is then divided
into seven days
 Sunday (first day of the week)

 Monday (second day of the week)

 Tuesday (third day of the week)

 Wednesday (fourth day of the week)

 Thursday (fifth day of the week)

 Friday (sixth day of the week)

 Saturday (last day of the week)

The days are usually
named after stars and
planets in the solar
system. Example,
Sunday is named after
Sun which is a star
Advantages &
Limitations
ADVANTAGES:

 More accurate than Julian calendar

 Is very organized

 It is widely-known

 Very precise, accurate and reliable

LIMITATIONS:

 Christian calendar is not perfect

 The Christian year is slower than the solar

year by around 30 seconds every year

 Christian calendar will be 3 days slower

than the solar year in every 10, 000 years
Reflection
I feel that people should be aware of the origins of the calendar because
our forefathers had went through thick and thin to develop better
calendars for us. We should not take things for granted. We should
appreciate our forefathers’ works because if it were not for their effort,
better calendars would not be developed and I think we will still have
problems with our dates. Calendars are not easy to be created. They
take up time, patience and effort for them to be developed. It is not only
the effort of one person but is the effort of many people who
contributes to the development of calendars. Calculations of the time
taken of the solar year will also be needed to be made and I feel that
this was the most challenging part for our forefathers. They did not
give up in finding the answer and in the end they still managed to get it.
Lastly, I think that calendars can never be perfect as there will still be
some limitations.
 
Sources:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
 http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/node3.html
 http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/religionandthought/a/introgr
egcalend.htm
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week-day_names
 http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/gregorian.html
 http://www.abdicate.net/cal.aspx
 http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/gterms/g/122207Gregorian.ht
m
 http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/gregorian.htm
 Google Images
Done By: Rose Ong Chew Ling (12)
Class: 1R7