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The Byzantine calendar, also called "Creation Era of Constantinople" or "Era of the World" (Ancient Greek: Ἔτη Γενέσεως Κόσμου κατὰ Ῥωμαίους,[1] also Ἔτος Κτίσεως Κόσμου or Ἔτος Κόσμου) was the calendar used by the Eastern Orthodox Church from c. 691 to 1728 in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It was also the official calendar of the Byzantine Empire[note 1] from 988 to 1453, and of Kievan Rus' and Russia from c. 988 to 1700.
The calendar is based on the Julian calendar, except that the year started on 1 September and the year number used an Anno Mundi epoch derived from the Septuagint version of the Bible. It placed the date of creation at 5509 years before the Incarnation, and was characterized by a certain tendency which had already been a tradition among Jews and early Christians to number the years from the foundation of the world. (Latin: Annus Mundi or Ab Origine Mundi— "AM").[note 2] Its year one, the supposed date of creation, was September 1, 5509 BC to August 31, 5508 BC.
It is not known who invented the World era and when. However, the first appearance of the term is in the treatise of a certain "monk and priest", Georgios (AD 638–39), who mentions all the main variants of the "World Era" in his work.[2][3] Georgios argues that the main advantage of the World era is the common starting point of the astronomical lunar and solar cycles, and of the cycle of indictions, the usual dating system in Byzantium since the 6th century. He also already regards it as the most convenient for the Easter computus. Complex calculations of the 19-year lunar and 28-year solar cycles within this world era allowed scholars to discover the cosmic significance of certain historical dates, such as the birth of Christ or the Crucifixion.[4]
This date underwent minor revisions before being finalized in the mid-7th century, although its precursors were developed c. AD 412 (see Alexandrian Era). By the second half of the 7th century, the Creation Era was known in Western Europe, at least in Great Britain.[3][note 3] By the late 10th century around AD 988, when the era appears in use on official government records, a unified system was widely recognized across the Eastern Roman world.
The era was ultimately calculated as starting on September 1, and Jesus was thought to have been born in the year 5509 Annus Mundi (AM) – the year since the creation of the world.[5] Thus historical time was calculated from the creation, and not from Christ's birth, as in the west. The Eastern Church avoided the use of the Anno Domini system of Dionysius Exiguus, since the date of Christ's birth was debated in Constantinople as late as the 14th century. Otherwise the Creation Era was identical to the Julian Calendar except that:
The leap day of the Byzantine calendar was obtained in an identical manner to the bissextile day of the original Roman version of the Julian calendar, by doubling the sixth day before the calends of March, i.e., by doubling 24 February (numbering the days of a month from its beginning and hence the leap day of 29 February was an invention of the late Middle Ages).
The Byzantine World Era was gradually replaced in the Orthodox Church by the Christian Era, which was utilized initially by Patriarch Theophanes I Karykes in 1597, afterwards by Patriarch Cyril Lucaris in 1626, and then formally established by the Church in 1728.[6] Meanwhile, as Russia received Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, she inherited the Orthodox Calendar based on the Byzantine Era (translated into Slavonic). After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the era continued to be used by Russia, which witnessed millennialist movements in Moscow in AD 1492 (7000 AM) due to the end of the church calendar. It was only in AD 1700 that the Byzantine World Era in Russia was changed to the Julian Calendar by Peter the Great.[7] It still forms the basis of traditional Orthodox calendars up to today. September AD 2000 began the year 7509 AM.[note 5]
The earliest extant Christian writings on the age of the world according to the Biblical chronology are by Theophilus (AD 115–181), the sixth bishop of Antioch from the Apostles, in his apologetic work To Autolycus,[8] and by Julius Africanus (AD 200–245) in his Five Books of Chronology.[9] Both of these early Christian writers, following the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, determined the age of the world to have been about 5,530 years at the birth of Christ.[10]
Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder points out that the writings of the Church Fathers on this subject are of vital significance (even though he disagrees with their chronological system based on the authenticity of the Septuagint, as compared to that of the Hebrew text), in that through the Christian chronographers a window to the earlier Hellenistic biblical chronographers[note 6] is preserved:
The Hellenistic Jewish writer Demetrius the Chronographer (flourishing 221–204 BC) wrote On the Kings of Judea which dealt with biblical exegesis, mainly chronology; he computed the date of the flood and the birth of Abraham exactly as in the Septuagint, and first established the Annus Adami – Era of Adam, the antecedent of the Hebrew World Era, and of the Alexandrian and Byzantine Creation Eras.
The "Alexandrian Era" (Greek: Κόσμου ἔτη κατ’ Ἀλεξανδρεῖς ) developed in AD 412, was the precursor to the Byzantine Era. After the initial attempts by Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria and others[note 7], the Alexandrian computation of the date of creation was worked out to be 25 March 5493 BC.[12]
The Alexandrine monk Panodorus reckoned 5904 years from Adam to the year AD 412. His years began with August 29, corresponding to the First of Thoth, the Egyptian new year.[13]Annianos of Alexandria however, preferred the Annunciation style as New Year's Day, 25 March, and shifted the Panodorus era by about six months, to begin on 25 March. This created the Alexandrian Era, whose first day was the first day of the proleptic[note 8] Alexandrian civil year in progress, 29 August 5493 BC, with the ecclesiastical year beginning on 25 March 5493 BC.
Dionysius of Alexandria had earlier emphatically quoted mystical justifications for the choice of March 25 as the start of the year:
The Alexandrian Era of March 25, 5493 BC was adopted by church fathers such as Resurrection as determined by its Easter computus,[note 9] and its contradiction to the chronology of the Gospel of St John regarding the date of the Crucifixion on Friday after the Passover.[3]
A new variant of the World Era was suggested in the Chronicon Paschale, a valuable Byzantine universal chronicle of the world, composed about the year 630 AD by some representative of the Antiochian scholarly tradition.[3] It had for its basis a chronological list of events extending from the creation of Adam to the year AD 627. The chronology of the writer is based on the figures of the Bible and begins with 21 March, 5507.
For its influence on Greek Christian chronology, and also because of its wide scope, the "Chronicon Paschale" takes its place beside
19th century and earlier
20th century
21st century
Hebrew Calendar
Other Judeo-Christian eras
Principal considerations for the Byzantine calendar
To this day, traditional Orthodox Christians will use the Byzantine calculation of the World Era in conjunction with the Anno Domini (AD) year. Both dates appear on Orthodox cornerstones, ecclesiastical calendars and formal documents. The ecclesiastical new year is still observed on September 1 (or on the Gregorian Calendar's September 14 for those churches which follow the Julian Calendar). September 2011 marked the beginning of the year 7520 of this era.
The Fathers were well aware of the discrepancy of some hundreds of years between the Greek and Hebrew Old Testament chronology,[note 14] and it did not bother them; they did not quibble over years or worry that the standard calendar was precise "to the very year"; it is sufficient that what is involved is beyond any doubt a matter of some few thousands of years, involving the lifetimes of specific men, and it can in no way be interpreted as millions of years or whole ages and races of men.[43]
Currently the two dominant dates for creation that exist using the Biblical model, are about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC. These are calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The older dates of the Church Fathers in the Byzantine Era and in its precursor, the Alexandrian Era, are based on the Greek Septuagint. The later dates of Archbishop James Ussher and the Hebrew Calendar are based on the Hebrew Masoretic text.
As the Greek and Roman methods of computing time were connected with certain pagan rites and observances, Christians began at an early period to adopt the Hebrew practice of reckoning their years from the supposed period of the creation of the world.[42]
Dr. Marcus Rautman points out that the seven-day week was known throughout the ancient world. The Roman Calendar had assigned one of the planetary deities to each day of the week. The Byzantines naturally avoided using these Latin names with their pagan echoes. They began their week with the "Lord's Day" (Kyriake), followed by an orderly succession of numbered days: Deutera ("2nd"), Trite ("3rd"), Tetarte ("4th"), and Pempte ("5th"), a day of "preparation" (Paraskeve), and finally Sabatton.
In the Byzantine period the day was divided into two 12-hour cycles fixed by the rising and setting of the sun.
In addition, the traditional Jewish understanding of the creation "days" of Genesis is that they are literal as well, as virtually all the Rabbis have understood in commentaries from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic sources.[29][30]
The prophet cited by St.Hilary was the mother of the Maccabean martyrs, who said to one of her tortured sons, "I beseech you, my child, to look at heaven and earth and see everything in them, and know that God made them out of nothing; so also He made the race of man in this way"[27] (2 Maccabees 7:28).[28] This text from 2 Maccabees was the standard biblical proof text for the Christian Church in respect to creation from nothingness. We find the thesis in late Judaism, from which it passed into the Christian faith as an essential teaching.[28]
Typical of the Christian conviction on this point, St. Hilary of Poitiers also affirms that the Creation was performed ex nihilo:
The Church Fathers also consistently affirm that each species of the animate creation came into existence instantaneously, at the command of God, with its seed within itself.[24] Basil the Great for example takes this literal view in the Hexæmeron, a work consisting of nine homilies delivered by St. Basil on the cosmogony of the opening chapters of Genesis, providing one of the most detailed expositions of the six days of creation to come down to us from the early church. Basil writes in Homily I that:
Even the most mystical Fathers such as St. Isaac the Syrian accepted without question the common understanding of the Church that the world was created "more or less" in 5,500 BC. As Fr. Seraphim Rose points out:
The historian Doukas, writing c. AD 1460, makes a detailed account for the Creation Era. Although unrefined in style, the history of Doukas is both judicious and trustworthy, and it is the most valuable source for the closing years of the Byzantine empire.
Niketas Choniates (c. 1155–1215), sometimes called Acominatus, was a Byzantine Greek historian. His chief work is his History, in twenty-one books, of the period from 1118 to 1207. Again, an example of the dating method can be seen as he refers to the fall of Constantinople to the fourth crusade as follows:
John Skylitzes' (c. 1081–1118) major work is the Synopsis of Histories, which covers the reigns of the Byzantine emperors from the death of Nicephorus I in 811 to the deposition of Michael IV in 1057; it continues the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. Quoting from him as an example of the common Byzantine dating method, he refers to emperor Basil, writing that:
By the 10th century the Byzantine Era is found in the Novellas of AD 947, 962, 964, and most surely of the year AD 988, all dated in this way, as well as the Act of Patriarch Nicholaos II Chrysobergos in AD 987.[3]
We find the era also in the dating of the so-called Letter of three Patriarchs to the emperor Theophilos (April, indiction 14, 6344 = 836 AD).
In the year AD 691, we find the Creation Era in the Acts of the Quinisext Council:
In official documents
From Justinian's decree in AD 537 that all dates must include the Indiction, the unification of the theological date of creation (as yet unfinalized) with the administrative system of Indiction cycles became commonly referred to amongst Byzantine authors, to whom the indiction was the standard measurement of time.
Around AD 202 Hippolytus held that Jesus was born in the 42nd year of the reign of Augustus[note 10] and that he was born in 5500AM. In his Commentary on Daniel he did not need to establish the precise year of Jesus's birth; he is not concerned about the day of the week, the month-date, or even the year; it was sufficient for his purpose to show that Christ was born in the days of Augustus in 5500 AM.
In his Commentary on Daniel, one of his earlier writings, he proceeds to set out additional reasons for accepting the date of 5500 AM:
St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170–235) maintained on Scriptural grounds that Jesus's birth took place in 5500 AM, and held that the birth of Christ took place on a passover day, deducing that its month-date was 25 March[19] (see Alexandrian Era). He gave the following intervals:
Augustine goes on to say that the ancient Greek chronology "does not exceed the true account of the duration of the world as it is given in our documents (i.e. the Scriptures), which are truly sacred."
St. Augustine of Hippo writes in the City of God (written AD 413–426):
St. Isaac the Syrian writes in a Homily that before Christ:
St. John Chrysostom says in his Homily "On the Cross and the Thief", that Christ:
By the late 10th century, the Byzantine Era, which had become fixed at September 1 5509 BC since at least the mid-7th century (differing by 16 years from the Alexandrian date, and 2 years from the Chronicon Paschale), had become the widely accepted calendar of choice par excellence for Chalcedonian Orthodoxy.
[15] which was so important in the Middle Ages; but in respect of form it is inferior to these works.[14]
Easter, Time, Gregorian calendar, Chronology, Roman calendar
Theism, Atheism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity
Old Testament, Bible, Biblical canon, Torah, Dead Sea Scrolls
Christianity, Crucifixion of Jesus, Miracles of Jesus, Christology, Resurrection of Jesus
Greek alphabet, Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Christianity
Hindu calendar, Julian calendar, Time, Islamic calendar, Hebrew calendar
Julian calendar, Millennium, Hindu calendar, 1st Millennium, 1st Century
Time, History, Timeline, Calendar, Islamic calendar
Bible, Septuagint, Eve, Easter, Chronology
Julian calendar, Armenia, Catholicism, Christianity, Rome