About "old" and "new" calendar

Debates periodically arise with some people questioning the Church’s adherence to the "old" Julian calendar. Its proponents usually refer to tradition, the experience of the Fathers of the Church, and the deep-rootedness of Church life reflected precisely in this calendar. Important as they are, such explanations do not look entirely convincing even to church-going people, especially new converts. The proponents often argue that, from the astronomical standpoint, the “modern era” Gregorian calendar is more accurate, even though we all know that perfectly accurate calendars simply do not exist.

Even in Soviet times, in his excellent article about the reconstruction of the ancient Russian calendar that our ancestors lived by, the scholar A. N. Zelinsky included a special insert with detailed comments. It was used to determine the Paschalion: the days of Easter celebration for each upcoming year, and the entire cycle of movable feasts. This calendar looked like a circle, akin to the Sun of Christ's Pascha, sanctifying time itself, not only the present and future but also the past. Just a quick glance at this calendar is enough to see that we are not talking about an "old" versus a "new" calendar, but about a fundamentally different calendar. Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) writes well about this:

"Debates are ongoing about changing the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one. The Julian calendar was created in the Roman Empire half a century before the birth of Christ the Savior. As for the Gregorian calendar, it is a 'child of the modern era' – born in a Catholic environment, its creation  overseen by Pope Gregory XIII, who was himself an astronomer. The Julian calendar is cyclical, while the Gregorian is linear. The Church adopted the Julian calendar not as a utilitarian instrument of measuring time, but as a means of reflecting the internal rhythms of its spiritual, religious life and the chronology of events in Sacred History. In this sense, it has all the advantages over the Gregorian one.

Secularization looks at the external, orienting itself toward seasons – climatic periods, toward external accuracy relative to the solar year. A similar phenomenon occurs when we compare an icon and a painting: for example, an icon lacks perspective, the volumes and anatomical proportions are altered. Therefore, people often think that the ancient icon is imperfect, regarding its special symbolic language as ignorance of artistic techniques of depiction. Only later do they begin to understand that it is precisely the icon that carries enormous information and power – something a painting simply cannot reflect, even though on the outside, it appears to be more accurate.

Therefore, one can look at these two calendar styles as an icon and a painting, where the Julian calendar is an icon, and the Gregorian – a painting of time, although time is an indefinable substance.

Because of this orientation toward the external, we tend to lose what is most essential and important for us. Although we realize full well that science has its own means, its own goals and its own material objects for study – we acknowledge this and do not intrude into the realm of science – yet at the same time, religion has its own values, its own spiritual world, its own means of expression" (Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin). Christianity and Modernism. Moscow: 2010, pp. 285-287).

One can add to this the important fact that in the past, the very life and daily routine of an Orthodox person and family were marked by Sacred History, which for them did not end but continued, lived nearby, and called them to eternity.

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