Questioning the Calendar

By Monk John

Source: The Shepherd: An Orthodox Christian Pastoral Magazine, Vol. XLVI, No. 7, March 2026, pp. 6-12, and Vol. XLVI, No. 8, April 2026, pp. 6-11.

The German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad under Metropolitan Mark publishes a bimonthly periodical in German and Russian. For over 45 years it has provided edifying spiritual reading along with diocesan news. Almost every issue includes an instalment of the commentary on the New Testament by St. Justin (Popovich) of Chelie, translated from Serbian. The first issue for 2025 includes St. Justin’s commentary on the Gospel of John 2:12-3:21 (pp. 12-17). In the same issue (pp. 21-29) we find a report delivered by Archimandrite Justin (Rauer) to a seminar held in Munich in December, 2024, under the title ‘About the Calendar Question’. This report raises a number of questions which require clarification. The following notes are offered here to the reader with this good intention.

1. The author writes: ‘According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke the Mystical Supper was the Passover meal. But according to the Gospel of John, Jesus was crucified on the day of the feast of Pascha’ [p. 22b & 25b].

All of the New Testament references to the Mystical Supper state that our Lord took ‘ἄρτος’, that is leavened bread – not the unleavened azymes [ἄζυμα] prescribed by the Old Testament law for the Passover (Mt. 26:26; Mk, 14:22; Lk. 22:19, 24: 30; Jn. 13:18; I Cor. 11:23).

The Synoptic Gospels tell us the Mystical Supper was held on the day of unleavened bread [ἀζύμων] when the Passover [Πάσχα] was sacrificed (Mk. 14:1; Lk. 22:1; Mt. 26:17; Mk. 14:12; Lk. 22:7). On the day before the Passover meal all leavened food was removed, since only unleavened bread [ἄζυμα] was permitted for the seven days of the Passover; so it became known as the day or feast of unleavened bread.

The Biblical day begins in the evening. Good Friday began on the evening of Great Thursday, when our Lord and His disciples gathered in the upper room for the Mystical Supper. Our Saviour was betrayed, tried and convicted by the Sanhedrin during the night; in the morning He was brought before Pontius Pilate and condemned to crucifixion.

The Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world gave Himself over to be sacrificed on the Cross when the Paschal lambs were being slain in the Temple. In the evening, He was laid to rest in the tomb, as the Jews gathered in their homes for the Passover meal. This is the Great Sabbath (Jn 19:31); ‘this is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, on which the Only-Begotten Son of God rested from all His works’ (Doxology at Praises, Matins, Great Saturday).

In the Synaxarion for Matins of Great Thursday in the Greek Triodion we read:

Since the Hebrew Pascha was to be sacrificed on Friday, and the typos [the foreshadowing of the Old Testament law] was to give way to the Truth, that is for our Pascha Christ to be sacrificed, our Lord Jesus Christ, acting in advance, as the divine Fathers say, celebrated it with the Disciples on the evening of Thursday. For this evening and all of Friday are viewed as one day by the Hebrews…Note, that this was not the Passover meal of the law; for it is a supper, with reclining and leavened bread and sauce, whereas there [for the Old Testament Passover] everything was roasted on fire and with unleavened bread…The persons who brought Him, it says, did not enter the Prætorium so as not to be defiled, so that they could eat the Passover. So one might conclude that perhaps the High Priests and Pharisees acted then contrary to the Law, postponing the Passover, as the divine Chrysostom says, which they were supposed to eat that night, but which they put off in order to put Christ to death. When they were supposed to eat it is shown by Christ by the supper, which He ate at night, revealing the Mystery of what is more perfect. For, as has been stated, the typos [the foreshadowing of the Old Testament law] was to be replaced by the Truth. Now John says that all this occurred on Thursday and Thursday night before the feast of the Passover. For this reason we celebrate, commemorating these fearsome and unspeakable works and deeds with fear and trembling.

The reference to St. John Chrysostom in the Synaxarion is somewhat misleading, so we add his commentary on the relevant verse [Jn. 18:28]:

But what is this, ‘That they might eat the Passover’? For He had done this on the first day of unleavened bread. Either he calls the whole feast ‘the Passover,’ or means, that they were then keeping the Passover, while He had delivered it to His followers one day sooner, reserving His own Sacrifice for the Preparation-day [Friday], when also of old the Passover was celebrated. But they, though they had taken up arms, which was unlawful, and were shedding blood, are scrupulous about the place, and bring forth Pilate to them (Homily 83 on the Gospel of John).

2. The author writes [p.29a]: ‘The day “of the victory of the sun over darkness” [the winter solstice], according to observations at that time, came on December 25. It is interesting, how the Emperor Constantine gradually comes to Christianity by identifying Sol Invictus with Christ.’

Perhaps it should be pointed out that St. Constantine’s vision of the Cross bore the message: ‘In this sign conquer.’ The Holy Cross became the standard carried before for his army; it was under the sign of the Cross that they won their stunning victories over the champions of idolatry.

The Orthodox Church reveres St. Constantine the Great as an equal to the Apostles; he declared Christianity a ‘religio licita’, granted the Church a privileged position in the Empire, laid the foundations of the Constantinian era and in order to bring peace and unity to the Church, summoned the First Holy OEcumenical Council in Nicæa in 325.

3. While the official Acts of this Council have been lost and much concerning the Council’s consideration of this question remains unclear, the author quotes [pp. 23b-24a] one of the sources preserved by early Church historians relating the Council’s decision concerning the celebration of Holy Pascha, the ‘Letter of the Emperor Constantine from Nicæa to the Bishops who were absent from the Council’:

The question relative to the day for the celebration of Pascha was also discussed, and it was universally decided that it is good for all Christians, in whatever land they may dwell, to celebrate the feast of salvation, the most holy Pascha on one and the same day [emphasis ours]. For what can be more beautiful and triumphant than when the feast, through which we receive the hope of immortality, is celebrated by all with one accord and in the same manner? … First of all, it was found to be particularly unworthy to celebrate this, the holiest of all festivals, by following the practice of the Jews.

After discussing other related matters, the author concludes: ‘Paschal Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon (more precisely, after the 14th day of the lunar month), after March 21. So, the earliest date for Pascha is March 22 and the latest date is April 25’ [p.27a].

Two points must be clarified for an accurate designation of the day for the celebration of Holy Pascha according to the Paschalion.

4. First, the question of astronomical phenomena.

The author writes: ‘The dates of the full moon and the March equinox used for the dating of Pascha are ecclesiastical dates, and not astronomical…Moreover, astronomical dates change with time, but the Church fixed this occasion on March 21 in its calendar’ [p.27a].

A specific calendar date, March 21 according to the Julian Calendar – not constantly changing astronomical phenomena – sets the dates between which the Sunday of Holy Pascha can occur and divides the successive years of the Paschalion.

The Old Testament Law sets the date of the Passover at the time of the barley harvest in Palestine, when a sheaf of the first fruits were offered, while at Pentecost, the first fruits of the wheat harvest were offered (Lev. 23:10-11, 15-17). There is no reference to the vernal equinox, for which no word exists in Biblical Hebrew.

In the fourteenth century it was already observed in Constantinople that March 21 was no longer the date of the vernal equinox. The question of ‘correcting’ the calendar met the reply that the purpose of the calendar is to provide for the celebration of the feasts by Christians everywhere ‘on one and the same day’.

Now there are Orthodox churches on all the continents. The Nativity of Christ is celebrated by the Aleuts in freezing darkness, awaiting the end of the long arctic night; in Antarctica, on the windswept ice in the middle of the antarctic day; in Congo, where there is virtually no difference in the length of days and nights throughout the year, the celebration comes in the steamy heat at the height of the rainy season.

Those who remain faithful to the Church calendar continue to celebrate everywhere ‘on one and the same day’.

5. Next and more important, according to the Paschalion, Holy Pascha is celebrated a) on the first Sunday, b) after March 21 according to the traditional [Julian] calendar, c) after the Nomikon Pascha.

The author devotes 2½ columns [pp. 27b-28b] to ‘The Jewish Calendar’, even though he has already quoted St. Constantine’s declaration rejecting: ‘the practice of the Jews...’ However, he omits St. Constantine’s explanation which follows:

For we have it in our power, by rejecting their custom, to prolong for the ages to come the observance of a more valid order, which we have observed from the very time of the [Lord’s] Passion to the present.

The Nomikon Pascha is not mentioned anywhere in the article, but this is exactly the ‘more valid order, which we have observed from the very time of the [Lord’s] Passion to the present’.

The Orthodox Church’s Eternal Paschalion, with the Great Indiction, developed by the Church of Alexandria, employs an ancient, traditional method to determine the date of the Nomikon Pascha, i.e. the Old Testament Passover. This involves both the solar calendar (dates of the month) and the lunar calendar (days of the week).

In his ‘Report’ to the Commission on the Question of the Calendar Reform, in St. Petersburg, May 1899, Prof. V.V. Bolotov of the Theological Academy explains that the day of Holy Pascha was designated by the Holy Fathers just as it had been designated in the days of Jesus Christ, without the errors which characterized Jewish practice in the third and fourth centuries. We might add that the Commission decided to retain the Julian Calendar in Russia.

This explains the date of Holy Pascha for the year 2026.

The astronomical full moon of March 20/April 2 comes on Thursday before Lazarus Saturday, the date of Pesach for contemporary Judaism.

For the Gregorian calendar, the date of the vernal equinox, March 8/21, divides the years; March 20/April 2 is the date of the first full moon, and the first Sunday is March 23/April 5, the Sunday before Holy Pascha.

According to the Orthodox Paschalion, Holy Pascha is to be celebrated a) on the first Sunday, b) after March 21, c) after the Nomikon Pascha, which in 2026 comes on March 24/April 6 (Great Monday). Holy Pascha is to be celebrated on March 30/April 12, the second Sunday after the astronomical full moon.

Someone might object that because of the discrepancy accumulated over the centuries between ecclesiastical dates and the phases of the moon, the ‘outdated’ Paschalion sets the date for Holy Pascha a week too late.

Without going into technical details, a spot check with the tables of the moon published by Apostolike Diakonia of the Church of Greece in the Mega Orologion, the astronomical dates appear to coincide with the ecclesiastical dates used in the Paschalion for setting the date of the Nomikon Pascha.

The astronomical tables were prepared by the Observatory in Athens, with the note that the indicated dates may be one day off. So it seems the discrepancy with the phases of the moon accumulated over seventeen centuries amounts to less than one day.

In the following year, 2027, Holy Pascha is to be celebrated on April 19/May 2, which is a) the first Sunday, b) after March 21, c) after the Nomikon Pascha, which in 2027 comes on April 12/25 (Palm Sunday). The Jewish Pesach, with the full moon, comes on April 9/22. The Gregorian calendar places the celebration on March 15/28, the first Sunday after the preceding full moon, well ahead of everybody.

6. The problems confronted for the adoption of the universal date of Holy Pascha in Syria are presented and reference is made to the First Canon of the Synod of Antioch in 341 [p.25], which severely condemns those ‘who presume to set aside the decree of the holy and great Synod which was assembled at Nicæa in the presence of the pious Emperor Constantine, beloved of God, concerning the holy and salutary feast of Pascha.’

To his discussion of the problems that arose with the Roman Church [p.26a], it might be added that the discrepancies were resolved when St. Leo the Great adopted the Alexandrian Paschalion in 454. The author notes that when confusing situations arose later, they were usually resolved by applying the Alexandrian Paschalion. It seems the Celts, out in the fog on the very edge of the world, were among the last to accept the common Paschalion.

The author concludes this discussion by noting: ‘However, the Church endeavoured “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3)’, and adds: ‘choosing peace by making compromises, although without a complete agreement on the question’. With these words he glosses over the all of the following 7th point.

7. The common Paschalion continued to be observed by the Church of Rome after its separation from the Orthodox Church up until the calendar reform by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Gregorian calendar was immediately recognized as a useless chronological device. It is to the credit of Vatican diplomats that it has not only been accepted by the Protestants but has also become the universal civil calendar.

The motives of the counter-reformation pontiff for reforming the calendar are open to question. He served a Te Deum in gratitude for the St. Bartholemew Day massacre in France and sponsored the Unia of Brest. The Uniates, incidentally, were permitted to retain the Orthodox calendar and Paschalion; submission to the Pope was more important than celebrating feasts on the same day with him.

A series of Orthodox Councils promptly condemned the Gregorian calendar. The Orthodox Churches remained faithful to ‘the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’. In 1902-04, as innovationism began to make itself felt, all of the local Orthodox Churches replied to an inquiry from the Ecumenical Patriarchate unanimously rejecting any reform of the Church calendar.

In the aftermath of World War I worldly forces alien to the Church made their impact felt in the life of the Church: the Bolsheviks in Russia, Western politics and Attaturk in Constantinople. Protestant ideas underlying ecumenism are embraced by the Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1920 To the Christian Churches of the Whole World, Orthodox and heterodox, which proposes the adoption of a common calendar as a first step towards a union of ‘churches’.

In 1923 Patriarch Meletios IV (Metaxakis), after his un-canonical election, presided over the openly innovationist and ecumenist Pan-Orthodox Congress, consisting of 6 bishops, one archimandrite and a layman. At the same time the council of the renovationist ‘Living Church’ in Soviet Russia deposed and defrocked the imprisoned Patriarch Saint Tikhon. Both gatherings proposed innovations in the life of the Church.

In 1924, the hierarchies of Constantinople, Cyprus, Greece and Romania arbitrarily imposed the ‘corrected’ calendar on their faithful.

All the conniving of the Bolsheviks and innovationists did not succeed in forcing the Orthodox Church of Russia to violate Patriarch Tikhon’s decree (November, 1923) which set aside changes in the Church’s calendar.

The innovationists of the Phanarion recognized the renovationist ‘Living Church’ as the official Russian Church, and urged Metropolitan Sergius and his Temporary Synod to join them. Only after World War II, when the ‘Living Church’, along with the Uniates in the Soviet Union, had been absorbed by the Moscow Patriarchate, did Constantinople, along with the other Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates, enter into communion with Patriarch Alexis I. Jerusalem, the Mother of Churches, and the Churches of Serbia and Georgia likewise have remained faithful to the traditional Orthodox Church calendar.

In 1948, Archbishop St. Seraphim (Sobolev) delivered an address to the Pan-Orthodox Conference in Moscow, boycotted by Constantinople. He presents the history of the calendar reform, its violations of traditional norms and consistent rejection by the Orthodox Church from the 16th to the 20th century. He also cites the astronomical charts and scientific data compiled by Prof. Bolotov and other Russian scholars which totally discredit the Gregorian calendar and demonstrate the validity of the traditional Church calendar and Paschalion.

We might add, that thirty years later the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. published A.N. Zelinsky’s exposition of the traditional Church calendar and Paschalion as an unsurpassed achievement of chronological science; he com-pares the Gregorian reform to an amateur smearing paint on a masterpiece of art. St. Seraphim concludes with the appeal:

We must remain firmly united with these Orthodox Churches, without any compromise, keeping the old calendar in the life of our church, following the terms of the Canons, which must remain unshaken, for they are one of the foundations for the existence of our Orthodox Church.

The purpose of the calendar, as noted above, is to provide for the celebration of the feasts by Orthodox Christians everywhere ‘on one and the same day’. The specifically stated purpose of the calendar reform uses this definition (ὅρος) of the OEcumenical Council in Nicæa to express exactly the opposite: celebrating the great feasts together with the those who have separated themselves from the Orthodox Church, and seeking reconciliation with them. This goal has been openly and consistently pursued by the ecumenists ever since.

The hierarchies of the local Churches compromised in order to preserve at least an appearance of unity. Persons with spiritual authority, who disagreed – and whose protests fell on deaf ears – by compromising keep the people in obedience to the hierarchy; this leaves the innovationists free to continue trying to reconciliate Light with darkness.

Among the faithful of the local Churches that adopted the calendar reform, however, there were those whose conscience did not permit them to make such compromises.

As in former periods of strife over heresy, those in high positions, after taking it upon themselves to introduce un-canonical innovations, also assumed the role of prosecutor, judge and executioner for those who resisted them. They offer a ‘unia’: continue observing the Church calendar but remain in communion with the new calendar hierarchy and leave them free to pursue the path they have chosen. Submission to their ‘canonical’ authority is more important than celebrating the feasts with them ‘on one and the same day’.

The ‘Old Calendarists’ were defrocked, excommunicated and declared ‘schismatics’, ‘outside the Church’. Wherever possible they were subjected to brutal suppression by the secular authorities. Their witness, officially ignored or dismissed as ignorant fanaticism, has been sealed with Martyrs’ blood.

Strengthened by the appearance of the Holy Cross on the Feast of its Exaltation in Athens, September 14/27, 1925, and many other miracles and signs, those who chose to remain faithful to the traditions of the Church endured. They were guided by the confessor Hierarchs St. Chrysostomos of Florina in Greece and St. Glykerios in Romania, the disciples of St. Seraphim (Sobolev) in Bulgaria, and many other confessor-pastors with charismatic gifts.

The extremist policies of the innovationists, however, made their mark, and those in resistance to innovationist ecumenism suffer from internal divisions. We see the same phenomenon in the past: e.g., the schism among those opposing Arianism in Antioch, dissension among those in the resistance to Iconoclasm recorded in the letters of St. Theodore the Studite and the life of St. Methodius of Constantinople.

The innovationist ecumenists, acting as representatives of the local Churches, continue to sign documents, participate in organisations, dialogues, demonstrations and “prayers” with the heterodox and other religions. Their official statements and actions give the impression that Orthodox Christianity is simply one of the many traditions in the Pantheon of world religions.

In the name of unity and peace, they made their spectacle in Kolymvari, Crete (June 2016), are preparing a ‘common Paschalion’ with the Papacy, and with increasing boldness claim the Ecumenical Patriarch is first without equal in Orthodoxy.

At the same time open breaches have opened between the hierarchies of the local Churches, and Metropolitan Onufry with his faithful in the Ukraine have been cut off and subjected to suppression. Already back in 1977, St. Justin (Popovich) of Chelie issued his appeal ‘to convoke a truly ecumenical council’, which could and should consider the ‘question of ecumenism’. He continues:

This, properly speaking, is an ecclesiological question concerning the Church as theandric unity and organism, a unity and organism that are placed in doubt by contemporary ecumenical syncretism. It is also related to the question of man, for whom the nihilism of contemporary, and especially atheistic, ideologies has dug a grave without hope of resurrection.

The New Martyr St. Cyril of Kazan replied to Metropolitan Sergius’ ‘canonical injunctions’ that the life of the Church in our days is not being guided by the Holy Canons. Situations arise in which the conscience of a faithful believer does not permit him to commune with a hierarchy he clearly sees going astray. He awaits the judgement of a competent Church council or other providential events to manifest God’s Will. There are many edifying examples in the lives of the Saints and Church history, and the Holy Canons provide for such situations.

For a thoroughly documented account of the above, see the book ‘One Hundred Years Since the Calendar Reform (1924- 2024)’ by Metropolitan Clement of the GOC of Larissa and Platamon. The English translation, however, does not include the notes for the sources quoted and the bibliography in the Greek original.

Now what are we poor, miserable sinners supposed to do? Because of our sins, the Light of Christ is not visible in our lives for others to see. Without passing judgement on anyone, striving to keep our conscience pure in harmony with the Gospels and Apostolic Tradition, with pain of heart and abundant tears, are we not called to beseech the Lord and Head of the Church to resolve the scandals which so sorely afflict Her?

8. ‘What to do?’ is the title of the concluding section of the article, in which a different solution is recommended.

We noted above the author’s affirmation that ‘the Church has always regarded the determination of the date of Pascha as a question of church discipline and not astronomical science’ [p.26b].

But now he points to the growing accumulation over past and future centuries of the discrepancy between the calendar and astronomical events and warns us:

It is easy to realize that one day we will celebrate Pascha in the summer, in the fall or even in the winter, although in the Northern hemisphere (that is Jerusalem) it must be a spring celebration.... So as not to let our calendar turn into total nonsense, at some point the calendar must be reformed. And if this is already clear, we must ask ourselves, why not do this as soon as possible?

He also points out that the ‘mixed calendar’ – that is the civil calendar with the Orthodox Paschalion – currently followed by some Orthodox communities faces the same prospect. Eventually their Pascha will come on the same day as Christmas.

Our author recommends eliminating February 29 in a series of leap years in order to keep the calendar in harmony with the seasons of the year [pp. 28-29]. By adopting the device used by the Gregorian Calendar every 400 years, the traditional Julian calendar and Paschalion would be retained without the shock of erasing a block of days.

His proposal gives rise to a number of important questions which are not easy to answer.

a. In keeping with the divine revelation given to the Prophet Moses the first Passover was celebrated in Egypt on the evening of the 14th day of the first month, when the Angel of death passed over the homes which were marked by the blood of the Paschal lamb (Ex. 12:1-2, 6 & 14). Was this the day of the full moon or the 14th day after the visible appearance of the new moon?

b. The solar year has more days than twelve lunar months. Epact, the number of days from the new moon to the first day of the first calendar month, is an essential factor used in the Paschalion for designating the date of the Nomikon Pascha. The arbitrary elimination of calendar days shortens the solar year, disrupts the consecutive flow of the cycles of solar and lunar years and changes epact. This is one of the major defects of the Gregorian calendar. This would disrupt the established formula for determining the date of the Nomikon Pascha, introducing confusion into the Paschalion, which now absorbs a variety of variables, including discrepancies that creep in over the centuries. The way in which the Holy Fathers ordained celebrating Holy Pascha has a validity that survives over the ages. Do we think we can do better?

c. In Jerusalem, at least for a few more centuries, Pascha will continue to be celebrated in the Spring, and we pray the Holy Fire will continue to appear at the Lord’s Sepulchre on Great Saturday. So, at this moment, how urgent is the need to solve problems foreseen by calculating hundreds of years in advance?

d. Moreover, in our endeavours ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’, is it really up to us to tamper with such matters?

e. Finally, a practical question: given the current situation in the Orthodox Church, where and how and by whom is any effective change in the traditional calendar to be undertaken?

This having been said, we can wait to see whether or not this proposal is inspired by God as a heavenly blessing to bring peace to a grievously troubled Church on earth.