Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-10-20
Thirteen Days Lost
To Millions of Christians

"On october IL some millions OIL
Christians, members of the Greek
Orthodox church, are going to lose
thirteen perfectly good days. By so
doing they are also surrendering a
heritage of their ancestors dating
back to 46 B. C. and correcting a
mistake made by julius Caesar"
says a bulletin from the Washington,
ID. c. headquarters of the National
Geographic Society.
"If the whole Christian World
were required to sacrifice thirteen
days, the banking business would be
disrupted, courts would be flooded
with contract cases.. questions of in
urance and interest would irritate
people for years. Discussion and ar
gument attendant to the change
would make the debates arising over
daylight saving appear as trivial as
discussions of whether the world is
round or fiat. In fact when England,
in 1850 corrected the same calendar
error the Greek Orthodox church is
10Y correcting and lost II days,
mobs thronged through the streets
of London shouting, Give us back
our eleven days.
Julius Caesar, dominant figure of
Roman civilization must however,
be credited with good intentions. 1t
is not his fault that the millions of
members of the Greek Orthodox
church must mark time to get in
step with the world. Along about
AZ B. c., due to politics and manip-
ulation, the Roman official calendar
had mid-winter coming in the fall.
This reused great Caesars indigna-
ton so he engaged Sosigenes, an
Egyptian, to make a new model
which was brought out in 46 b. c..
Sosignes did a fairly scientific piece
of work considering the astronomi-
cal instruments available in his day.
but he missed calculating the right
length of the year by IL minutes
and IA seconds, a small difference,
indeed, but 1t amounts to a day in
1873 years.
Caesar ruled with a strong hand
and he saw to it that his new cal
endar vas used all over the Roman
Empire. Because of the error, how
ever. the e%quinoxes kept slipping
back until in the century 1900 they
fell on the eleventh of the month
instead of the twenty-ffth where
Caesar put them. Pope Gregory de-
cided this could not be, so he once
more revised the calendar, dropping
out an additional new year in every
century except those whose first two
figures are divisable by four.
Thus 1900 was not a leap year,
but 1000 will be. But woe to us.
even Pope Gregory was not right,
since he missed the exact length of
the year by 26 seconds which will
make us n day ahead of time by
the year 1925. This must be COR
rected, but it is not exactly an i'm
mediate problem. In May 1928. pre-
lates of the Greek Orthodox Church.
meeting in ConstantinopIe, decided
TO accept the Gregorian calendar.
Only the Ruthenians in the Car
pathian mountains and the Ukraine
still cling to the Julien calendar. All
other Christian peoples use the
Gregorian standard.
Back of the cold figures of the
calendar on the wall are some very
human stories. Few people realize
h a the Christian world annually
celebrates the within of an ancient
Roman Emperor. Our modern in
difference to the honor he insisted
upon must hurt his feelings terribly
IL his ghost is in tune with the world.
caesar. it seems, had an orderly
mind, and planned to alternate the
long and short months, the first.
third, fifth. seventh. ninth and elev-
enth months having 81 days with
the others. February excepted, hav-
Ing 80. But when Augustus. for
whom August is named, heard that
ms month was to be a day shorter
than July, the month named for JUL
us Caesar, be felt insulted and as a
result the alienation originally plan
ned was readjusted. One day ac-
cordingly was taken from February
ana given to August; and in order
ina three months of thirty-one DAYS
might not come together, September
ana November were reduced to
thirty days, and thirty-one was given
TO october and December.
Betore Caesar, the Roman calen-
uar had been intrusted to the nom
tiIts Tor correction, but for reasons
OF their own and often for political
reasons' they shortened or length
ened a month. Through Ignorance
n deliberate changes the Roman
calendar had finally become three
months ahead of sun time. When
the famous conqueror had his cal
endar prepared he ordered that the
three months should be inserted n
that current year so the new calen-