Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: kolassa@ysidro.uchicago.edu (Kolassa) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Christmas Message-ID: Date: 4 Sep 89 09:56:31 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Department of Statistics, University of Chicago Lines: 19 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article rock@sun.com (Bill Petro) writes: >Agreement on the date of December 25 (in the West at least) >did not occur until the early 5th century. The Eastern church's >celebration is on January 6. Actually, both dates have the same root. December 25 on the Julian calendar is close to January 6 in the Gregorian calendar. Most Eastern Christians now use the Gregorian calendar and have been using it since the 1920's; however some, including some Eastern rite Catholocs, still use the Julian calendar. A discussion of the calendar debate can be found in Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church. I think the above is correct; however, the number of days by which the Julian and Gregorian calendars disagree should be increasing. Does anyone know why the Jan 6 date is fixed, or know that my explanation is wrong? John Kolassa