Leap Year! What does that have to do with Orthodoxy?

The solar year is currently 365.2422 days long. This is known as a tropical year. This number can vary slightly.

God has ordained our world to have days, weeks and years. In its current fallen state, we discover the solar year does not exactly align with any man-made calendar. The decimal creates a challenge.

To overcome the challenge of partial days being experienced each year, additional days are added to the calendar every four years. This is known as a leap day.

The following calendars use the following method to account for the partial days.

Julian Calendar Leap Year An extra day was added to the calendar every four years.

Gregorian Calendar Leap Year If the year is divisible by four, it’s a leap year. But if the year can be divided by 100 as well as four, it’s not a leap year. However, if the year is divisible by 400, it is a leap year.

Revised Julian Calendar Leap Year Adopted a leap year rule that differs from that of the Gregorian calendar: Years evenly divisible by four are leap years except that years evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900, in which case they are leap years. This means that the two calendars will first differ in 2800, which will be a leap year in the Gregorian Calendar, but a common year in the Revised Julian Calendar.

The Orthodox Church calendar is the Julian Calendar. The purpose of the calendar is to create worship unity for all Christians throughout the world. As students of church history, it is important we understand the calendar reforms. The leap days are the source of the calendar reforms. The different leap years for the various calendars can be viewed in the following Excel document and table. Keep in mind leap years around the first century BC and AD may be disputed.