In what year did the Christian calendar take effect

Question

The Religion and Spirituality category seems to believe it took effect with the birth of Jesus.

Answer 1

Then they do not know their history or how uninfluenced the Western world was by Christianity during the early years.

The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today.  It was officially adopted, replacing the Julian calendar, on February 24, 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.  It was devised by Aloysius Lilius (c. 1510 – 1576).  In some locations, it has taken over 400 years to "take effect."

The Julian system had a year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added to February every four years.  The first day of the year was set at January 1 (Ianuarius 1).

For most of the time period that the Julian calendar was used, the year had no date number, but named it after the two consuls who took office during that year.  Only Roman historians dated years with numbers starting from the founding of the city (of Rome), ab urbe condita (AUC).

Dionysius Exiguus proposed the system of Anno Domini in the year we now call 525 AD.  Prior to this there were no dates labeled BC or BCE.  Dionysius probably made a mistake in calculating the year Jesus was born (which by our current calendar would have been in 7 BC).

It took centuries for this new dating system to be adapted throughout Europe.  In Turkey, the conversion to the Gregorian calendar was introduced 1 Jan 1927.

Answer 2

No it didn't. However, seeing that this is the same category that believes that Jesus was Christian, that Jews can believe that the Messiah has come, and that Orthodox Judaism still practices animal sacrifice, I've grown not to expect too much. Richard's answer sums it up nicely, and just to clarify to those people who have no sense at all, Jesus was Jewish, there are no such things as Messianic Jews, and and Judaism certainly does not kill lambs on a rock. How can the Christian calendar have taken effect with the birth of Jesus when Christianity did not start until about 200 years after Jesus' death. Maybe they meant that the numeric system of the calendar took place when Jesus was born, i.e, i is 2008 years since Jesus was born, but the calendar did not take effect until centuries after that.

Answer 3

The Anno Domini system was devised in 525 by a monk called Dominus Exiguus.  It didn't come into common use in Western Europe until the 8th century.  Before that, the Romans used a calendar date system relating to the consuls who were in power (the months of the year and number of days and so forth had been in use since the time of Julius Caesar).

Answer 4

Richard summed it up well.

Yes , you must not forget the Julian calendar that was later replaced by the Gregorian. Many Orthodox churches still use the original Julian clendar (some Orthodox have adopted the new reformed Julian calendar).

""The Religion and Spirituality category seems to believe it took effect with the birth of Jesus."""

Lol. Well , that's ignorance , what can I say...

Answer 5

To add to Ruchard's excellent reply:

The calendar change wasn't always smooth. In Great Britian the change meant that 2 Sep 1752 was followed by 14 Sep 1752. While that was somewhat disruptive, there were riots at the end of the month when people were charged a full month's rent. The cry was "Give us back our 12 days."

Answer 6

Every year. Until they wrote it down.