Damocles sword reform calendar

Today our calendar from the astronomical point of view is accurate enough and, in essence, does not require any changes. And yet, he has been talking about reform for decades. At the same time, they do not mean changing the calendar type, or introducing new leap years accounting methods. No, we are talking only about regrouping the days in the year in order to equalize the length of months, quarters, half-year, to introduce such an order of accounts of the days in the year at which the new year would be on the same day of the week, for example, on Sunday.

In fact, our calendar months have a duration of 28, 29, 30 and 31 days, the length of the quarter varies from 90 to 92 days, and the first half is three to four days shorter than the second. As a result, the work of planning and financial bodies becomes more complicated. It is also inconvenient that a week starts in one month or a quarter, and ends in another. Since the year contains 365 days, it ends with the same day from which it began, and each new year begins with another day. Therefore, each state spends large sums annually on printing new calendars.

Over the past 160 years, various calendar reform projects have been put forward. In 1923, the League of Nations established an ad hoc committee on calendar reform. After the Second World War, this issue was transferred to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

What are the projects of the calendar?

Projects of calendars. Although there are a lot of projects, there are only two choices: a 13-month calendar or a 12-month calendar. The first of these was proposed in 1849 by the French philosopher Auguste Comte( 1798-1857).In this calendar, every month has 28 days and consists of four weeks, each month begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. One day of the year has no name and is inserted after Saturday of the last, XIII month, before the New Year, as an additional day of rest. In a leap year, the same day of rest is also inserted after Saturday of the sixth month.

However, the 13-month calendar would have a number of significant drawbacks, if only because dividing the year into quarters would have to be divided into months. Therefore, the main attention is paid to another version of the calendar, proposed in 1888 by the French astronomer Gustave Armelin. According to this project, the calendar year consists of 12 months and is divided into 4 quarters for 91 days in each. The first month of the quarter has 31 days, the other two - 30. The first number of the year and quarter falls on Sunday, each quarter ends on Saturday and has 13 weeks. In each month 26 working days. In a simple year, one day, as the International Day of Peace and Friendship of Peoples, is inserted after December 30, in a leap year, the holiday of a leap year is inserted after June 30( table).

Table. World calendar

Weekdays	January April July October	February May August November	March June September December
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday	1 8 15 22 29 2 9 16 23 30 3 10 17 24 31 April 11 18 25 - 5 12 19 26 - 6 13 20 27 - 7 14 21 28 -	- 5 12 19 26 - 6 13 20 27 - 7 14 21 28 1 8 15 22 29 2 9 16 23 30 3 10 17 24 - 4 11 18 25 -	- 310 17 24 -4 11 18 25 - 5 12 19 23 - 6 13 20 27 -7 14 21 28 1 8 15 22 29 2 9 16 23 30 * **

* DLeap of a leap year after June 30.** Day of Peace and Friendship of Peoples is the annual International holiday after December 30.

It is convenient to enter the Armelin calendar from the year in which January 1 falls on a Sunday.

The draft of this calendar was approved by the Soviet Union, India, France, Yugoslavia and a number of other states. However, the General Assembly of the United Nations postponed all its final consideration and approval. At the present time, this activity under the auspices of the United Nations has stopped altogether.

The position of the church. With the introduction of a new calendar, there will not be a continuous change of the days of the week when going from one year to another. This fact worries some representatives of religious cults. After all, although Muslims celebrate Friday, Jews - Saturday, and Christians Sunday, everyone has a common - certain cycles of holidays and posts closely related to the days of the week, with their continuous account "at the turn" of two adjacent years.

It is pertinent to note that the attitude of the Christian church towards a possible reform of the calendar is gradually changing. Thus, the Second Vatican Council on December 4, 1963, by a majority of 2,057 votes against 4, stated the following: "1.The Council does not object to setting the day of Easter on any particular Sunday on the Gregorian calendar. .. 2. The council also does not object to the intentions to introduce an eternal calendar in civil society. "True, it is further explained that the church does not object only to such timeless calendars "that preserve and protect the seven-day week with Sunday without introducing any days beyond the weeks, so that the sequence of weeks is not violated unless there are unexpectedly very substantial reasons about whichThe apostolic throne will have to have a judgment. "

Yes, this peculiar hypnosis "astrological wreck" is strong, which is a seven-day week! We need the courage that the members of the French National Convention showed in 1793, their determination to once and for all to break this continuous course of weeks through the years and centuries. ..

Of course, if the UN General Assembly adopts a positive decision on the matter of calendar reform,then the church, apparently, will have to put up with it. It is in anticipation of this situation that the church press is now actively discussing the question: what did the Nicene Council decide and what did not oblige in the matter of the Easter celebration. Apparently, the leading representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church agree that there was no question of obligatory celebration of Easter in the first after the spring full moon Sunday at any of the church councils. According to L. Voronov, professor of the Leningrad Theological Academy, "... the Council of Nicaea did not introduce. .. a general, indispensable and perpetual use of any strictly defined Paschalia as a unified system for calculating and determining the day of the celebration of Easter", since "the Alexandrian Easter eggs themselves are unlikelyIt was conceived as "eternal and non-existent."And more: "The assertion of the Master, as if, according to the canons, the Christian Easter always follows the Jewish one, it is fundamentally wrong."This is already the words of another specialist on the calendar problem of the professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, DP Ogitsky, who( however, he has many predecessors in the 14th-19th centuries) suggested fixing the Easter holiday on Sunday, which falls on April 12-18.Art. It is appropriate therefore to pay attention to the following: in the calendar Armelina February will have not 28, but 30 days. And this means that the date of the vernal equinox will move to March 18-19, so Sunday, April 15, may be an acceptable day for fixing the Easter day in this World Calendar, and it is possible that the opposition to the church the introduction of a new calendar could soon cease.

In conclusion, we note that a few years ago in our country the All-Union Astronomical and Geodetic Society undertook a special study of the issue of calendar reform. As a result, it was noted that, from the point of view of state bodies, the reform of the current calendar does not seem to be an actual problem. Therefore, our scientific and popular science magazines are not involved in the publication of new projects of world and national calendars, and the astronomical and geodetic society does not review or discuss them,