A relatively recent and hotly contested innovation born of frustrated astronomers and bureaucrats, eventually enforced through papal fiat and global peer pressure
Next Tuesday: Join us as the Epiphanies Reading Series returns to New York for the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6, 2026 at a very special place: St. John’s Church in Greenpoint (stjohnsgreenpoint.com).
The theme is the Gift. Readers will include Samara and other surprise guests.
Pay what you want for our donation only tickets—but please help us!—available through the Eventbrite link:
Born and raised way below the equator here, so I know well what it is to enjoy New Year's Eve at the beach and take a plunge into the December/January warm ocean waters.
Around those lands, we know well that Christianity won and the Roman Empire is alive and well, with a new face, a new name, and a new MO. 😏
My understanding is that January first was the date when the Roman consuls entered office. It's an odd date for the year to start. I'm all for switching it back to the Vernal equinox or Annunciation.
Well written ! I resonate with the vernal equinox - embracing the moon cycles as they usher in the true shifts in nature which has undeniable cycles and rhythm. I think more people feel the disconnect and would like to sync up with nature itself for a smoother ride through life.
The verbal equinox is based on the sun, not the moon. The lunar cycle is unrelated to our day/night cycle, which is based (again) on the sun. So, there can never be a lunar calendar system that works for more than 1 lunar month (29.53 days).
I used to agree but actually completing the winter solstice makes sense as the start of the new year because it’s planetary and marks the point where we are closest to the sun whereas the Vernal Equinox marks a beginning of growth only in the northern hemisphere. For the rest of the year we will be journeying farther from our sun…. It’s not totally random.
Actually the earth is CLOSEST to the Sun (perihelion) on the 3rd January. Seasons are driven almost entirely by axial tilt, and the vernal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere occurs around September 22nd or 23rd!
“In 153 BC, however, consuls began to assume power on January 1 (the Kalends of January), which now marked the beginning of the consular or civil year as well as the calendar year--although, even when the year had begun in March, it is likely that the first crescent moon after the winter solstice, when light begins to increase over darkness, marked its natural beginning.
Why the consular year began on January 1 was due to the Second Celtiberian War. In 154 BC, there was rebellion in Spain. Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was designated consul for the following year but could not assume office until the Ides of March. Given the military situation, the Senate decreed January 1 to be the start of the new civil year, which permitted Nobilior to be inducted and depart with his legions that much sooner.”
They apparently kept that pattern until the Julian calendar was formally adopted in 45 BC.
The Orthodox Church calendar starts its year in September since the Birth of the Virgin (Sep 8 ) is thus the first feast and her Dormition (Aug 15) is the last.
This is a rich exploration of the tangled history behind January 1. Appreciate the introduction to vernal equinox and the Jalali calendar -- the kind of specifics this writer lives for. Wishing you a Happy New Year! (exclamation point, no question 😂)
Pope Gregory did not invent leap days or leap years. They were already present in the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar tweaks the leap year rules to keep the calendar in sync with the sun: every fourth year continued to be a leap year, as under the ancient Julian calendar, but years ending in zero would *not* be leap years — unless they were evenly divisible by 400. Hence 1900 was not a leap year under the Gregorian calendar, but 2000 was.
Furthermore, the Gregorian calendar had a one-time correction where they omitted 10 days from the calendar in October, 1582 to re-sync the dates of the equinoxes and solstices to what they had been originally under the flawed Julian calendar. The day after October 4, 1582 was therefore October 15, 1582.
Aside from the tweaked leap year rules and the one-time correction, the Gregorian calendar is essentially identical to the Julian calendar.
Fun fact: the Russian empire kept the Julian calendar until the communist revolution. For this reason, the October Revolution on October 25, 1917 under the Julian calendar was actually on November 7, 1917 under the Gregorian calendar. Under Lenin, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918. The Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar, which is why they celebrate Christmas on January 7th.
Leap years if year divisible by 4, unless it is a century year when only leap year if divisible by 400. So 1900 and 2100 not leap but 1920, 1940 etc and 2000 were leap years.
thank you for the explaination. it fits perfectly with my assessment—that time is not real, therefore measuring and naming it is, although handy, futile.
Britain et al. waited until 1752 to adopt the Gregorian calendar explicitly because it was Papist. Its adoption was chaotic, with 11 days omitted from September of that year (search September 1752 calendar to see this). Apparently there was unrest and perhaps riots because people thought that they had lost 11 days.
An additional point is that when the Catholic Church was in the process of linking pagan practices to church holy days to facilitate conversion, the "12 days of Christmas" span the difference between the lunar and solar year. The famous song was used to secretly teach the beliefs of the Roman Church symbolically, while masquerading as a children's song, and to this day Easter Sunday moves each year on the calendar because the still-utilized formula is that it must be the first Sunday that falls after the first full moon that follows the vernal equinox.
“ The famous song was used to secretly teach the beliefs of the Roman Church symbolically, while masquerading as a children's song”. Ridiculous. Why would the Catholic (or any Christian church) teach secretly?? This makes no sense. The song is explicitly about Christmas - the celebration of Christ’s birth. There is nothing secret about it! There is nothing specifically Catholic about it either.
Those of us living in the depths of the Southern Hemisphere see things a little differently. While March might be the time for new beginnings where you live, that would be September for us. January 1 actually works quite well coming as it does after Christmas and during the summer work and school break.
My suggestion for you those of you feeling gloomy at this time of year is...come to New Zealand for a few weeks 😄
My southern hemisphere gripe has to do with Halloween. You can’t go trick or treating in broad daylight. The shops/retail sector should move Halloween to the correct time of year, (Samhain in pagan speak), not blindly follow the northern hemisphere. There are a few of us ex northern hemisphere dwellers who think this way.
Or not celebrate it at all if its not really a local tradition. But be that as may agree and I‘d add pumpkins and pumpkin spice and a lot of the Christmas traditions too. Dressing up in a Santa suit in 30C and sipping a pumpkin latte is
Even here in South Africa and Lesotho, September , Spring , is unofficially recognised as the bwginning of a New Year by many of the African nations to align with the agricultural seasons. But yes, we more than participate in the Gregorian calendar mainly due to oir migrant labour systems, which mean most of us travel to see families during December and come back with the "I mist go to gym or start saving " resolutions in January. We jokingly call it Januworry because it is also the beginning of the school terms with money spent on registrations to universities and stationery.
Aligning the new year with the winter solstice makes more sense, emotionally and scientifically. Days get longer and warmer after the solstice, and growth that is seen in spring is initiated in late December.
Light is a great metaphor for wisdom, hence the current desire to self-improve or the early church’s decision to date the unspecified birth of Jesus on 12/25.
completely agree that the rise-and-fall vegetation-deity schema is biased toward temperate climates. there do seem to be repetitive patterns of seasonal flux in nearly every climate, whether that be wet/dry seasons or a river reliably flooding/receding, and accompanying myths. the start of the new year almost always coincided with an agricultural event (planting, growth, flood receding, etc.). I suppose it was inevitable that, in our globalized world, one calendar system would have hegemony, but how disappointing that it would be the one that has no connection to the natural world
Interesting history. Personally I celebrate the Vernal Equinox because spring is full of joy. I also celebrate the Winter solstice because I then see one more minute of sunlight each day, and that brings me out of my doldrums.
But new beginnings can happen at any time. Let’s not hem ourselves in by any calendar. At any moment we can review our habits and apply ourselves for personal growth.
The Jewish calendar still is a lunar calendar. The new year actually starts in spring. Although Rosh Hoshana is in September, my fellowship group follows a spring new year.
Actually, the Jewish calendar is a solilunar calendar. It has a 19-year cycle in which there are seven years in which an intercalation occurs: every two or three years, this calendar adds a leap month in late winter / early spring to ensure that the spring holidays occur in the spring, and that resets the rest of the holidays in that calendar system as well.
agreed! that's a whole separate post (obviously there were a lot of global calendars and regions I neglected here...). I think my main beef with this New Year's is that all of this happened in the northern hemisphere - there were already people in the northern hemisphere celebrating the new year on the vernal equinox, but this arbitrary date was imposed because of Roman administrative reasons, not something in the natural world.
Fascinating history of what I knew to be the Christianisation of Pagan celebrations. That the three darkest month would belong to death could also aid our own death preparation- or give us now a sabbatical reprieve from the crazy modern life!
Next Tuesday: Join us as the Epiphanies Reading Series returns to New York for the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6, 2026 at a very special place: St. John’s Church in Greenpoint (stjohnsgreenpoint.com).
The theme is the Gift. Readers will include Samara and other surprise guests.
Pay what you want for our donation only tickets—but please help us!—available through the Eventbrite link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/epiphanies-the-gift-tickets-1979485356989?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl
People who live in the Northern Hemisphere always seem to utterly obliterate the fact that in the other half of the world January is in the summer.
Born and raised way below the equator here, so I know well what it is to enjoy New Year's Eve at the beach and take a plunge into the December/January warm ocean waters.
Around those lands, we know well that Christianity won and the Roman Empire is alive and well, with a new face, a new name, and a new MO. 😏
honestly! not to mention those of us near the equator, where it's pretty much a spring/summer blend all year long
My understanding is that January first was the date when the Roman consuls entered office. It's an odd date for the year to start. I'm all for switching it back to the Vernal equinox or Annunciation.
yes, exactly! it was a purely administrative, arbitrary date. glad you're on board with my secret calendar maneuvers...
Well written ! I resonate with the vernal equinox - embracing the moon cycles as they usher in the true shifts in nature which has undeniable cycles and rhythm. I think more people feel the disconnect and would like to sync up with nature itself for a smoother ride through life.
The verbal equinox is based on the sun, not the moon. The lunar cycle is unrelated to our day/night cycle, which is based (again) on the sun. So, there can never be a lunar calendar system that works for more than 1 lunar month (29.53 days).
I used to agree but actually completing the winter solstice makes sense as the start of the new year because it’s planetary and marks the point where we are closest to the sun whereas the Vernal Equinox marks a beginning of growth only in the northern hemisphere. For the rest of the year we will be journeying farther from our sun…. It’s not totally random.
Actually the earth is CLOSEST to the Sun (perihelion) on the 3rd January. Seasons are driven almost entirely by axial tilt, and the vernal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere occurs around September 22nd or 23rd!
According to https://penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/consuls.html#:~:text=In%20153%20BC%2C%20however%2C%20consuls,his%20legions%20that%20much%20sooner, the shift from March to January was due to a rebellion against Roman rule in Spain in 154 BC.
“In 153 BC, however, consuls began to assume power on January 1 (the Kalends of January), which now marked the beginning of the consular or civil year as well as the calendar year--although, even when the year had begun in March, it is likely that the first crescent moon after the winter solstice, when light begins to increase over darkness, marked its natural beginning.
Why the consular year began on January 1 was due to the Second Celtiberian War. In 154 BC, there was rebellion in Spain. Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was designated consul for the following year but could not assume office until the Ides of March. Given the military situation, the Senate decreed January 1 to be the start of the new civil year, which permitted Nobilior to be inducted and depart with his legions that much sooner.”
They apparently kept that pattern until the Julian calendar was formally adopted in 45 BC.
Oh, interesting. It gets better and better! Thanks.
The Orthodox Church calendar starts its year in September since the Birth of the Virgin (Sep 8 ) is thus the first feast and her Dormition (Aug 15) is the last.
Wow. I keep learning more & more…
This is a rich exploration of the tangled history behind January 1. Appreciate the introduction to vernal equinox and the Jalali calendar -- the kind of specifics this writer lives for. Wishing you a Happy New Year! (exclamation point, no question 😂)
Liked a lot by another JC
Pope Gregory did not invent leap days or leap years. They were already present in the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar tweaks the leap year rules to keep the calendar in sync with the sun: every fourth year continued to be a leap year, as under the ancient Julian calendar, but years ending in zero would *not* be leap years — unless they were evenly divisible by 400. Hence 1900 was not a leap year under the Gregorian calendar, but 2000 was.
Furthermore, the Gregorian calendar had a one-time correction where they omitted 10 days from the calendar in October, 1582 to re-sync the dates of the equinoxes and solstices to what they had been originally under the flawed Julian calendar. The day after October 4, 1582 was therefore October 15, 1582.
Aside from the tweaked leap year rules and the one-time correction, the Gregorian calendar is essentially identical to the Julian calendar.
Fun fact: the Russian empire kept the Julian calendar until the communist revolution. For this reason, the October Revolution on October 25, 1917 under the Julian calendar was actually on November 7, 1917 under the Gregorian calendar. Under Lenin, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918. The Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar, which is why they celebrate Christmas on January 7th.
Leap years if year divisible by 4, unless it is a century year when only leap year if divisible by 400. So 1900 and 2100 not leap but 1920, 1940 etc and 2000 were leap years.
Yes, very intetesting.
thank you for the explaination. it fits perfectly with my assessment—that time is not real, therefore measuring and naming it is, although handy, futile.
Britain et al. waited until 1752 to adopt the Gregorian calendar explicitly because it was Papist. Its adoption was chaotic, with 11 days omitted from September of that year (search September 1752 calendar to see this). Apparently there was unrest and perhaps riots because people thought that they had lost 11 days.
And this is why British tax year runs April 6th to April 5th. Used to be March 25th until switch to Gregorian made it later.
An additional point is that when the Catholic Church was in the process of linking pagan practices to church holy days to facilitate conversion, the "12 days of Christmas" span the difference between the lunar and solar year. The famous song was used to secretly teach the beliefs of the Roman Church symbolically, while masquerading as a children's song, and to this day Easter Sunday moves each year on the calendar because the still-utilized formula is that it must be the first Sunday that falls after the first full moon that follows the vernal equinox.
“ The famous song was used to secretly teach the beliefs of the Roman Church symbolically, while masquerading as a children's song”. Ridiculous. Why would the Catholic (or any Christian church) teach secretly?? This makes no sense. The song is explicitly about Christmas - the celebration of Christ’s birth. There is nothing secret about it! There is nothing specifically Catholic about it either.
Those of us living in the depths of the Southern Hemisphere see things a little differently. While March might be the time for new beginnings where you live, that would be September for us. January 1 actually works quite well coming as it does after Christmas and during the summer work and school break.
My suggestion for you those of you feeling gloomy at this time of year is...come to New Zealand for a few weeks 😄
My southern hemisphere gripe has to do with Halloween. You can’t go trick or treating in broad daylight. The shops/retail sector should move Halloween to the correct time of year, (Samhain in pagan speak), not blindly follow the northern hemisphere. There are a few of us ex northern hemisphere dwellers who think this way.
Or not celebrate it at all if its not really a local tradition. But be that as may agree and I‘d add pumpkins and pumpkin spice and a lot of the Christmas traditions too. Dressing up in a Santa suit in 30C and sipping a pumpkin latte is
Oops was trying to edit the comment and hit publish. Was going to say those things definitely feel a bit strange when its not aligned with the season.
Even here in South Africa and Lesotho, September , Spring , is unofficially recognised as the bwginning of a New Year by many of the African nations to align with the agricultural seasons. But yes, we more than participate in the Gregorian calendar mainly due to oir migrant labour systems, which mean most of us travel to see families during December and come back with the "I mist go to gym or start saving " resolutions in January. We jokingly call it Januworry because it is also the beginning of the school terms with money spent on registrations to universities and stationery.
I enjoyed this article very much.
thank you so much for this perspective and information - so fascinating, thank you for sharing. (love 'Januworry' too)
Aligning the new year with the winter solstice makes more sense, emotionally and scientifically. Days get longer and warmer after the solstice, and growth that is seen in spring is initiated in late December.
Light is a great metaphor for wisdom, hence the current desire to self-improve or the early church’s decision to date the unspecified birth of Jesus on 12/25.
Wow, finally I don't have to feel bad about not getting New Year's Eve, thanks!!
I was wondering about non-temperate zones though, I imagine people there experience the year differently from the rise-and-fall-kind of wheel?
Happy New Year :) !
completely agree that the rise-and-fall vegetation-deity schema is biased toward temperate climates. there do seem to be repetitive patterns of seasonal flux in nearly every climate, whether that be wet/dry seasons or a river reliably flooding/receding, and accompanying myths. the start of the new year almost always coincided with an agricultural event (planting, growth, flood receding, etc.). I suppose it was inevitable that, in our globalized world, one calendar system would have hegemony, but how disappointing that it would be the one that has no connection to the natural world
Great post, Samara! I knew very little about the calendar or its history, but as always this was very well written, very knowledgeable, and wonderful
thank you so much, Will!
Interesting history. Personally I celebrate the Vernal Equinox because spring is full of joy. I also celebrate the Winter solstice because I then see one more minute of sunlight each day, and that brings me out of my doldrums.
But new beginnings can happen at any time. Let’s not hem ourselves in by any calendar. At any moment we can review our habits and apply ourselves for personal growth.
The Jewish calendar still is a lunar calendar. The new year actually starts in spring. Although Rosh Hoshana is in September, my fellowship group follows a spring new year.
Actually, the Jewish calendar is a solilunar calendar. It has a 19-year cycle in which there are seven years in which an intercalation occurs: every two or three years, this calendar adds a leap month in late winter / early spring to ensure that the spring holidays occur in the spring, and that resets the rest of the holidays in that calendar system as well.
Great post! However I must say ignoring the southern hemisphere altogether feels off to myself and (likely) to many others. Happy new year!
agreed! that's a whole separate post (obviously there were a lot of global calendars and regions I neglected here...). I think my main beef with this New Year's is that all of this happened in the northern hemisphere - there were already people in the northern hemisphere celebrating the new year on the vernal equinox, but this arbitrary date was imposed because of Roman administrative reasons, not something in the natural world.
Fascinating history of what I knew to be the Christianisation of Pagan celebrations. That the three darkest month would belong to death could also aid our own death preparation- or give us now a sabbatical reprieve from the crazy modern life!