Various attempts were made by the ancients to reconcile the month, which originally depended upon the changes of the moon, with the tropical year; however, a satisfactory solution was not possible, and the calendars of civilized nations now disregard the moon entirely.

The Mohammedan nations, however, still use a lunar calendar with a year of twelve lunar months, which alternately contain 355 and 356 days. According to their methods of reckoning, the same month falls in different seasons, and their calendar gains one year on ours every thirty-three years.

The Julian calendar, which was established 45 B. C. [circa] by Julius Caesar, disregarded all consideration of the moon and adopted 365¼ days as the true length of the year. Caesar decreed that every fourth year should contain 366 days, and transferred the beginning of the year from March 1 to January 1.

The Julian calendar is still used generally in Russia and by the Greek [Orthodox] church.

Another kind of calendar is the Gregorian calendar. The true length of the tropical year is not 365¼ days, but 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45.5 seconds--a difference of 11 minutes, 14.5 seconds by which the Julian year is too long. This amounts to a little more than three days in four hundred years, and consequently the date of the vernal equinox in Pope Gregory's time had fallen back to March 11 instead of occurring on March 21 as it did at the Council of Nice in the year 325 A. D. The pope, therefore, decreed the calendar should be corrected by dropping ten days, so that the day following October 4, 1582 should be called October 15 instead of October 5 and, also, that in the future only the century years should be leap years because they were divisible by 400. Thus 1700, 1800, 1900, etc. are not leap years, while 1600, 2000, 2400, etc. are. The change was made in every country except Russia and the Ukraine.

From the information given you can determine the origin of both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Read it through carefully and try to understand who originated and later adopted the Gregorian calendar and when it was discovered that the Julian calendar was not accurate.

Why is it that the Ukrainians have to be one of the two nations which use this inaccurate calendar? Think of a student coming to school three and four weeks after Easter and asking if he may have the following Monday off to go to church, because his Easter is the following Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. No student is proud to say that, but it happens quite often. Our parents have given up hope of ever seeing the Ukraine put on an equal cultural level with other countries by our adoption of the calendar that is used the world over. Let us show them that our hope has not failed, and that we are striving to have the Ukrainians adopt the calendar that is being used in all countries.