Gregorian Calendar

The Gregorian Calendar is a calendar introduced throughout Catholic Europe in 1582. It was designed by Calabrian doctor Aloyisius Lilius to correct a subtle flaw in the Julian Calendar which made the calendar slightly longer than the Earth's revolution around the Sun (though the Church continued to deny that the Earth revolved around the Sun) and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII.

Protestant and Orthodox countries resisted the implementation of the calendar and continued to observe the Julian Calendar for a time, though eventually they all adopted the Gregorian calendar, at least for secular date-keeping. The United Kingdom, for instance, adopted the Gregorian calendar throughout its empire in 1752. Russia/the Soviet Union adopted the calendar only after the October Revolution in 1917. (As a pointed example, by the Gregorian Calendar, the October Revolution took place in November.) The Russian Orthodox Church, like all Eastern Orthodox Churches, continues to use the Julian Calendar to determine the dates of its liturgical feasts.

Today the Gregorian Calendar is the official date-keeping system of every government in the world, regardless of religion. Other calendars continue to be used in many places to set the dates of various historical, cultural, and religious observances.

Gregorian Calendar in Ruled Britannia

When Spain invaded and conquered England in 1588 and made Catholicism the official state religion of that kingdom, they imposed the Gregorian Calendar by removing ten days from the month of June 1589.

In 1598, the Paschal Moon fell on the same day as the vernal equinox according to the Gregorian Calendar: a day which the Julian Calendar insisted was still winter, and thus not the Paschal Moon at all. Thus, Protestants and Catholics marked Easter on different days. In England, this forced Protestants who were concealing their identities for fear of Catholic persecutions either to violate the Catholic Lent, and thus reveal themselves; violate the Protestant Lent, and thus a tenet of their religion; or observe the grueling Lenten fast for over two straight months.