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212
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBRB, 1024
A FIXED EASTER AND THE REFORM OF THE CHRISTIAN CALENDAR.
BY SIR RICHARD C. TEMPLE, Br.
Introductory. TAS Journal has taken so large a part in settling Indian Chronology that all matters relating to the Calendar are of interest to its readers. I therefore make no further apology for discussing here the subject of the reform of the Christian Calendar which is involved in a fixed Faster; especially as now that the Great European War is over this is becoming again of public concern.
I will consider it from four points of view :
(1) a Lunar-Solar Calendar with Fixed Easter! (2) & Solar Calendar with a Fixed Easter; (3) the Existing Solar Calendar with a Fixed Easter ; - --
(4) the Existing Solar Calendar with a Fixed Easter and Interoalary days.
The last point is that which strikes me personally as the most practical and the most to be desired, though each of the other three has many points to recommend it.
A Lunar-Solar Calendar with Mixed kastor. I have had sent me by Fr. Gabriel Nahapetian of the Mechitarist (Armenian) Congrega. tion on the Island of San Lazzaro, Venice, a pamphlet of 24 pp. entitled Two Invariable and Universal Calendars and Fixed Easter with 12 and 13 montha. The object of the pamphlet is not only to show how a Fixed Easter could be conveniently arrived at, but also to prove that the systems which have been brought forward in England and America are in reality copies of that originated by the Meohitarist monks of Venice.
The preface to the Reader of the pamphlet sets forth that when Pope Pius X brought up the quelltion of & Fixed Easter in his - Encyclical Divino afflatu in 1912. the Moohitarist Congregation almost simultaneously produced a proposal for a Wized Calendar with 12 months in three Italian Papers or Reviews in Rome and Venioe, and that this proposal was considered at a Congress in Liege in 1914, but was dropped on account of the Great War. In 1913 & Fixed Calendar with 13 months was issued by the Armenian Prees at San Lazzaro (Venice). On the oth October, 1912, Fr. Gabriel Nahapetian had audience with the Pope, who encouraged the Mechitarists in their plan. Subsequently the plan seems to have been adopted by a journalist, Ernst von Heove, with a tight modification, which did not affect the principle, in an article entitled The Germans and a Fixed Easter. This plagiarised plan was, I take it, that which was promulgated in England and America.
A Lunar-Solar Calendar. Leaving aside, however, the above point and also the interesting historical and similar observations made by Fr. Gabriel Nahapetian, I propose to take the Mechitarist plan into consideration ; especially as there are signs of some such idea being brought before the British Parliament by fixing Easter at the nearest Sunday to the 15th April of the present Christian Calendar. That would divide the year more equably than is now possible, as regards tho fall of publio holidays, but would leave all other irregularities as they now are. But the Mechitarist plan of 13 months, while making many things much more simple for future generations than does the present Calender, would very much apeet the year as regards those who have become habituated to the present system from their early childhood. However, the plan has so much in its favour that it appears to be well worth while to consider it seriously.
