Happy New Year?

When did January 1 become New Year’s Day? Today, listen as Stephen Nichols traces the history of the calendar, exploring how church traditions and historical events shaped the observance of the new year.

Usually we say Happy New Year with an exclamation point, but this episode I've put a question mark because the new year is a little elusive as you study over history. First, we've got to go back to the time of the Romans and back to the institution of the Julian Calendar. Of course, this is Julius Caesar, and he instituted January 1 as the beginning of the new year and as the beginning of his new calendar. That was 45 B.C. But over the centuries, especially as Rome became more and more christianized, and we have the Holy Roman Empire, and we have Christendom, Christians weren't too wild about starting the year on January 1st because there was no significant religious holiday associated with it. And also the Julian calendar was slightly off. It had miscalculated the length of a year. And so, Pope Gregory XIII made an adjustment to the Julian Calendar, and this had to do not only with the Julian calendar being off, but also with the shifting dates of Easter.

He did this in 1582. And yes, if you're paying attention, this is the 16th century, and so you'd think the popes might be paying more attention to the Reformation than the calendar, but nevertheless, that's what Gregory was doing. In fact, discussions of adjusting the calendar actually began at, of all places, the Council of Trent in the 1560s, which was convened of course to respond to Luther and the other reformers and the Protestant Reformation, but they needed to make adjustments to the calendars. Well, as you can imagine, protestants were suspicious about this Gregorian calendar and this new calendar, and some of them just opted out of it. In fact, England sort of was doing its own thing for quite a while. Back in 1155, and so from 1155 all the way until 1752, for England, March 25 was actually the start of the legal year. The new year was March 25. It was called Lady Day, which was shortened from Our Lady’s Day. And in the church calendar, that is the day of the annunciation, the time that the angels came to announce to Mary that she would bear the Messiah and that his name would be Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.

Well, in 1750, by act of parliament, England moved New Year from March 25 to January 1st, and that act of parliament also was issued to all his majesty's dominions. So the American colonies followed suit, and believe it or not, January, February and March 1 to 24 of 1751 technically doesn't exist because we went from December, 1750 to January 1st, 1751. And you'll remember 1750 started on March 25.

Well, if you are confused, all I can say to you is here are three things from church history to help you celebrate this new year on January 1st, 2025. On January 1, 1484 Zwingli is born. Of course, he goes on to be that fiery reformer at Zurich. On January 1st, 1802, Thomas Jefferson, sitting as president of these United States, wrote his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association with that interesting phrase in it about the separation of church and state. And then a sad day in church history, on January 1st, 1937, we have the death of J. Gresham Machen. Well, there it is, New Year's Day, which sometimes through history actually had a question mark by it. Notwithstanding, allow me to wish you and yours a very happy New Year's ahead, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.