Ethiopia celebrates its Millennium

As the Ethiopian Orthodox Church inherited its calendar from the Coptic Church, which retains the old Egyptian system whereby the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each plus one additional month of five days (six days in leap years), Ethiopian dates therefore, fall some seven or eight years behind western dates and have done so since early Christian times. For this reason Ethiopia has just celebrated the end of the second millennium during a series of ceremonies in Addis Ababa on 26-27 September 2007. 

His Holiness Patriarch Paulos welcomed a number of distinguished Church leaders to Ethiopia, among whom was the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomeos I and the  Catholicos-designate of the East (the Malankara Orthodox Church), H.E. Paulose Mar Milithios Metropolitan. They participated in the public ceremonies of the feast of the Holy Cross, held in the main square of Addis Ababa with the participation of thousands of faithful. On 26 September, an international peace conference was convened in the African headquarters of the United Nations. Around 500 religious and lay participants attended the conference. The conference addressed such urgent matters as the overcoming of violence, the cessation of wars, the non-discriminated delivery of health care, the establishment of social justice and the preservation and protection of nature.  

 

Each Ethiopian year is dedicated to one of the four Evangelists according to the cycle:Matthew, Mark, Luke andJohn. The year of St. Luke is Leap Year, and therefore always has six days in the thirteenth month of the Ethiopian calendar. 

Source: http://www.britishorthodox.org/115h.php