---
title: "The Church Year — Church history"
description: "The fixed and movable cycles, Old and New Style. The Orthodox Church calendar, icons, prayers, lives of saints and Church history on spas.life."
url: "https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/basics-church-year"
language: "en"
---

Basics of the faith

# The Church Year

The fixed and movable cycles, Old and New Style.

## Contents

1. [Two cycles](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/basics-church-year#s1)
2. [Old and New Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/basics-church-year#s2)
3. [The liturgical day](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/basics-church-year#s3)

## Two cycles

The fixed cycle comprises feasts with a set date (Nativity, Dormition…); the movable cycle those depending on Pascha (Great Lent, Ascension, Pentecost). The church year begins on 1 September (Old Style).

## Old and New Style

The Julian calendar (“Old Style”) lags the Gregorian by 13 days in 1900–2099 and by 14 days from 2100. The Revised Julian calendar coincides with the Gregorian until 2800. The difference is not a constant, and the app computes it algorithmically.

## The liturgical day

The church day begins in the evening (Vespers). The app lists events by civil date; a Vespers-based day boundary is a separate future setting.

## Related

- [Beginning of the Indiction — the Church New Year](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/basics-church-year)
- [Old Style and New Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/glossary#glossary-old-style)