The Coptic calendar and the church

THE PHARAONIC CALENDER AND THECOPTIC CALENDERThe Pharaohs knew their calendar from the year 4240B.C. The famous Greek historian Herodotus mentions thatthe Egyptians excelled the Greeks in adjusting their solaryear by appending 5 days to the total of 12 months 1 .Early Egyptian Christians used the Pharaonic systemsof reckoning time, modified them a little bit, and adaptedthem to their Church life and their daily life, especially foragricultural system. The liturgical day of Christians in Egyptbegan, then as now, at sunset, like the Jewish, and Greekdays. The seven-day week is used, with its first day(Sunday) made the Lord’s Day.The Christian Copts still use the Coptic year, whoseorigin is Pharaonic. The year is divided into twelve monthsof thirty days each, plus five more days, called epagomenai,at its end, as well as the extra day whose intercalation at theend of every fourth year as a sixth epogomenal day wasordered by Ptolemy III Euergetes in 238 B.C., in order torectify the old discrepancy between the calendar year of 365days and the natural solar year.The year was divided into three seasons of equallength, each comprising four months, the season of the flood,then that of cultivation, and thirdly the season of the harvestand fruits. This division is still used in the liturgical rites ofthe church in Egypt and overseas, until a synodical creed was1 Herodotus, 2:4.5