Russian scientists long ago worked out a new calendar far more accurate than the Gregorian for thousands of years, and when the change is made that calendar will be adopted. The fundamental difficulty lies in the fact that all the people whose saints' days must inevitably be skipped for the first year in the process of rectification will inevitably feel that they are being robbed of their guardian angels, that they are "orphans"--a mournful word greatly beloved of the Russian masses under multiform circumstances, both material and spiritual--and orphaned in a peculiarly distressing and irrevocable way. They might even feel when their saints' days came around quite correctly the next year that some spurious adventurer--Angel of Darkness--was being foisted upon them.
Fanatics and professional mischief-makers would certainly seize with avidity upon such a godsend of a chance, unparalleled since the days of Peter the Great's father, when the Patriarch Nikon had the errors of the copyists in the Scriptures and church service books corrected. But the present war has fused all parties, united all hearts in patriotism, loyalty to, and confidence in their Emperor and created a fervid inclination amounting to enthusiasm to accept even the most drastic reforms he may make cheerfully, unquestionably, as for the good of the fatherland.
On the matter of the calendar reform America has for many years past been exerting a steadily increasing influence. During the past twenty years the steady flow of immigrants from Russia and other countries belonging to the Orthodox Catholic Church of the East, (Greco-Russian,) has increased to a great volume, and it seems destined to attain still greater proportions when the war is over. These people are obliged to work and keep holiday by the Gregorian calendar and to worship by the Julian. This entails hardships.
For example, a devout Russian who has been forced to remain idle on our Christmas and New Year's Days must sacrifice his pay--sometimes risk or lose his job--if he wishes to observe the feasts of his own church. A reform of the calendar would be hailed with joy by innumerable such immigrants, who have been over here long enough to consider calmly the practical aspects of a temporary dislocation of saints' days. The ecclesiastical authorities in this country have frequently protested, in print, both here and in Russia, and I have been informed that the Holy Synod has been appealed to, more than once, to induce it to cast its influence into the balance with that of the scientists and the governmental authorities, who have been discussing the matter for years past, and hesitating over the probable consequences of action--a case of peasant joining hands with the rulers of Russia, once more like Mr. Tchelisheff and the Emperor Nicholas--or the people of the United States and the President--to secure a needed reform!