Orthodox Calendar(s)

There’s a weird claim out there.

Excuse you actually Holy Orthodoxy and its insistence on a calendar that is literally wrong comes from St. Mehmed II, Pillar of Orthodoxy and Equal to the Apostles (pbuh)

The Reality

There is zero historical evidence that Mehmed II ever issued any decree, spoke, or intervened regarding the Julian calendar (the “old” calendar used by the Byzantine/Orthodox Church at the time) — let alone mandated its continued use to “protect” Orthodoxy from Gregorian innovations (which didn’t exist until 1582, over 120 years later).

The Julian calendar was already the standard in the Byzantine Empire for centuries before 1453 and remained so under Ottoman rule for purely practical and ecclesiastical reasons. The Orthodox Church’s adherence to it persisted as a matter of tradition and canon (tied to the calculation of Easter from the Council of Nicaea in 325). The first major calendar debates in Orthodoxy arose in the late 16th century (when Patriarch Jeremiah II rejected Pope Gregory XIII’s reform as Latin influence) and culminated in the 20th century (with the 1923 Revised Julian adoption by some churches, sparking Old Calendarist schisms).

Mehmed’s religious policies focused on pragmatic tolerance, administrative control via the millet system, and promoting Islam (e.g., converting Hagia Sophia), not liturgical calendars. Any notion of him as a “Pillar of Orthodoxy” dictating calendar use is purely satirical or meme-level fiction — a humorous inversion of his role as conqueror and founder of Ottoman rule over the former Byzantine heartland.