clarification on julian/gregorian calendars & Easter

[Benjamin Rifkin]

There will be no leap day in the year 2000, so the disparity between the
two calendars will not increase:

[I wrote:]  >>Thanks for your posting, through Tom Priestly, of the dates
for Easter.  Am
>>I correct, however, in assuming that the difference between old and new
>>calendars grows by one day as of the year 2000?  (There's been some
>>discussion of that on SEELANGS.)  That would mean the second dates listed
>>for the years 2000 and later would actually be off by one day.
>>
[AH responded:  ]>There has indeed been considerable discussion (and more
misunderstanding)
>about this, but the difference of 13 days between the calendars does not
>change from the 20th to the 21st century.
>
>As a general rule, years divisible by 4 are leap years, but in the Gregorian
>system this does not apply to century years, unless they are divisible by
>400. As a result of this, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian
>calendars increased by one day in 1700, 1800 and 1900 because these were
>leap years in the Julian system, but not the Gregorian one. 2000, however,
>is divisible by 400 (as was 1600), making it bissextile, so on that year the
>difference between the calendars will not increase by a day.
>
>Have I made myself perfectly obscure?
>
>Andrij Hornjatkevyc


**********************************
Benjamin Rifkin
Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1432 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive, Madison, WI  53706
voice (608) 262-1623; fax (608) 265-2814
e-mail:  brifkin at facstaff.wisc.edu