Era of Martyrs
The most important era—once widely used by the Eastern Churches, and still used by the Coptic Church—was the Era of Martyrs, also known as the Diocletian Era, whose first year began on August 29, 284.
Respectively to the Gregorian and Julian New Year's Days about three months later, the difference between the Era of Martyrs and the Anni Domini is 285 (= 15x19) years. This is because in AD 525, Dionysius Exiguus decided to add 15 Metonic cycles to the existing 13 Metonic cycles of the Diocletian Era (15x19 + 13x19 = 532) to obtain an entire 532-year medieval Easter cycle, whose first cycle ended with the year Era of Martyrs 247 (= 13x19) equal to year DXXXI. It is also because 532 is the product of the Metonic cycle of 19 years and the Solar cycle of 28 years.
Read more about this topic: Ethiopian Calendar, Eras
Famous quotes containing the words era of, era and/or martyrs:
“It is not an era of repose. We have used up all our inherited freedom. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)