Dionysius Exiguus

Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble") (c. 470 – c. 544 AD) was a 6th-century monk born in Scythia Minor (probably modern Dobruja, which is in Romania and Bulgaria). He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis, the major city of Scythia Minor. Dionysius is best known as the inventor of the Anno Domini (AD) era, which is used to number the years of both the Gregorian calendar and the (Christianized) Julian calendar. Some churches adopted his computus (calculation) for the dates of Easter.

From about 500 he lived in Rome, where, as a learned member of the Roman Curia, he translated from Greek into Latin 401 ecclesiastical canons, including the apostolical canons; the decrees of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon and Sardis; and a collection of the decretals of the popes from Siricius to Anastasius II. These collections had great authority in the West and continue to guide church administrations. Dionysius also wrote a treatise on elementary mathematics.

Dionysius

The Graeco-Roman name Dionysius (/ˌdaɪəˈnɪʃiəs, -ˈnɪs-, -ˈnɪʃəs, -ˈnaɪsiəs/), deriving from the name of the god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis (Denys, Denis, Denise). The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of the name is Dionisio. The Italian form of the name is Dionigi. The Italian last name, Dionisi is also derived from the name Dionysius, and Dionysus. Dionysius was the episcopal title of the primates of Malankara Church (founded by Apostle Thomas in India) from 1765 until amalgamating that title with the Catholicos of the East in 1934.

People named Dionysius

Among the persons known by the name Dionysius, or using the French version Denis, some of the more famous were:

Ancient Greece and Rome

Jesus

Jesus (/ˈdʒiːzəs/; Greek: Ἰησοῦς Iesous; 7–2 BC to AD 30–33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity, whom the teachings of most Christian denominations hold to be the Son of God. Christians believe Jesus is the awaited Messiah (or Christ, the Anointed One) of the Old Testament.

Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically, and historians consider the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) to be the best sources for investigating the historical Jesus. Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean, Jewish rabbi who preached his message orally,was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. In the current mainstream view, Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher and the founder of a renewal movement within Judaism, although some prominent scholars argue that he was not apocalyptic. After Jesus' death, his followers believed he was resurrected, and the community they formed eventually became the Christian church. The widely used calendar era, abbreviated as "AD" from the Latin "Anno Domini" ("in the year of our Lord") or sometimes as "CE", is based on the birth of Jesus. His birth is celebrated annually on December 25 as a holiday known as Christmas.

Scythia Minor

Scythia Minor or Lesser Scythia (Greek: Μικρά Σκυθία, Mikrá Skythia) was in ancient times the region surrounded by the Danube at the north and west and the Black Sea at the east, roughly corresponding to today's Dobruja, with a part in Romania, a part in Bulgaria.

The earliest description of the region is found in Herodotus, who identified as Scythia the region starting north of the Danube delta. In a 2nd-century BC inscription recording a decree of Histria honouring Agathocles, the region already was named Scythia, while the earliest usage of the name "Scythia Minor" (Mikrá Skythia) in literature is found in Strabo's early 1st-century Geography.

By the 7th century BC, several Greek colonies were built on its Black Sea shore, and the earliest written Greek reports state that the lands were inhabited by Thracians, reidentified in time as Getae and then Dacians. During later times, the area also witnessed Celtic and Scythian invasions. It was part of the kingdom of Dacia for a period, after which the region was conquered by the Roman Empire, becoming part of the province of Moesia Inferior. With Diocletian's reforms, it was split from Moesia as a separate province of "Scythia", being part of the Diocese of Thrace. After the partition of the Empire in 395, the province was retained by the Byzantine Empire. It maintained the name Scythia Minor, until the region's loss during the early 7th century to the migrating Slavs and Bulgars. After that, the classical name fell out of use.

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, also called the Western calendar and the Christian calendar, is internationally the most widely used civil calendar. It is named for Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in 1582.

The calendar was a refinement to the Julian calendar amounting to a 0.002% correction in the length of the year. The motivation for the reform was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when it was introduced by the early Church. Because the celebration of Easter was tied to the spring equinox, the Roman Catholic Church considered the steady drift in the date of Easter caused by the year being slightly too long to be undesirable. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox countries continued to use the traditional Julian calendar and adopted the Gregorian reform after a time, for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923.