Sunday, November 24, 2019

Anno Domini


We just learned about the Hagia Sophia ancient church.

Another part of early Christianity is Anno Domini.

When we talk about what year it is, we sometimes put the letters AD at the end, like 2019 AD.

The AD stands for "Anno Domini" which means "Year Of"
"Anno Domini" is just a short way to say "anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi" which means "year of our Jesus Christ".

A long time ago a man named Dionysius Exiguus was working on a new calendar to be different than the one that the old emperor Diocletian had used.
Diocletian was very bad for Christians and had many of them killed.

So Dionysius made a new calendar and said that the year was 525 AD.
By putting AD at the end, he was taking away the naming of the years from the bad Diocletian and giving it to Jesus.

In the new AD calendar, people believe that Jesus was born around 1 AD.
The time before that we call "BC" for "Before Christ".

In the old days before people used English they used "aCn" which was for "Ante Christum Natum" meaning "before Christ's birth".


(from: wikipedia - anno domini)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Split of Christianity and Judaism