The Sorcery of Time: How the Gregorian Calendar Enchanted the World

“For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.” – Revelation 18:23 (KJV). This ominous biblical charge against end-times “Babylon” suggests that through sorcery – in a spiritual, symbolic sense – the entire world can be beguiled. Could one of these grand deceptions be hidden in something as ordinary as our calendar? In 1582, a seemingly mundane act – reforming the calendar – was carried out by papal decree. Yet to prophecy-minded Christians and students of mysticism, this event resonates with profound implications. This article explores the biblical and esoteric dimensions of the Gregorian calendar reform initiated on February 24, 1582 by pope Gregory XIII, examining the tension between divine time and human-altered time, and why some view this change as a form of “calendar sorcery” that fulfilled prophecy and deceived the nations. We will delve into scripture, occult commentary, and historical reactions – from Genesis to Revelation, from astrological omens to Protestant protests – to understand how a calendar change became a cosmic and prophetic battleground.

Divine Time vs. Human Time: Genesis and the Sanctity of Cosmic Order

From the very first chapter of Genesis, the Bible establishes time as a sacred order set by God. “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”. In this view, the sun, moon, and stars are not mere ornaments – they are heavenly clockwork appointed to mark divine times and seasons. The Hebrew word for “seasons” (moedim) can mean appointed festivals, suggesting that God’s covenant people were to keep time by the celestial rhythms He established. The “Calendar of Yahweh” – a lunisolar cycle of months beginning with each new moon and years tied to seasons like Aviv (spring); is laid out in Scripture (e.g. Exodus 12:2, Leviticus 23) as an eternal pattern for worship and remembrance. In the Torah, Israel’s holy days are tethered to the sighting of the new moon and agricultural signs, reinforcing that divine time is organic, observational, and rooted in creation.

As a quick reminder:

The covenant God made with His people did not begin with the Jews or the nation of Israel—it began at Creation. In Genesis 2:3, God sanctified the seventh day, Saturday (the Sabbath) long before there was a people called Israel. This was part of the universal order, a covenant built into creation itself for all humanity.

When God later made a covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12, 15, 17), it was not limited to ethnic lineage. God said through Abraham “all nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). Abraham became the father of many nations, not just the Jewish people.

The people of Israel were chosen to carry and preserve the covenant, but not to keep it for themselves. Throughout the prophets, God promises to gather the gentiles, the strangers, and those who “join themselves to the LORD” (Isaiah 56:6-7). The New Covenant, according to Jeremiah 31:31-34 and fulfilled in Christ, is written not on tablets of stone but on hearts—and it is for “whosoever will” (Acts 2:21).

In the New Testament, Paul writes that those who have faith in Christ are grafted into Israel (Romans 11) and are Abraham’s seed (Galatians 3:29), regardless of ethnicity. That means the covenant—God’s law, His Sabbath, His promises—belongs to all who worship the Creator in spirit and in truth. Clearly, the Roman Catholic Church excluded itself when it chose to trample the Sabbath underfoot, rejecting the very sign of the Creator’s covenant

But back to the point...

By contrast, human civilizations have often imposed their own calendars for civil and political convenience – sometimes in defiance of the divine template. The Julian calendar (instituted by Julius Caesar in 45 BC) was a purely solar calendar with months of fixed lengths; it broke from the older lunisolar patterns and even enshrined pagan names (July for Julius, etc.). The early Church initially still relied on Jewish reckoning for determining Easter (linked to Passover’s date), but over centuries, a distinct Christian liturgical calendar emerged, fixed by Church councils rather than Hebrew observance. Tellingly, medieval churchmen hesitated to tamper with the calendar’s drift for a long time – the study of timekeeping was considered “prying into God’s affairs”. Only when seasons and pagan holy days drifted too far out of sync did pressure mount for reform. This highlights a key theological tension: Is it man’s place to modify time, or is sacred time solely God’s to ordain?

Prophetic scripture hints that altering time is a hallmark of presumptuous authority. The prophet Daniel, in describing an anti-divine power, foretold: “he shall speak great words against the most High … and think to change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25). Many interpreters have applied this to religious powers manipulating the calendar or holy days.

Notably, during the Middle Ages, the Church of Rome had already adjusted the weekly holy day (enforcing Sunday rest in place of the biblical Sabbath) and changed biblical feasts into new holidays – actions which some Protestants saw as fulfilling Daniel’s warning. When the time came for a wholesale change of the civil calendar in the 16th century, prophecy-minded believers were primed to see it not as a benign correction, but as a bold spiritual usurpation – perhaps even a kind of chronological sorcery, attempting to usurp God’s control over “times and seasons.”

“Inter gravissimas” – The Day Humanity Changed Time (February 24, 1582)

Portrait of Pope Gregory XIII, who issued Inter gravissimas on February 24, 1582, initiating the Gregorian calendar reform. Many viewed this papal act – literally changing the days and dates – as a gravely momentous assertion of power.

Coat of arms of Pope Gregorius XIII

The stage for the Gregorian Calendar Reform was set by centuries of drift in the old Julian calendar. By the 1570s, the spring equinox (which the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 had fixed at March 21 for calculating Easter) was actually falling around March 11. The Julian calendar erred by about 11 minutes per year; over 1,600 years this accumulated ~10 days of slippage. Thus Easter, which should be celebrated near the spring equinox, was slowly creeping earlier in the solar year (Passover isn’t “set” to the spring equinox. It’s set by the lunar month and the sighting of the new moon, not the equinox.). However pope Gregory XIII, prompted by the Council of Trent’s mandate to reform the calendar, convened experts (including Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius and physician Luigi Lilio) to devise a fix. Their solution was drastic but straightforward: remove 10 days from the calendar to realign March 21 with the equinox, and adjust leap year rules so it wouldn’t drift again.The audacity of the plan was staggering: in October 1582, they simply erased ten days from existence — October 4 was followed immediately by October 15, as if time itself could be edited by decree. Ten full days, gone without a trace. How remarkably “convenient” for those playing god with the calendar.

On February 24, 1582, pope Gregory XIII promulgated the bull Inter gravissimas (“Among the most serious [matters]”), officially decreeing this calendar change. The choice of date was fitting: in the old Julian calendar, February 24 was traditionally the leap-day (bissextile day) in leap years, a day already associated with irregular time. Now it became the date of a temporal revolution. The papal bull declared that Thursday, October 4, 1582 would be followed by Friday, October 15, 1582, excising the 10 days in between. It also introduced a new rule that centurial years (1700, 1800, etc.) would not be leap years unless divisible by 400, trimming the calendar’s annual length by 0.0078 days to prevent future drift.

To the Catholic world, this reform was presented as a prudent, even pious correction – restoring Easter to its proper season, “so that the equinox may henceforth correspond to March 21, as decreed by the Fathers of Nicaea” (paraphrase of the bull’s text). Indeed, Inter gravissimas framed the change as necessary for ecclesial order and scientific accuracy. The very name “Among the gravest matters” underscored how important the papacy considered the calendar’s perfection. On the surface, this was about astronomy and mathematics – fixing a 10-day error and refining the year’s length. But beneath the surface, many discerned a deeper, more unsettling narrative: the Church of Rome was asserting dominion over time itself. By unilateral decree, the pope was effectively editing time, erasing days from history and reordering the rhythm of life for nations. As one commentary observes, this was “not just a scientific revision but a spiritual and political maneuver, further severing the world from God's appointed times”. In other words, what looked like a technical fix could be seen as a profound power play – the “Vicegerent of God” on earth unilaterally altering the fabric of time which God had woven.

This act did not go unnoticed by Gregory’s contemporaries. Implementing the Gregorian calendar required secular authorities to obey the papal edict. Catholic realms (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, etc.) adopted it quickly in October 1582. But in Protestant lands and Eastern Orthodox countries, the bull Inter gravissimas was greeted with outrage, suspicion, and refusal. The pope’s calendar was seen as papal overreach of the highest order – if not an outright fulfillment of the prophecy of the Antichrist “thinking to change times” (Dan. 7:25). As we shall see, the world was not ready to let Rome cast its “spell” over time without a fight.

Calendar Sorcery: Esoteric Views on Altering the Cosmic Order

Beyond the theological debate, the Gregorian reform also carries a powerful esoteric and symbolic charge. In occult and mystical traditions, time is more than chronology – it is a sacred rhythm, a cosmic order that binds human consciousness to natural cycles. To seize control of the calendar is to perform an act of high magic: redefining reality’s rhythm for billions of people. It’s no wonder that some critics have portrayed the Gregorian calendar change as a kind of sorcery – an enchantment over the world’s sense of time.

Esoteric commentators note that calendars are tools of power. The ancient priesthoods (Babylonian, Egyptian, etc.) guarded calendar knowledge closely; by controlling when pagan holy days fell and when new years began, they exerted control over the people’s spiritual and agricultural life. The move from a lunar calendar (with 13 moons in a year) to a strictly solar calendar was often associated with patriarchal, solar deities displacing the feminine lunar rhythms. From a biblical perspective, the Gregorian reform further entrenched a purely solar system that abandoned the Creator’s ordained method of timekeeping ; a calendar based on both the sun and the moon. In severing time from the cycles of the new moon and the agricultural seasons God established in Genesis and Exodus, it institutionalized spiritual dissonance. Rather than restoring divine order, it replaced God’s appointed times with man-made structures, obscuring the rhythm of covenant worship and pulling humanity further away from the sacred calendar revealed in Scripture.. Modern researchers outright labelled the Gregorian system part of an “artificial time” spell that keeps humanity spiritually enslaved In their view, the irregular months and arbitrary dates desynchronize us from the cosmos, functioning like a psychic cage. Only by “breaking the spell” can we realign with cosmic harmony.

Such language casts the 1582 reform in mystical terms: pope Gregory XIII and his Jesuit astronomers become like wizards, casting a grand illusion over the nations. Indeed, the global adoption of the Gregorian calendar in subsequent centuries could be seen as the fulfillment of Revelation 18:23 – “all nations deceived” by sorcery – if one interprets sorcery as the manipulation of collective reality. By the 20th century, virtually every nation on earth had accepted this Roman reckoning of time. What greater magical feat than to make the whole world forget ten days, and then bind them to a new cycle masterminded in Rome?

Even Catholic mysticism contains an ironic hint of this magical dominion: pope Gregory’s coat of arms featured a dragon; and he famously commemorated the brutal St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Protestants with a medal – a reminder that “Gregorian reform” was not just about calendars but about consolidating Catholic power. To Protestant polemicists, Gregory XIII was a sorcerer-pope in every dark sense: one who mixes truth with deception, light with darkness, to lead people astray (much as Simon Magus did in Acts 8, practicing sorcery to “bewitch the people”). It is striking that Revelation 18:23 links sorcery with deception of all nations – the calendar reform was one of the few actions of the 16th-century papacy that eventually did reach all nations, even those far outside Europe. In a metaphorical sense, by changing the calendar Rome enchanted the world, claiming lordship over time, which in biblical thought belongs to God alone (cf. Daniel 2:21: “He [God] changeth the times and the seasons…”).

From an astrological perspective too, the timing of Inter gravissimas is suggestive. It was issued on February 24, 1582 with the Sun in Pisces – the zodiac sign long associated with mysticism, illusion, and the blending of worlds. Pisces is the twelfth and final sign, marking the “threshold between cycles, a period of dissolution where boundaries blur”. Indeed, during Pisces season winter and spring intermingle; it is a “dreamlike” in-between time when old structures dissolve in preparation for new beginnings. How apt that the calendar reform – dissolving the old Julian system and ushering in a new temporal order – was conceived under Pisces’ ethereal influence. In esoteric astrology, Pisces energy heightens spirituality and deception alike: it “speaks … in dreams, inspiration, and mystical moments”, but also can blur reality’s boundaries. One might say the world in 1582 was under a Piscean spell – receptive to a grand illusion in the realm of time.

Some occult writers even link the Age of Pisces (traditionally spanning roughly 1st century BC to around 2000 AD) with the era of Christianity and the Church. The symbol of Pisces is two fish, and early Christians identified Christ with the fish symbol (ichthys). The papacy – with its fish-mitre hats – carries the archetype of Piscean spiritual authority. By this account, the Gregorian calendar’s imposition in 1582 was a late-Piscean act of “magical dominion” – redefining time as that age drew toward its close.

In sum, from an esoteric viewpoint the 1582 reform was far more than a tweak to the calendar. It was an occult intervention into the cosmic order – an assertion of human (or specifically papal) will over the heavens. It resonates with the archetype of the Magician who draws a circle and says “so it is done.” Little wonder that to this day, conspiracy theories about the Gregorian calendar abound in fringe circles: Was it an Illuminati plot? Did it hide missing years? Is our year “off” from God’s timetable? While much of that is speculation, the feeling beneath it is real: a sense that humanity was swept under an enchantment in 1582, one that profoundly affected our collective orientation in time and maybe even in spirit.

Could this be why, after Christ saved me — when I repented and returned to God's ordained rhythm by honouring the true Sabbath on Saturday instead of unknowingly exalting Lucifer, the sun god — I felt something break? Not just from my face, but from deep within my soul, as if an unseen web had finally been torn away.

The Sun in Pisces: Prophetic Timing or Papal Manipulation?

The astrological significance of February 24, 1582; the very day pope Gregory XIII issued Inter gravissimas ; cannot be ignored. On that day, the Sun stood in Pisces, a sign long associated with mysticism, endings, hidden knowledge, and spiritual transformation. In Christian iconography, Pisces is linked to Christ Himself, the "Fisher of Men," and to the early Church. In astrology, however, Pisces doesn’t just symbolize divine insight — it also rules illusion, deception, blurred boundaries, and the dissolution of old realities. It is the closing sign of the zodiac, marking the final stage before a new cycle begins. That the papacy chose to launch a global alteration of time under such a sign is either divine irony; or a calculated act cloaked in symbolic power.

The Julian calendar, a 1600-year-old system inherited from pagan Rome, was being swept away; not by the natural flow of history, but by a papal edict. This “reform” didn’t just end a calendar system; it erased ten days from existence. People went to bed on October 4 and awoke on October 15. Ten days vanished — not due to a cosmic event, but by the stroke of a Roman pen. For many, it was as if reality had been rewritten. Pisces, true to its nature, dissolves structure and blurs the line between real and unreal — and what better metaphor for this moment in time? The people of 1582 quite literally lost days of their lives, confused and disturbed, some believing witchcraft had occurred. The boundary between illusion and time was shattered, and the pope stood at the center of the illusion.

The deeper spiritual overtones of that February should not be overlooked. The Sun was in Pisces, and the Moon was likely waning ; a phase associated with release, endings, and spiritual reflection. It was also the liturgical season leading into Lent ; a time promoted by the Roman Church as one of sacrifice and penitence. But peel back the layers, and the roots of this observance are far from holy. Lent mirrors ancient pagan mourning rituals, particularly those where women wept for Tammuz, the dying and rising solar deity condemned in Ezekiel 8:14 ; a ritual so offensive to God that He called it an abomination in His sanctuary. What the Church now cloaks in ashes and ritual fasting was once a season of grief for a false god, likely another disguise of Lucifer, ever craving worship under different names and faces.

To embrace Lent as Christian is to unknowingly reenact a drama of spiritual mourning for the enemy, not repentance before the true God. It is yet another example of how pagan rites were baptized into Church tradition, replacing biblical patterns with cycles of deception. The atmosphere was ripe for ritual, cloaked in mystery. Whether by mystical intent or opportunistic timing, Inter gravissimas was issued in alignment with a powerful symbolic moment. The heavens, it seems, became accessories to the papal drama — as if the Church had learned not only to manipulate the faithful, but to weaponize the stars themselves.

Students of prophecy might say this alignment was no coincidence. Pisces is the 12th sign ;the number of divine government and completion; and its association with water and fish unmistakably echoes Christian imagery. Yet Revelation 13 warns of a beast rising from the sea, one that deceives and dominates the earth. For centuries, many Protestants identified the papal system with that beast; an institution wrapped in Christian symbolism, yet exercising a counterfeit spiritual authority. And what could be more fitting; or more audacious; than the pope asserting dominion over time itself, under the sign of the Fishes?

In rewriting the calendar, the papacy did more than fix an error. It redefined reality, severing the world from the natural rhythm ordained at creation and installing a man-made system that persists to this day. Whether guided by astrology, ambition, or both, the reform under Pisces’ shadow remains one of the boldest; and most spiritually charged manipulations of time in human history. The question remains: was it coincidence, or the calculated move of a system long prophesied to “change times and laws”? Either way, the pope didn't just edit the calendar; he did it with cosmic flair, under a sign that both seduces and dissolves.

And the world never looked back.

While such astrological correlations are interpretive, they add another layer to why many saw the calendar reform as more than a scientific tweak. It felt fated, steeped in symbol and portent. Even those who reject astrology can appreciate the poetic convergence of spiritual cycles: a major transformation of how humanity marks time occurred under a sign known for “dissolution and preparation for renewal”. It’s as if one age was ending and another about to begin – precisely what was happening, both in calendrical terms and arguably in the flow of sacred history.

“Changing Times and Laws”: Resistance, Prophecy, and False Authority

The Gregorian reform did not achieve universal acceptance overnight. Far from it – shockwaves rippled through the Christian world, and fierce resistance arose, especially among Protestants and Orthodox. To many devout people, this was exactly what Daniel 7:25 had warned of: an illegitimate power “thinking to change times and laws.” 

Here stood the Roman pope, boldly asserting apostolic succession even as the true bloodline of Christ, the Desposyni, His own family: had long been silenced and erased from history. While claiming divine authority, this self-appointed figure, already denounced by Protestants as a false shepherd and counterfeit Christ, unilaterally seized control over time itself, daring to redefine the calendar; fulfilling, to the letter, the prophecy of one who would “think to change times and laws.”

The reaction from Protestant reformers was swift and furious. Tract after tract thundered with condemnation, branding the papal calendar not merely a fraud, but a sacrilegious assault on the very order of God's creation. They railed against pope Gregory XIII as “the Roman Antichrist”, warning that the calendar’s real purpose was to mislead the faithful and disrupt God’s true timing of worship. A professor in Tübingen, James Heerbrand, denounced Gregory as nothing more than a “calendar maker” and the Antichrist in Rome. Such rhetoric may sound extreme, but consider the context: in an age of religious wars, people literally believed their eternal souls could be in peril if they observed holy days on the wrong dates – following a “popish” calendar might sever them from God’s appointed times. A widely voiced fear was that the new calendar was a plot to keep true Christians from worshipping on the correct days, thus invalidating their observances in God’s sight. By inserting Rome’s authority into the fabric of time, the pope was seen as usurping God.

The outrage wasn’t limited to theologians and reformers; the common people erupted as well. In the German states, word spread like wildfire that the pope had stolen ten days of their lives. In Frankfurt, the fury boiled over into riots, as angry crowds turned on “the pope and the mathematicians,” accusing them of a conspiracy to rob workers of their wages. After all, if ten days simply vanished, would labourers still be paid for a full month? Was time itself now a tool of theft?

These weren’t ignorant superstitions; they were visceral responses to a system that dared to tamper with reality itself. The calendar reform wasn’t just an abstract policy; it was felt in the bones of everyday life, in lost time, disrupted rhythms, and a growing sense that Rome was reaching deeper into the lives and souls of the people than ever before.

Desperate to contain the unrest, officials rushed to calm the population, issuing reassurances that birthdays, debts, and contracts would be “adjusted” accordingly, and that no money would be lost. How generous!!! But even if wages were spared, their souls remained enslaved , still chained to a system that had declared itself master over time, truth, and eternity. Rome’s grip was not merely on the calendar, it was on conscience itself.

England (Anglican, firmly anti-Catholic at the time) refused Gregory’s calendar entirely. Queen Elizabeth I, advised by her bishops (who called the pope the Antichrist), declined to adopt the “popish” calendar even though astronomers like John Dee urged reform. The British clung to the old Julian calendar for another 170 years. When Britain finally switched in 1752, the calendar had to drop 11 days (by then the error had grown by one more day). This led to famous “Calendar Riot” folklore: mobs supposedly shouted “Give us back our eleven days!” – a perhaps apocryphal tale that nonetheless captures the popular resentment. Similarly, the staunchly Protestant American colonies didn’t adopt Gregorian dates until 1752 alongside Britain, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian world held out even longer.

For the Orthodox Churches, the Gregorian reform was entangled with mistrust of Rome.

The bull Inter gravissimas anchored its authority in the Council of Trent; a Catholic council rejected outright by both Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox as corrupt and apostate. And though Christianity itself sprang from Hebraic roots, there were almost certainly no Jews present at that council, a glaring omission that speaks volumes. Such was the deep anti-Jewish sentiment in Rome, that the very people through whom the covenants, the prophets, and the Messiah came were effectively erased from the conversation. The Church had not only turned its back on its origins, but now presumed to redefine sacred time without the presence, or consent, of those who first received it from God. Rendering it ipso facto unacceptable to Eastern patriarchs. They viewed the Gregorian calendar as a Latin innovation that threatened the continuity of holy tradition. As a result, Orthodox nations like Russia, Greece, Serbia, etc., stuck with the Julian calendar for their church feasts (and even for civil use in Russia). It wasn’t until 1918 that the newly Soviet Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes (jumping ahead 13 days at that point), and Greece followed in 1923. A group known as the “Old Calendarists” in Orthodox Christianity even broke away when some national churches tried to adopt the “New” calendar in the 1920s – a schism purely over timekeeping, underscoring how sacred the calendar can be when tied to identity and doctrine.

Amid this resistance, prophecy-minded Christians repeatedly pointed to Daniel 7:25 and Revelation 18. They saw the calendar change as validating their apocalyptic suspicions about Rome. The fact that eventually “all nations” did come to use the Gregorian calendar (for commerce if not for worship) is striking when read alongside Revelation 18:23: “all nations were deceived” by Babylon’s sorcery. Could the deception include getting everyone to unknowingly follow a calendar that diverges from God’s times? Some argued that by shifting the calendar, the papacy subtly broke the link with the Biblical festivals and chronology, further obscuring truths like the Sabbath or the calculated year of Christ’s return.

In modern movements that seek to “restore biblical foundations,” the Gregorian calendar is still a target of critique. Hebrew Roots ministries and Sacred Calendar advocates loudly denounce the Gregorian system as pagan and urge a return to the “Creator’s calendar.” They point out that our days and months still bear names of Roman gods (e.g. Thursday = Thor’s day, March = Mars), a legacy of paganism that the papal reform left untouched. One such writer exclaims that “The Almighty does not like, nor does He comply with pagan calendars; only His own Holy Calendar that began at Creation!”. They encourage Christians to study the Hebrew calendar, observe the biblical feasts, and not let their faith be scheduled entirely by Rome’s timetable. While the world at large gives little thought to the calendar in spiritual terms, these groups echo an ancient conviction: God’s people are called to discern times and seasons as He gave them (1 Thess. 5:1-6). They see the Gregorian calendar as an aspect of worldly Babylon from which believers should “come out” (Rev. 18:4).

Discerning the Times and Breaking the Spell

The saga of the Gregorian calendar reform is a remarkable intersection of faith, power, science, and mystery. On one hand, it was a triumph of reason – a correction that spared us from celebrating Easter in summer or having snow in April eventually. On the other hand, it stands as a bold example of human authority overriding inherited tradition and, symbolically, overriding divine order. For devout Christians attuned to prophecy, it serves as a reminder that not everything labelled “progress” is benign; sometimes it carries a hidden spiritual cost. The question it leaves us with is provocative: Has the whole world been marching to the beat of an artificially altered drum? And if so, what does that mean for our spiritual attunement to God’s rhythm?

Revelation 18:23’s charge that Babylon’s sorcery deceived all nations challenges us to examine what unconscious “spells” we might be under in our modern life. The Gregorian calendar – ubiquitous, seemingly innocuous – might be one such spell: a man-made construct so entrenched that we seldom question it. This doesn’t mean we must all abandon our calendars tomorrow; but it does mean we should recognize that the ultimate lord of time is God, not any self-deifying pope or emperor. As Jesus said, “the Father has fixed by His own authority” the times and seasons (Acts 1:7). Any human or institution claiming absolute control over time’s structure edges into hubris.

For Christians, a healthy response is to stay spiritually vigilant. Know the history and symbolism behind the systems we take for granted. Observe the Sabbath rest not because a calendar tells you which day is holy, but because of God’s command. Celebrate the Resurrection not merely as a date on a fluctuating calendar, but as an ever-present reality. In other words, keep God’s time in your heart even as you navigate the world’s time with your clock and planner.

The Gregorian reform of 1582 was indeed a watershed moment – the day “time changed.” It fulfilled to some the words of Daniel about changing times, and it exemplified how easily the world can be led, with scarcely a protest, into a new paradigm with a stroke of a pen. Whether one views it as sorcery or savvy, deception or improvement, one thing is clear: it was one of the most consequential “invisible” changes in history. The bells rang midnight across Catholic Europe on October 4, 1582, and by the next morning it was October 15 – as if an enchantment had swept the land.

As students of prophecy and seekers of truth, we are called to be like the “sons of Issachar, who had understanding of the times” (1 Chron. 12:32). Let us strive to discern the times – both literally and figuratively – that we may not be deceived. The Gregorian calendar may order our civil lives, but divine time orders our destiny. In the end, no papal bull can halt the forward march of God’s great clock. “For the vision awaits its appointed time… it will surely come, it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3). May we be found watching, not under any spell, but sober and alert to the purposes of God as the final events of history unfold on the timeline He has set.

We Are Living in Artificial Time

What most people recognize as “time” today; the modern structure of weeks, months, and so-called holy days; is not the time established by the Creator. It is an artificial system, a counterfeit rhythm designed not by God but by Rome; the historical center of religious pride and spiritual compromise. This man-made calendar, presented as sacred, is in truth a rebellious construct that systematically replaces the biblical calendar with one rooted in pagan tradition and sun worship.

Let’s be clear: how can a church claim to follow Christ while aligning itself with pagan deities; the very fallen angels and Lucifer himself; by adopting their festivals, renaming their gods, and restructuring time to match their cycles? How can an institution be called "Christian" when it discards God’s calendar, ignores His appointed times, and replaces the seventh-day Sabbath; the eternal sign of His covenant; with a day historically tied to sun worship?

The logic is unshakable: if a system rejects God’s appointed times, and replaces them with times rooted in idolatry, it cannot represent the God of Scripture; no matter how loudly it claims the name of Christ. True worship requires true alignment. And any church or power that alters God’s calendar in favour of pagan observance is not leading people to the Messiah; it is leading them into deception. This is not just error; it is calculated spiritual sabotage; a system engineered to sever the connection between God and His people, replacing sacred alignment with man-made dominion. It is a man-made construct that replaces God's appointed times with human tradition and pagan inheritance. The world runs on a calendar and system that do not reflect the divine order set in Genesis 1:14, when God ordained the lights in the heavens to mark days, seasons, and years.

This false system doesn’t just distort clocks; it warps worship, identity, and spiritual alignment. It tells you when to rest, when to work, when to celebrate, and when to forget. But none of it is built on the biblical calendar rooted in the new moon, Sabbaths, and feast days that the Most High established as eternal signs between Him and His people (Exodus 31:13, Leviticus 23).

And why is this so important? Because time governs worship. And worship; rightly directed, is what the serpent has always sought to hijack.

From the very beginning, sun worship was the foundation of the first false religion. It predates the Tower of Babel, Egypt, Rome, and all pagan temples. Why? Because Lucifer; the fallen light-bearer; redirected mankind’s awe of creation toward the sun, not the Creator. He disguised himself in the light, subtly presenting the sun as the life-giver, the sustainer, the eye of the sky. And humanity, craving power and prosperity, followed.

This wasn’t an innocent mistake. It was the beginning of global spiritual rebellion; a shift from worshipping Yahweh to worshipping the created thing instead of the Creator (Romans 1:25). The sun became the symbol of kings, empires, and deities. And in this deception, Lucifer succeeded in drawing humanity into a rhythm of worship centered on himself, disguised in celestial beauty.

Just because sun worship was the first religion doesn't mean it's holy; it means the serpent moved quickly. He struck early, embedding his counterfeit in the foundation of civilization itself. That’s why even today, our world is structured around sun-day worship, solar cycles, and man-made holy days; none of which reflect God's true calendar. It is a system baptized in light but born in rebellion.

We are living in a time that is not ours, in days that are not holy, under a rhythm that was never given by God. The artificial time imposed on us is not just inconvenient; it is spiritually dangerous. It keeps people locked in a loop of disobedience, unknowingly walking in a pattern shaped by the enemy, not by the Word.

The call, then, is not just to “believe”; but to return. To realign. To come out of Babylon, out of confusion, and back to the appointed times of the Creator. The seventh-day Sabbath. The new moons. The feast days. These are not “Jewish” relics; they are covenant markers for all who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The deception runs deep. But once your eyes open, you begin to see it everywhere; in the names of the days, in the rhythm of the week, in the festivals the world celebrates. And most importantly, in the absence of what God commanded.

We are in a war for time; and time, at its heart, is about worship.

Whose time are you following? And more importantly; whose rhythm are you worshipping in?

Can the Roman Catholic Church Truly Be Called Christian?

This is not an emotional accusation, but a necessary and rational inquiry. At its core, the term Christian means “follower of Christ” ; one who submits to His Word, obeys His commands, and walks in the pattern He revealed. So we must ask: Can an institution rightly claim to follow Christ while simultaneously overturning the very structures He and His Father have established?

God's system of time is not a cultural artifact or Jewish relic; it is part of the created order. In Genesis 1:14, before sin ever entered the world, God ordained the lights in the heavens for “signs and seasons, days and years.” The Hebrew word for “seasons” is moedim; appointed times, the sacred rhythm of God's calendar. These appointments were not man’s to invent; they were revealed by God, tied to the cycles of the moon, the agricultural seasons, and prophetic fulfillment. They govern the Sabbath, the feasts, and the unfolding of redemptive history itself.

The seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday) was hallowed at creation, reaffirmed in the Ten Commandments, and kept by Jesus Himself , not as a ritual, but as a divine covenant sign (Exodus 31:13, Mark 2:27–28). God's time is holy because He made it holy; and to alter it is to challenge His holiness.

Now consider: the Roman Catholic Church not only replaced this system but did so knowingly and publicly, claiming the authority to “change times and laws”, the very act prophesied of the Antichrist in Daniel 7:25. The Sabbath was substituted with Sunday, not by divine command, but by ecclesiastical decree, aligning worship with the veneration of the sun, the central object of ancient pagan religion. Biblical feasts tied to God's redemptive plan, Passover, Shavuot, Tabernacles, were exchanged for man-made holidays rooted in Roman and Babylonian traditions.

This is not simply error. It is a rival system of worship, one that retains the name of Christ while systematically dismantling the structure He ordained.

So ask again: Whose time is being kept? Whose calendar is being followed? Whose authority is being obeyed?

If the calendar you follow was not instituted by God, but rather imposed by men, and if the day you worship was once devoted to solar deities, and if your church's feasts align with pagan cycles rather than God's appointed times, then it is not Christ you are following; it is a counterfeit Christ, crafted in the image of tradition, not truth.

To change God's time is to usurp His throne, to lay claim to the very fabric of creation and declare, “We will decide what is holy.” That is not Christianity. That is Lucifer’s original rebellion , to ascend above the Most High and establish a throne of his own (Isaiah 14:13–14).

And here lies the heart of the deception: because it wears the name of Christ, many believe it represents Him. But Christ Himself warned, “Many will come in My name… and deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). The greatest lies are not those that oppose truth directly, but those that mimic it closely while leading people subtly away.

The Roman Church may call itself Christian. It may speak of Christ, pray in His name, and adorn itself with crosses (a former solar emblem and the very tool of death selected by ancient Rome to enforce its dominion) But if it does not keep His commandments, if it refuses His Sabbath, if it alters His times, and leads the world into a calendar born of sun worship and rebellion; then by heaven’s standard, it is not Christian. It is Babylon, drunk on power, claiming divine authority, and seducing the nations with a false gospel and a man-made rhythm.

Christianity is not a name; it is obedience to the Messiah, the Word made flesh. And any system that defies that Word; especially in the very structure of time and worship; stands condemned by it.

So no, logically, biblically, and spiritually, the Roman Catholic Church; in altering God’s time, and exalting its authority over Scripture; cannot truly be called Christian. It is something else entirely: a system of spiritual dominion, prophesied to arise, deceiving the world not with open rebellion, but with a corrupted imitation of truth.

The question is no longer whether it claims Christ; the question is, does it obey Him? And if not, whose kingdom is it really building?

To further expose the reality that Catholicism is not worshiping the Christ of Scripture, consider this: Who exactly are these men whose faces are embedded on the very object of their worship?

What we see in this image is not the worship of the risen Christ, but a ceremony that reveals something far more troubling: the veneration of the dead, cloaked in the language of Christian worship.

The object being lifted; the monstrance; is claimed by the Roman Catholic Church to house the real, physical presence of Christ in the form of the consecrated wafer, or “host.” But what surrounds that host? Not the symbols of God’s glory, not the simplicity of the cross or the testimony of Scripture; but a sunburst pattern borrowed from pagan solar cults and the sculpted faces of dead men, exalted by Rome and embedded in the very structure of what is being bowed to.

No matter how reverent the posture or how sacred the music, the theological reality remains unaltered: when one kneels before an object bearing the likenesses of men; even so-called "saints" or self-deified popes; and treats it as a vessel of divine presence, one is not worshipping Christ in spirit and truth (John 4:24), but is instead giving honour to the dead, something strictly forbidden in Scripture.

God declares plainly in His Word:

"There shall not be found among you anyone who... consults the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord.” — Deuteronomy 18:10–12"You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything... you shall not bow down to them or serve them.” — Exodus 20:4–5

By integrating the images of long-deceased religious leaders; often popes elevated by Church decree, not divine election; into objects used in acts of worship, the Roman system not only violates God’s commandments but actively replaces Christ's supremacy with a pantheon of human mediators.

Let us reason: if this were truly about Christ, why surround Him with the carved faces of dead men? Why embellish the Holy One of Israel with the likenesses of those who have no power to save, no authority to mediate, and no biblical command to be venerated?

This is not Christianity; it is a sanitized necromancy, dressed in gold and incense, where the dead are honoured in place of the living Christ. It is not worship, but spiritual confusion, leading the hearts of millions to bow before the wrong throne.

Christ alone is worthy. He needs no image, no relic, no dead man to surround Him. The veil was torn; access to God is direct through the living Messiah, not through priests, popes, or saints. And any system that would turn the eyes of the people away from the risen Lord to objects bearing the images of men is not guiding them to Christ — it is leading them into idolatry, and damnation.