Ethiopian has its ancient calendar, beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church depict that God created the world 5500 years before the birth of Christ.
In the Ethiopian calendar, it’s 1994 years since Jesus was born, based on this, it’s the 7494 years of the eighth millennium.
The Ethiopian calendar uses the birthdate of Jesus Christ as a starting point for their calculations but in a different way.
The Ethiopian calendar claims Jesus was born in 7BC and hence counting starts from that year on. Other calendars in contrast claim Jesus was born in AD 1. Bringing differences between these calendars, which is why the Ethiopian calendar is seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar.
While many Christians celebrate Christmas on 25 December, Ethiopians celebrate Christmas on 7 January.
The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months in a year, 12 of which have 30 days and the last month has five days and six days in a leap year.
The modern-day Ethiopian still embraces its ancient calendar marking New year on September 11 or 12 in a leap year and not on 1 January.
Below are the 13 months according to the Ethiopian calendar;
September is the first month followed by October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, August and Pagumiene, the thirteenth month.
Ethiopia is 3 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and today is Friday 22/4/2014.