The Era of the Martyrs ( la, anno martyrum), also known as the ''Diocletian era'' ( la, anno Diocletiani), is a method of numbering years used by the Church of Alexandria beginning in the 4th century AD/CE and by the

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria The Coptic Orthodox Church ( cop, Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ, translit=Ti.eklyseya en.remenkimi en.orthodoxos, lit=the Egyptian Orthodox Church; ar, الكنيسة القبطي� ...

from the 5th century to the present. Western Christians were aware of it but did not use it. It was named for the Roman Emperor Diocletian who instigated the last major persecution against Christians in the Empire. Diocletian began his reign on 20 November 284, during the Alexandrian year that began on 1 Thoth, the Egyptian New Year, or 29 August 284, so that date was used as the epoch: year one of the Diocletian era began on that date. This era was used to number the year in

Easter tables As a moveable feast, the date of Easter is determined in each year through a calculation known as (). Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after 21 March (a fixed approxi ...

produced by the Church of Alexandria. When

Dionysius Exiguus Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble", Greek: Διονύσιος; – ) was a 6th-century Eastern Roman monk born in Scythia Minor. He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis (present day Constanța ...

, an Eastern Roman of Scythia Minor, inherited the continuation of those tables for an additional 95 years (in the year 525 CE) he replaced the anno Diocletiani era with one based on the birth of Christ: the

Anno Domini The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means 'in the year of the Lord', but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", ...

era. The main goal was to marginalize the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The anno Domini era became dominant in the Latin West but was not used in the

Greek East Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of Medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the ...

until modern times. The anno Diocletiani era was not the only one used by early Christians. Most Roman Christians, like the pagan Romans before them, designated their years by naming the two

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states th ...

s who held office that year. The Romans also used the

ab urbe condita ''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an ex ...

(AUC) era. Its name is Latin for "from the founding of the City (Rome)". However, the AUC era was hardly ever used outside historical treatises. Eras that began at Creation, called

anno Mundi (from Latin "in the year of the world"; he, לבריאת העולם, Livryat haOlam, lit=to the creation of the world), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of ...

eras, became the dominant method of numbering years in the East until modern times, such as in the

Byzantine calendar The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World ( grc, Ἔτη Γενέσεως Κόσμου κατὰ Ῥωμαίους, also or , abbreviated as ε.Κ.; literal translation of ...

. Annianus of Alexandria, a monk who flourished at the beginning of the 5th century, placed the epoch of his world era on 25 March 5492BC by counting back eleven 532-year

paschal cycle The Paschal cycle, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is the cycle of the moveable feasts built around Pascha (Easter). The cycle consists of approximately ten weeks before and seven weeks after Pascha. The ten weeks before Pascha are known a ...

s from anno Diocletiani 77, itself four 19-year lunar cycles after anno Diocletiani 1. Regarded as a civil rather than a religious era, it began on the first day of the Alexandrian year, 29 August 5493BC. This Alexandrian era was the preferred era used by

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

Christians such as

Maximus the Confessor Maximus the Confessor ( el, Μάξιμος ὁ Ὁμολογητής), also spelt Maximos, otherwise known as Maximus the Theologian and Maximus of Constantinople ( – 13 August 662), was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. In his ea ...

, until the 10th century when the Byzantine era, which had an epoch of 1 September 5509BC, became dominant. Both eras used a version of dating Creation based on the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Era Of Martyrs Classical antiquity Calendar eras Christian terminology Chronology Diocletianic Persecution Christianity in Egypt

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