Calendar · Era of the Martyrs (284 CE) → present
The Coptic calendar divides the year into twelve 30-day months plus a short thirteenth month. Its year count begins with the Era of the Martyrs (284 CE), and its month names still mark seasons in Egyptian rural speech.
Twelve months of thirty days are followed by Pi Kogi Enavot, a small month of five or six days. The year opens with Thout (around 11 September in our era) — the feast of Nayrouz — and closes with Mesori, so the agricultural year and the liturgical year share one frame.
Coptic years are counted A.M. (Anno Martyrum), a reckoning anchored to the accession of Diocletian in 284 CE and remembered in connection with the persecution-era martyrs of the Coptic Church.
Fixed feasts fall on the same Coptic date each year: Nayrouz (1 Thout), Nativity (29 Kiahk = 7 January), Epiphany (11 Tobi), Annunciation (29 Paremhat), Entry into Egypt (24 Pashons) and Transfiguration (13 Mesori). Easter-dependent feasts move with the moon and are tracked separately by the church.
Church lectionaries, fasting seasons and farmers' sayings all run on Coptic month names. This platform computes today's Coptic date locally and lists verified fixed feasts — see the calendar section under Heritage.
