Oh, this is interesting. Why April 14th? Because it's a sidereal calendar!
~1900 years ago the New Year was on the equinox, but the equinox has since moved three and a half weeks.
The Gregorian cale...
This is similar but also entirely different to why Swedes celebrate "the longest night of the year" on December 13th and have St. Lucy bring light to the winter darkness on that day. That's not because of a misalignment between tropical and sidereal, it's because the Julian calendar is bad at being a tropical calendar. Its year is just a little bit too long compared to the actual equinox-to-equinox year -- the Julian calendar is an average of 365.25 days, while the new and improved Gregorian calendar is an average of 365.2425 days per year.*
Over the course of ~1000 years, the equinoxes and solstices kept slipping until the winter solstice was on December 13th rather than December 21st (or the 25th in the days of Caesar himself). By the time Sweden switched to the Gregorian calendar, the solstice occurred on December 10th in the Julian calendar, but by then tradition had cemented the celebration of light on the 13th, and it remained there even in the new calendar.
* The tropical year we're trying to align with is 365.24219 days. The Orthodox Church has an even better calendar that is an average of 365.2422 days per year. It is currently in sync with the Gregorian calendar, but will diverge in the year 2800, when the Gregorian calendar has a leap day, but the Revised Julian calendar does not.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lu…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_…
Over the course of ~1000 years, the equinoxes and solstices kept slipping until the winter solstice was on December 13th rather than December 21st (or the 25th in the days of Caesar himself). By the time Sweden switched to the Gregorian calendar, the solstice occurred on December 10th in the Julian calendar, but by then tradition had cemented the celebration of light on the 13th, and it remained there even in the new calendar.
* The tropical year we're trying to align with is 365.24219 days. The Orthodox Church has an even better calendar that is an average of 365.2422 days per year. It is currently in sync with the Gregorian calendar, but will diverge in the year 2800, when the Gregorian calendar has a leap day, but the Revised Julian calendar does not.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lu…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_…