B Y Z A N T I M E  android app & widget

Christianity adopts the concept of a single day cycle partly from Judaism and partly from the practices of the Roman world. Based on the Book of Genesis, “And there was evening, and there was morning: one day,” the day is counted from sunset to sunset. The liturgical day likewise begins with the evening.

In this tradition, time is calculated according to the Roman/Byzantine system. The day is divided into 24 hours, but not into fixed 60 minute units as today. Instead, the period from sunset to sunrise consists of 12 hours, and the period from sunrise to sunset also consists of 12 hours. As a result, the length of the hours changes with the seasons, longer during summer days, shorter in winter, and equal only at the equinoxes.

Certain hours held special significance: the first, third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth hours. These marked the rhythm of daily life, sunrise and the beginning of work, midday rest, the return to activity, and sunset, the close of the day.

BYZANTIME brings back this ancient, natural sense of time, where hours follow the rhythm of light and darkness, not the uniform ticking of a mechanical clock.