Who Uses the Liturgical Calendar?
Manuscript Leaf with June Calendar, from a Royal Psalter; 13th century; British; Source: The Met
CEFR Level C1-C2
Updated July 28, 2026
Originally Published December 1, 2023
Do all Christians follow the liturgical calendar?
The question is more complicated than it first appears. First, we will define the liturgical calendar as a calendar that has Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time. This means that a Christian tradition that has a church year divided by Christmas, Easter, and Vacation Bible school will not be counted.
Second, we have to decide if we will count the tradition if there is some acknowledgement of the historical liturgical calendar, but not a full observance. Then, we need to decide how to count traditions that have a variety of sub-denominations. For example, Methodists have United, African Methodist Episcopal, AME Zion, and more. Is this one tradition or many? Next, we need to decide what to do with sub-denominations where some churches use the calendar and others don’t.
To make things more complicated, traditions that developed in Western Europe and the US (e.g. Roman Catholics and Protestants) will follow a slightly different church year than those that developed in Eastern Europe and Asia (e.g. Orthodox). For this article, I include both streams without specifying which type of calendar they use.
As you can see, a full count would be a complex, time-consuming project. For this brief article, here are a few top-level traditions that use some aspect of the liturgical calendar, although there may be large numbers of sub-denominations that do not follow the calendar. For example, many Baptist, non-denominational, and Pentecostal churches will only observe Easter and Christmas.
Anglican
Episcopalian
Lutheran
Methodist
Orthodox
Roman Catholic
Note: Some Presbyterian and a few Baptist traditions follow the historical Western liturgical calendar.