Logstash date parsing error (bug?)

[Mojster]

I'm using this pattern to parse dates from strings to date objects:

date {
		locale => "en"
		match => ["firstsignUpDate", "dd.MM.YYYY"]
		timezone => "Europe/Ljubljana"
		target => "firstsignUpDate"
	}

When a pars a log message containing firstsignUpDate=07.03.0000 I get this message in our error log:
"error"=>{"type"=>"mapper_parsing_exception", "reason"=>"failed to parse [firstsignUpDate]", "caused_by"=>{"type"=>"illegal_argument_exception", "reason"=>"Invalid format: \"07.03.0000\" is malformed at \".03.0000\""}}}}}

I know from practical reasons that our date should not be in year 0000, but still this date is valid & it should go through the pattern.
Is there a minimum date limitation or is this a bug?

[Badger]

date has no problem parsing 01.01.0001. But what is the year before year 0001? Not sure I agree that it is year 0000...