Churches East and West celebrate Easter the same day in 2025 — could it be a step to unity?

[Michie]

(OSV News) — Does Easter belong to Jesus Christ, or to a calendar?

For Pope Francis, the answer is clear: “Easter belongs to Christ!” the pontiff declared in September 2024, when he met with representatives of the Pasqua Together 2025 Initiative, an assemblage of various lay associations and movements of several Christian confessions.

They were gathered to discuss a coincidence and a concern that, for all involved, represents an occasion of unity the pope said “must not be allowed to pass by in vain.”

Because this year, churches both East and West will celebrate Easter, the Day of Resurrection, on the same date: Sunday, April 20, 2025.

It’s notable because Western churches — Catholics of the Latin Church and most Protestants — follow the Gregorian calendar. So do most Eastern Catholic churches. The Eastern Orthodox churches — along with some Eastern Catholic churches — use the older or revised Julian calendar.

That divergence currently results in a 13-day disparity between the Gregorian and Julian calendars — and the calculations for Easter based on those divergent calendars typically lead to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on different dates.

Continued below.

Churches East and West celebrate Easter the same day in 2025 -- could it be a step to unity?

Pope Francis affirmed Easter belongs to Christ, not the calendar, as Eastern and Western churches unite to celebrate it on April 20.

www.oursundayvisitor.com

 

[RileyG]

Happy early Easter/pascha to all!

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

(OSV News) — Does Easter belong to Jesus Christ, or to a calendar?

For Pope Francis, the answer is clear: “Easter belongs to Christ!” the pontiff declared in September 2024, when he met with representatives of the Pasqua Together 2025 Initiative, an assemblage of various lay associations and movements of several Christian confessions.

They were gathered to discuss a coincidence and a concern that, for all involved, represents an occasion of unity the pope said “must not be allowed to pass by in vain.”

Because this year, churches both East and West will celebrate Easter, the Day of Resurrection, on the same date: Sunday, April 20, 2025.

It’s notable because Western churches — Catholics of the Latin Church and most Protestants — follow the Gregorian calendar. So do most Eastern Catholic churches. The Eastern Orthodox churches — along with some Eastern Catholic churches — use the older or revised Julian calendar.

That divergence currently results in a 13-day disparity between the Gregorian and Julian calendars — and the calculations for Easter based on those divergent calendars typically lead to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on different dates.

Continued below.

Churches East and West celebrate Easter the same day in 2025 -- could it be a step to unity?

Pope Francis affirmed Easter belongs to Christ, not the calendar, as Eastern and Western churches unite to celebrate it on April 20.

www.oursundayvisitor.com

it IS a very easy calculation..,the full moon is the full moon. We now know when the VE is so there is also that.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

The fact we are having the same date for Holy Pascha has nothing to do with ecumenism or reunions or feelings. It’s about the fact that the Orthodox Church uses a complex mathematical formula, known as "computus paschalis" (or paschalion in the Eastern Orthodox Church), to determine the date of Easter. The formula considers the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox (March 21st on the Julian calendar, which corresponds to April 3rd on the Gregorian calendar.) In some years, the dates of Easter and Orthodox Easter may align, but this is not the norm.

 

[Mockingbird0]

The Gregorian Paschal full moon in 2025 is on April 13, which is also the date of the astronomical full moon in some time zones. The Julian Paschal full moon in 2025 is on April 17. Since Sunday does not intervene between the two full moons, Easter is on the same date for both calendars. But each calendar will reckon the age of the moon differently. The Gregorian moon will be 21 days old on Easter, while the Julian moon will be 17 days old. A single glance at the sky will show that the Gregorian is the better approximation to the visible moon.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

The Gregorian Paschal full moon in 2025 is on April 13, which is also the date of the astronomical full moon in some time zones. The Julian Paschal full moon in 2025 is on April 17. Since Sunday does not intervene between the two full moons, Easter is on the same date for both calendars. But each calendar will reckon the age of the moon differently. The Gregorian moon will be 21 days old on Easter, while the Julian moon will be 17 days old. A single glance at the sky will show that the Gregorian is the better approximation to the visible moon.

For Pascha, we Orthodox have kept the Julian to comply with a First Ecumenical Council canon, which demands Christians to celebrate Pascha after the Jewish Passover. Many contemporaries of the Nicaean Council and saints spoke of it.

“It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom of the Jews, who have soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes… We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Savior has shown us another way… Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way.”
— Eusebius, “Life of Constantine,” Book III, Chapter 18

So, while the Gregorian calendar is more in line with astronomical correctness, we stay true to the Councils and intention of the ancients regarding the timing.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

For Pascha, we Orthodox have kept the Julian to comply with a First Ecumenical Council canon, which demands Christians to celebrate Pascha after the Jewish Passover.

Well you can't celebrate the resurrection until after the 14th/15th Passover full moon.... ;-)

 

[Mockingbird0]

For Pascha, we Orthodox have kept the Julian to comply with a First Ecumenical Council canon, which demands Christians to celebrate Pascha after the Jewish Passover. Many contemporaries of the Nicaean Council and saints spoke of it.

“It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom of the Jews, who have soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes… We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Savior has shown us another way… Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way.”
— Eusebius, “Life of Constantine,” Book III, Chapter 18

So, while the Gregorian calendar is more in line with astronomical correctness, we stay true to the Councils and intention of the ancients regarding the timing.

There is no such canon of Nicea. The 20 canons of Nicea deal with different matters. The Nicene decision on Easter was to compute the Christian Passover independently, not relying on the Jewish calendar, which at that time sometimes set the Feast of Unleavened Bread before the Spring equinox. The Gregorian paschalion fulfills this requirement perfectly, since it has its own independent lunar calendar, which computes a Christian month of Nisan without regard for the Rabbinic Jewish computation and sets Easter to the third Sunday in that independently calculated, Christian month of Nisan. The Julian paschalion does this too. It is self-consistent and makes no external reference to the Rabbinic Jewish or any other calendar. But its equinox is 13 days late and its full moon is 4 to 5 days late. As a result, in 5 years out of every 19, the Julian Paschal Full Moon (PFM) is 4 or 5 days after the second full moon after the Spring equinox, not at the first full moon on or after the equinox at which Josephus (Antiquities 3.248) states that the Passover sacrifice was offered in Herodian times.

Had it been in use at the time, the modern-day Rabbinic Jewish calendar would have set the first day of Unleavened Bread (15 Nisan) to Easter Sunday in the years 370, 496, 499, 519, 523, 536, 543, 563, 570, 590, 594, 614, and 743.

A late Jewish tradition assigns the institution of the modern-day Rabbinic Jewish calendar to the 350s A.D. Modern scholarship assigns the institution to a time after the redaction of the Talmud. So while Easter Sunday is a plausible date for Rabbinic Jewish Unleavened Bread for all the years listed, the modern-day calculation is not likely to have been used for any of the years listed except possibly the last one. But the modern-day algorithm places the first day of Unleavened Bread on Easter Sunday for all of them. This proves that the Julian paschalion was not explicitly designed to avoid the first day of Unleavened Bread in the modern-day Rabbinic Jewish calendar.

 

[JSRG]

For Pascha, we Orthodox have kept the Julian to comply with a First Ecumenical Council canon, which demands Christians to celebrate Pascha after the Jewish Passover. Many contemporaries of the Nicaean Council and saints spoke of it.

There is no "canon" of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea) about Easter at all. While there was apparently a decision regarding the date of Easter made at the council, it is in no canon of it, and instead is only found in writings about the Council, most notably Constantine's letter sent out after the council, which you offer a quote from (Life of Constantine 3.18, which reproduces part of the letter, can be viewed in larger context here).

“It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom of the Jews, who have soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes… We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Savior has shown us another way… Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way.”
— Eusebius, “Life of Constantine,” Book III, Chapter 18

Neither your quote nor anything in Constantine's letter says that there is a requirement for Easter to be after the Jewish Passover (one could interpret it as saying it should not be on the same day, but it says nothing about after). Rather, it asserts a desire to have everyone celebrate Easter on the same date and also to not rely on Jewish calculations for determining the date. Prior to this, they would look at whenever the Jews held Passover, and set the date for Easter based on that (generally doing so the Sunday after). However, there were two major criticisms of this, which are mentioned in Constantine's letter. The first was a complaint about basing the time of the most important Christian celebration of the year on the calculations of people who were not Christian. The second was accusations that the Jews were doing the calculation wrong and doing Passover on the wrong date (apparently too early). As is stated in Constantine's letter, "Hence it is that on this point as well as others they have no perception of the truth, so that, being altogether ignorant of the true adjustment of this question, they sometimes celebrate Easter twice in the same year. Why then should we follow those who are confessedly in grievous error?" This is an explicit criticism that the Jews were choosing the date wrong, and why Christians should stop basing their calculations on the incorrect ones that Jews were doing.

So, while the Gregorian calendar is more in line with astronomical correctness, we stay true to the Councils and intention of the ancients regarding the timing.

What intention does the Julian Calendar fulfill that the Gregorian does not? The Gregorian Calendar, like the Julian Calendar, is not based on Jewish calculations.

Perhaps your assertion of intention relies on the idea that Easter must be after the Jewish Passover, and to appeal to a case like 2024, where the Gregorian Easter was before the Jewish Passover while the Julian Easter was after (Gregorian Easter: March 31, Jewish Passover: April 13, and Julian Easter: May 5). But this occurs because the Jewish calendar is off. This is well known, and Jewish sources admit this is a problem. Basically, since the Jewish calendar has only 353-355 days, they have to periodically have leap years in which an entire month is added. However, when they set up the cycle of leap years in the Jewish calendar, the calculations were slightly off and thus the Jewish calendar drifts slightly forward each year on average. Over the course of centuries, this adds up. And this meant that in 2024, even though there was no need to add in a month to keep Passover after the spring equinox, they added in one anyway which is why it got pushed past the Gregorian Easter, though still short of the Julian Easter. The Julian Calendar ends up after that still because the Julian Calendar, like the Jewish Calendar, is also drifting forward. Note that if left unchecked, we will see Passover become a summer celebration eventually (it will, admittedly, take thousands of years more before it gets that extreme).

But if that is your assertion, that because Julian Easter comes after the date the Jews have Passover in some years where the Gregorian Easter does not, the Julian Easter is true to the original intentions, there are issues with that. As has been noted, the letter of Constantine you appeal to, even if we consider it to have the authority of the council, says nothing about any requirement to put Easter after the time the Jews are celebrating Passover. But more importantly, given the fact Nicaea wanted to make the date of Easter independent of Jewish calculations, it doesn't make all that much sense to insist the Julian Calendar is more in line with the intention of Nicaea by the argument that it fulfills a requirement that is based on Jewish calculations (that is, it happening after when the Jews set Passover).

 

[Michie]

From the op:

‘God can inspire us’​

“It’s a procedural issue, but yet it remains a self-identification issue. And there are just some Orthodox who feel that on these issues that divide us — not every single issue that divides us — the Catholics and the Protestants have to capitulate,” Papanikolaou said. “So on the institutional level in the Orthodox Church, I’m afraid that most institutional players — not necessarily all, but most — would not move forward with this because of the kind of reaction they would get from their Orthodox constituents.”

Father Rentel echoed that prediction.

“I don’t anticipate much to change past this year. I am skeptical, in other words, that anything will change,” he said. “People will talk, argue, try and agree, but little more will happen.”

But, he added, there is always room for grace — and so, the unexpected.

“Ultimately, God can inspire us and move us in ways according to the purpose of fulfilling his will,” the archpriest reflected. “In other words, even though these problems seem insurmountable, they can be overcome by God’s grace.”

Father Alexopoulos agreed.

“May this year’s common date,” he petitioned, “be the beginning of a common witness of Christ’s resurrection to the whole world.”

 

[Mockingbird0]

The Zonaras Proviso was formulated by Ioannes Zonaras based on a misreading of Apostolic Canon 7. Zonaras frankly did not know that the Alexandrian paschalion contains an explicit Spring equinox on March 21. This is the equinox that Apostolic Canon 7 refers to. But Zonaras only knew of a Spring equinox on March 25 or April 25, so in order to make sense of the Canon he invented the doctrine that the Jewish feast must come first, and the Christian feast follow. But this was not the original intent of the Alexandrian paschalion, which was to set the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) to the first full moon on or after the Spring equinox, where Josephus (Antiquities 3.248) stated that the Paschal sacrifice was offered in Herodian times.

Due to the lateness of its equinox, the Julian Paschalion places the Paschal Full Moon 4 or 5 days after the second full moon after the Spring equinox in the 3rd, 8th, 11th, 14th and 19th years of the Western Christian 19-year cycle. Due to the lateness of its implied equinox (there is no explicit equinox in the Jewish calendar calculation) the modern-day Rabbinic Jewish calendar sets the first day of Unleavened Bread to the second full moon after the equinox in years 3, 11, and 14 of the Western Christian 19-year cycle. So when the Jewish calendar gets Unleavened Bread wrong, the Julian paschalion does also, and in two extra years besides. But this is not because of a rule that Easter must always fall after the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the Rabbinic Jewish calendar. It is only because the Julian solar calendar's equinox is so late.