On Jan. 25, closing out the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis said that the Catholic Church was open to accepting a common date for Easter “that everyone wants.”
“Everyone” in this case refers to the other Christian churches. It is a call that, while it may seem groundbreaking, actually goes back to the Second Vatican Council.
In an appendix to Vatican II’s 1963 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” Pope Paul VI wrote, “the Sacred Council would not object if the feast of Easter were assigned to a particular Sunday of the Gregorian Calendar, provided that those whom it may concern, especially the brethren who are not in communion with the Apostolic See, give their assent.” Essentially, this means that if the other Christian churches can agree on a common date for Easter, the Council would agree to that date—even if it meant changing how the Roman Catholic Church calculated the date of Easter.
Why do we celebrate Easter on different dates?
Since the Council of Nicea in 325, Easter has been celebrated in both the Eastern and Western churches on the Sunday after the “Paschal full moon,” which is essentially the first full moon after the spring equinox—though this is based on historical approximations of when the full moon is, as well as when the equinox falls.
The difference between the dates came about with Pope Gregory XIII’s reform of the calendar, which created the Gregorian calendar that most of the world uses today. Gregory had changed the calendar because the previous calendar—the Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar—was increasingly out of sync with the movement of the sun, meaning its approximate date for the spring equinox was drifting further and further from the actual equinox.
However, following Gregory’s reform, the Eastern churches stuck with the Julian calendar for calculating the date of Easter. (There have also been a few reforms to the Julian method of calculating Easter.) As a result, the Eastern and Western dates of Easter can fall as far as four weeks apart.
Of course, the terms “Eastern” and “Western” are imprecise, and there are many exceptions. In general, the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant churches and Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate Easter on the same date—though some Eastern Catholic Churches follow the Julian calendar for the sake of unity with the Orthodox churches.
Following the Julian calendar are most Eastern Orthodox churches and most Oriental Orthodox churches, though there are exceptions. Complicating matters further is that not all Eastern Christians celebrate Easter on the same date. Because of the diaspora of Eastern Christians in the Western world, some have begun to follow the Western method of calculating Easter—resulting in the funny, if a little absurd, case of the Canadian Ukrainian Catholic bishops sending out an Easter message last year dated both March 31 and May 5.
In 2025, Easter will fall on the same date in the Eastern and Western churches. Pope Francis hopes that this could provide an opportunity for Christians to begin celebrating Easter on the same date going forward.
While Easter has fallen on the same date as recently as 2017, Francis is strengthening the push for a common date for Easter starting this year because of the Jubilee Year 2025. This Jubilee Year has a special focus on Christian unity because it marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, the first Christian ecumenical council. The pope plans to travel to Nicea, in modern-day Turkey, in May to celebrate the anniversary with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, with whom he has a friendly relationship.
Can Christians agree on a common date?
In “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” the council fathers said they would agree to a common date for Easter provided that the other Christian churches could agree on one. Pope John Paul II later affirmed this, saying that the Catholic Church would acquiesce to a common agreed-upon date, and Francis has repeated it several times as well.
The question is: Can Christians agree on a common date? And how would such an agreement come about?
An agreement would require that not only the Roman Catholic Church, but also the Protestant churches come to an agreement with Eastern churches, which is difficult since many Protestant churches are decentralized in their governance. In the past, the World Council of Churches has made a number of efforts to push toward a common date for Easter among Eastern and Protestant churches, but so far none have led to a resolution.
A key question will be whether Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who is influential in a number of Orthodox Churches, will be able to come to an agreement over the date of Easter with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The two have been in tension over the Russia-Ukraine war for years, and the Ukrainian Catholic Church recently changed the date of Christmas to align with the Western calendar, distancing itself from the Russian Orthodox Church.
It seems likely that the Vatican will do what it can to facilitate dialogue between the different traditions for a common date behind the scenes, since Pope Francis has had his eye on the goal of achieving a common date for Easter in 2025 for years. The Ecumenical Patriarch, who is the de facto leader of many Eastern churches, shares this goal. He told the Orthodox Times last year that it is a “scandal to celebrate separately the unique event of the one Resurrection of the One Lord.”
The patriarch said he is “optimistic, as there is goodwill and willingness on both sides.”
