When Is Easter This Year?

If you’re reading this in the US, the answer is “this Sunday” (March 31). But if you’re in Eastern Europe, the answer may be quite different: May 5.

Why the difference? Why Eastern Europe? Who decides the date for Easter anyway? Why am I writing a blog post about the date of Easter?

Keep reading, and all these questions will be answered.

Easter, unlike holidays with fixed dates (like Christmas, which is always December 25), or those with easily determined dates (like Thanksgiving, which falls on the 4th Thursday of November), Easter’s date doesn’t always seem to have any rhyme or reason.

Early Christians celebrated Easter either on or just after the first day of the Jewish Passover (no matter on which day of the week that Easter Day occurred), or on a Sunday close to or on the first Passover Day.

It wasn’t until 326 A.D., following the Council of Nicea, that a system was implemented to standardize the date of Easter. It’s a rather complex calculation, so to simplify things, let’s just say that Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. This year, the first full moon following the spring equinox (March 20) is March 27, which means that Easter is the following Sunday (March 31.)

Sounds simple, right?

Well, it should be, but not everyone uses the same calendar.

In the year 1583, Pope Gregory the 13th, with the assistance of his astronomers and mathematicians, introduced a new and more accurate calendar to replace the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar). Although the Gregorian calendar was introduced in the 16th century, it didn’t completely replace the Julian calendar in worldwide use. For example, Great Britain (and subsequently the American colonies), which had already broken away from the Roman Catholic Church with the formation of the Church of England, didn’t switch to the Gregorian calendar until almost 200 years after it was introduced. Other parts of the world didn't adopt it until well into the twentieth century.

Here in Romania, the Gregorian calendar was adopted as the civic calendar in 1924. However, the Orthodox Churches in Romania and other places in Eastern Europe continue to adhere to the tradition which was established at the Council of Nicea to follow the Julian calendar, or at least a slightly modified version of it, rather than adopt the newer calendar introduced by a Roman pope whose authority they do not recognize.

What's the difference between the two calendars? Again, to simplify things, the Julian calendar is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. The Orthodox Church follows the decision of the Nicene Council to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. However, since it is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, the date of the spring equinox lags 13 days behind that of the Gregorian calendar. March 21 on the Julian calendar is actually April 3 on the Gregorian calendar.

This year, since the first full moon after April 3 is April 25, you would think that Orthodox Easter would be the following Sunday, April 28. But, once again, this gets more complicated, as Easter isn't celebrated until a week later -- May 5. This is due to the fact that the Julian calendar's calculations of the lunar cycles are not exactly correct. That minor inconsistency, after 2 millennia, has become quite noticeable as the observable full moon is actually several days before the Julian calendar says there should be a full moon.

Sometimes, the dates of Easter are the same.
For example, in 2011, Easter was April 24 (on our Gregorian calendar) but April 11 on the Julian calendar – both matching the criteria for the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. In fact, every year that I’ve been in Romania for Easter (2001, 2004, 2010, 2011), the dates for Easter have been the same. This is the first year I am experiencing the different dates for Easter. (Next year the dates will be the same again.)

One of the things that I'm noticing is that here in Romania there are several non-Orthodox churches which celebrate Easter on March 31. However, not only are they non-Orthodox, but also ethnically non-Romanian. The German Lutheran churches in Transylvania celebrate on the Gregorian calendar, as does the (Hungarian) Roman Catholic Church and the Hungarian Reformed Church. But the Church of the Nazarene, along with Baptists, Pentecostals, Brethren and other ethnic-Romanian Protestant churches, conform to the Orthodox calendar.

In Romania, what I'm learning is that the date on which one celebrates Easter is determined by one’s ethnicity, not by one’s church’s theological heritage.

So, this weekend, since it will be just an ordinary Sunday in the Church of the Nazarene in Romania, I plan to attend the Anglican Church in Bucharest, where I can celebrate with other English speakers the resurrection of our Lord. (And then do it again with Romanians on May 5!)