Catholics and Orthodox Are Closer Than Ever to a Common Date for Easter

Michie

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Can Nicaea again bring Christian unity?


A common date for Easter between East and West as a sign of Christian unity — how far are Christians from this ideal?

This initiative has received a renewed breath of life as Catholics recently celebrated their Easter Sunday on April 4, and Orthodox Christians are preparing for their Easter on May 2. Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and Orthodox Archbishop Job Getcha of Telmessos have agreed to work to find a common date to celebrate Easter and give united witness to Christ’s Resurrection.

Archbishop Getcha suggested that the year 2025, which coincides with the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) and during which the Eastern and Western Church will celebrate Easter on the same day — April 20 — might be an opportune time to reform the calendar.

The difference in the date the Eastern and Western Churches celebrate Easter has to do with two different calendars, the time and date of the spring equinox, and the full moon.

Continued below.
Catholics and Orthodox Are Closer Than Ever to a Common Date for Easter
 

GreekOrthodox

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Personally, I'd like to see the West, move back on a liturgical basis back to the Julian calendar. This would do a number of things:

1 - This would allow those of us under the Constantinople to move our liturgical calendar back to the rest of Orthodoxy. Right now, fixed feast days such as Christmas, we celebrated on December 25th while the rest of the Orthodox church celebrates on December 25th in the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind, so they celebrate on January 6th.

2 - We follow what is know as the "Revised Julian Calendar" which is Julian for the Paschal cycle but Gregorian for the rest of the year. This causes us a major headache because on a year like this one, the Apostles Fast, is REALLY messed up. The beginning is the second Monday after Pentecost and ends June 29th. So for a year like this one, liturgically, it begins on July 5th... which makes us either skip the fast or we make something up.

3 - More controversially, if Rome moves, it would move your fixed feast days, back 13-14 days. While I'm sure this would elicit cries of horror, the big advantage is that Christmas gets moved to Jan 6th. This would remove the religious feast from the secular holiday. Personally, I'd be all for that :)

4 - We already have fractures due to the "calendar". If Constantinople moves again, it creates more problems even for those of us that are fairly relaxed about the calendar.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Personally, I'd like to see the West, move back on a liturgical basis back to the Julian calendar.
The Julian calendar is just wrong. It was a good try but it's errors accumulate. The Gregorian calendar is far better, and with the ability to add a leap second as needed it is in good shape for the next ten thousand years, unless of course the rotation of the earth around the sun gets out of whack. So why readopt a calendar that isn't accurate when there is an accurate alternative?

Just to make the Orthodox happy? The Orthodox do need to enter into the latter part of the 16th century as a group and all will be well. I know that's a major ask. All you need is for some Orthodox scientists to invent Julian Two, which is of course not the evil pope Gregory's calendar, but functions exactly like it. Then everything is solved. We already use the same formula, so no change needed there. It would be so easy.
 
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Bob Crowley

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I wasn't aware there was even a difference between the Easter dates of Orthodox and Catholic. To me a calendar is a calendar. So I went looking for a bit of info.

I found this wikipedia article on the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar.

Adoption of the Gregorian calendar - Wikipedia

Although it is today the most widely used civil calendar, it was first "...decreed in 1582 by the papal bull Inter gravissimas by Pope Gregory XIII, to correct the erroneous assumption in the then-current Julian calendar that a year lasts 365.25 days, when in reality it is about 365.2422 days. Although Gregory's reform was enacted in the most solemn of forms available to the Church, the bull had no authority beyond the Catholic Church and the Papal States".

As usual Christian mistrust meant it was slow on the uptake.
The bull became the canon law of the Catholic Church in 1582, but it was not recognised by Protestant churches, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and a few others. Consequently, the days on which Easter and related holidays were celebrated by different Christian churches diverged.
and

Many Protestant countries initially objected to adopting a Catholic innovation; some Protestants feared the new calendar was part of a plot to return them to the Catholic fold.

My joke - if you were caught with a Gregorian Calendar in those old style Protestant states, you got twelve months!

As for the Orthodox Churches -
The Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church, Polish Orthodox Church, Macedonian Orthodox Church and the Greek Old Calendarists did not accept the Revised Julian calendar, and continue to celebrate Christmas on 25 December in the Julian calendar, which is 7 January in the Gregorian calendar until 2100.

Oh, well, it's early days yet. They've only had 500 years to accept it's a more accurate calendar. What's another 500?
 
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prodromos

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Miracles occur on major annual feast days on the Julian calendar (water flows in opposite direction on Epiphany at the Jordan river, cloud descends at the feast of the transfiguration on Mt Tabor, and Holy Fire comes to the Holy Sepulcher at Pascha, so we are reluctant to change something we see as blessed by God.

[Edit to add]
There are also miracles that occur annually on feast days on the New Calendar, so overall we don't see this as a faith breaking issue.
 
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GreekOrthodox

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Like I said in my first post, I'm speaking of the liturgical calendar, which has very little to do with astronomical accuracy. We don't know the actual date of Christ's birth, but that hardly matters because it is the theological meaning behind Christmas. We follow a 19 year liturgical cycle which was set up by Victorius of Aquitaine, who introduced it in Rome in 457. So changing this would be a major task.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Like I said in my first post, I'm speaking of the liturgical calendar, which has very little to do with astronomical accuracy.
It is astronomically inaccurate. Close, but in the long run no cigar. The Orthodox and the Catholics agree that Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. But since the agreed upon formula for Easter is the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox, when the Spring Equinox is actually matters. It's an astronomical thing. It is observable. But when is Orthodox equinox? Is it March 21st by the Julian calendar?
We don't know the actual date of Christ's birth, but that hardly matters because it is the theological meaning behind Christmas.
But this is about the date of Easter, the date of which we know considerably more. A date in the Spring. A date the Council of Nicea told us we should all agree on. The Orthodox calendar will soon grow to be fourteen days divergent, and over the long haul it will continue to become more divergent. Eventually won't you will have the date of Easter in the summer, and then the fall, and then in winter?
We follow a 19 year liturgical cycle which was set up by Victorius of Aquitaine, who introduced it in Rome in 457. So changing this would be a major task.
If Victorius of Aquitaine had known that a year was actually closer to 365.2422 days would he have acted accordingly and figured out the Gregorian calendar 1100 years earlier? This seems to very much be a tradition vs science thing. But then you have among the Orthodox some followers of the old calendar and some followers of a new calendar. So the Orthodox are muddled among themselves.
 
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chevyontheriver

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So this is why this will never work. I try to explain with some decent points but all that happens is that Catholics point out that we are wrong, end of story, submit to Rome.
You are absolutely right about it never being able to work. But then it isn't even working among the Orthodox, who have different calendars.
 
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prodromos

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You are absolutely right about it never being able to work. But then it isn't even working among the Orthodox, who have different calendars.
It is far from ideal, but it is working.
 
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chevyontheriver

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You started off your participation in this thread daydreaming about the Catholic Church changing to your flawed calendar. All that happened in response is that a Catholic pointed out the many and varied flaws in your calendar and made the obvious recommendation that your Church join the 16th century and change your calendar.

This, I gather, is an altogether unreasonable request to make of the Orthodox. For some reason.
I think we hope we can get along with the Orthodox, so we give it a try.

I'm sad that you consider my posts on this topic to be 'winners'. It's sad that we have no chance of fixing this no-brainer issue. It leaves me hopeless.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Don't Eastern Catholics celebrate in the same day as with the Orthodox? So technically Catholics already celebrate on the same day.
Hard to get quick and reliable info on that but I do think that is the case.
 
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chevyontheriver

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If it makes you feel any better, complete unity with the Orthodox won't be achieved or lost based on anything posted in this thread.
I wrote that a year is 365.2422 days instead of 365.25 days and they read "You must submit to the pope!" It's a doomed venture, this hoping for unity with people who don't want us.
 
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prodromos

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I agree. I realized long ago that every Orthodox bishop in the world could agree to come back and at least half of their faithful would refuse to obey.

So much for submitting to their bishop.
"come back"?
I don't know of any of our bishops who were former Catholics.
 
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tz620q

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Like I said in my first post, I'm speaking of the liturgical calendar, which has very little to do with astronomical accuracy. We don't know the actual date of Christ's birth, but that hardly matters because it is the theological meaning behind Christmas. We follow a 19 year liturgical cycle which was set up by Victorius of Aquitaine, who introduced it in Rome in 457. So changing this would be a major task.
I know I have asked this question before; but maybe you can refresh (or is that reform) my memory. I was told by an Eastern Catholic that they celebrate All Saints Day right after Pentecost. The liturgical appropriateness of this struck me as so fitting. Do the Orthodox also celebrate All Saints Day at that time?
 
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prodromos

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I know I have asked this question before; but maybe you can refresh (or is that reform) my memory. I was told by an Eastern Catholic that they celebrate All Saints Day right after Pentecost. The liturgical appropriateness of this struck me as so fitting. Do the Orthodox also celebrate All Saints Day at that time?
Yes. Eastern Catholics follow the Orthodox Calendar.
 
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