Why do Orthodox and Greek Catholics continue to celebrate Easter in the old way?

The problem of Easter is not solved by a simple transition from the Julian calendar to the new calendar due to a long-standing and deep dispute.

Easter is not tied to a date, but to the vernal equinox and full moon. And here the Catholics and the Orthodox diverged long ago, although these nuances are not easy to understand and explain.

The Julian calendar is tied to the old Paschalia – a method of determining the date of Easter, which was approved in 325 by the Council of Nicaea, which was still the only church at the time.< /p>

That council established that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

It seems that the rule is simple, but in fact the scheme of calculations is complex, the church calendar over time began to differ greatly from the astronomical one. Therefore, after the calendar reform of the 16th century, the vernal equinox in the west and east began to be calculated differently. Catholics switched to calculations that are close to astronomical, and Orthodox continued to calculate in the old way. Therefore, the same supposed rule began to produce different dates.

In short, the difference between the dates of Easter according to the Eastern and Western traditions is caused by the difference in the calculation of the vernal equinox due to the difference between the calendars of 13 days. After the reform, the western tradition of determining the vernal equinox is closer to the astronomical equinox, while the eastern one can be “late”.

Therefore, the first full moon after the vernal equinox is counted differently for everyone, and most often it comes earlier for Catholics.< /p>

For example, according to the “civil calendar”, which practically coincides with the Gregorian calendar, the vernal equinox in 2024 will be March 20 (according to the church – March 21). The first full moon is March 25, and therefore Easter is on the first Sunday after such a full moon – March 31.

And the old method of determining the equinox according to the Julian church calendar, which does not correspond to the astronomical one, brings Easter up to May 5 (the Jewish Passover on April 23-30 played a role here, before which the Orthodox do not celebrate Easter, so the celebration was moved from April 28 for another week) .

Sometimes the difference with the equinox according to both calendars is not significant, and the dates of Easter coincide.

Therefore, Easter according to the Gregorian calendar is celebrated a week earlier than according to the Julian calendar in 45% of cases. In 30% of cases, Easter coincides (this will be the case in 2025), 5% – a difference of four weeks, 20% – a difference of as much as 5 weeks (more than the lunar cycle – this will be the case in 2024).

There is no difference of two or three weeks. As you can see, there is no sacred connection to a specific date here. People normally perceive both celebrations together and separately.

It so happened that according to the Julian calendar, Easter must be celebrated after the Jewish Passover, while the Gregorian calendar, due to astronomical and mathematical features, sometimes violates this rule .

Although the insistence that Easter cannot be celebrated at the same time or before the Jewish Pesach appeared already in the 11th and 12th centuries in Byzantium.

Among other arguments for not updating the old method of calculation, they cite the fact that Jesus Christ himself lived according to the Julian calendar. They also mention the blessed fire, which, according to churchmen, goes down in the Church of the Resurrection (the Holy Sepulcher) in Jerusalem on the eve of the “old Orthodox” Easter, not the “Catholic-Protestant”.

Is it possible to be a permanent joint celebration of Easter

At first glance, especially for a person who finds it difficult to understand the nuances of calculating the equinoxes and calendars, what can be easier than agreeing to celebrate Easter together.

Moreover, it is not so rare that it happens by itself – a joint celebration will be In 2025, April 20, then in 2028 – April 16.

In recent years, the church-wide media have written that certain negotiators from the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch are working to try to agree on a common date for Easter in the future for all the churches that have switched to the new calendar.

Such negotiations and attempts have taken place more than once since the 17th century and ended in failure.

There is now a good reason for this – in 2025, not only will all Christians celebrate Easter on the same day, but that year they will also celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which established the rule for calculating Easter. However, the chances of this are small.

In the conditions of Russia's war against Ukraine and uncertainty in the Orthodox world, no one can make any predictions.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, congratulating the Christians who celebrated Easter this year on March 31, expressed the hope that next year the celebration of Easter on the same day according to both Eastern and Western approaches should not be a coincidence, but the beginning of the joint celebration of the most important holiday for Christians.

Some of the Orthodox churches, including the Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Jerusalem Patriarchates, still live according to the Julian calendar, and they will not want to change the calculation of Easter according to the agreement of Constantinople and Rome. The Russian Church has severed communication with Constantinople and will definitely not switch to the new calendar, just like the UOC MP, which is actually subordinate to it in Ukraine.

Moreover, no one can predict how the celebration of Easter will change if Constantinople and Rome come to an agreement , those Orthodox churches that switched to the New Julian calendar and, for example, celebrate Christmas on December 25 will also be considered.

Therefore, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, UGCC and religious experts, with whom BBC Ukraine spoke, are inclined to the opinion that changes in the calculation of Easter should not be expected in the foreseeable future. regarding Easter with “empty fantasies”. Firstly, they do not really believe in the possibility of an agreement between Constantinople and Rome, and secondly, there may be an even greater split among the Orthodox.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (which is subordinate to Rome, but has an Eastern rite), where they still have certain hopes for negotiations in 2025.

In a conversation with VVS Ukraine, UGCC spokesman Father Ihor Yatsiv expressed hope that the dialogue between Rome and Constantinople will end successfully, and after 2025 “there will already be a joint celebration of Easter”.

But in any case, the transition to they want to make a new definition of Easter in the church at the same time as the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, so if there is no global agreement, the transition is unlikely to happen in the country either.

“In Ukraine, we live together with our Orthodox brothers, so we do not want to create calendar divisions between us, so as not to celebrate Easter differently,” Father Ihor Yatsiv insists.

In his opinion, this year, when the difference as many as five weeks between the dates of Easter clearly shows the problem, and therefore it is necessary to switch, but carefully and at the same time.

But Ihor Yatskiv reminded that a certain number of UGCC parishes abroad had already switched to the Gregorian calendar and celebrated Easter in a new way.

The situation in Transcarpathia is also unique. There, the Mukachevo Greek Catholic Diocese is not subject to the UGCC and is subject to Rome. They decided to completely switch to the Gregorian calendar, including the celebration of movable holidays. Therefore, in Transcarpathian churches (several hundreds of them), Greek Catholics will celebrate Easter on March 31.

Easter is a unique holiday for Ukrainians, when many not very religious people go to churches, even at Christmas, when there is no such celebrated at home.

That is why the difference in calendars for Easter is so important, and the churchmen here are most wary of sudden movements.