Reform of the date of Easter

Reform of the date of Easter has been proposed several times because the current system for determining the date of Easter is seen as presenting two significant problems:

1. Its date varies from year to year (by the Western system of calculation, it can fall on any of 35 dates on the Gregorian calendar). While many Christians do not consider this to be a problem, it can cause frequent difficulties of co-ordination with civil calendars, for example academic terms. Many countries have public holidays around Easter weekend.
2. The Eastern and Western Christian churches calculate Pascha using two different calendars (the Julian and Gregorian, respectively); hence in most years Easter is celebrated on a different date in the East and the West.

Fixed date

It has been proposed that the first problem could be resolved by making Easter occur on a date fixed relative to the western Gregorian calendar every year, or alternatively on a Sunday within a fixed range of seven dates. The Pepuzites, a 5th-century sect, celebrated Easter on the Sunday following April 6 (on the Julian calendar).^[1] The April 6 date was apparently arrived at because it was equivalent to the 14th of the month of Artemisios in an earlier calendar used in the area, hence, the 14th of the first month of spring.^[2]

While tying it to one fixed date would serve to underline the belief that Easter commemorates an actual historical event, without an accompanying calendar reform that changes the pattern of the days of the week (itself a subject of religious controversy) it would also break the tradition of Easter always being on a Sunday, established since the 2nd century AD and by now deeply embedded in the liturgical practice and theological understanding of almost all Christian denominations.

The two most widespread proposals for fixing the date of Easter would set it on either the second Sunday in April (8 to 14), or the Sunday after the second Saturday in April (9 to 15). In both schemes, account has been taken of the fact that—in spite of the many difficulties in establishing the dates of the historical events involved—many scholars attribute a high degree of probability to Friday April 7, 30, as the date of the crucifixion of Jesus, which would make April 9 the date of the Resurrection. Another date which is supported by many scholars is April 3,^[3][4][5][6] making April 5 the date of the Resurrection. Many churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, have stated that they have no objection in principle to fixing the date of Easter in this way, but no serious discussions have yet taken place on implementing such a change.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, this idea gained some momentum (along with other calendar reform proposals, such as the World Calendar), and in 1928 a law was passed in the United Kingdom authorising an Order in Council which would fix the date of Easter in that country as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April.^[7] However, this was never implemented. In 1977, some Eastern Orthodox representatives objected to separating the date of Easter from lunar phases.^[8]

Unified date

Proposals to resolve the second problem have made greater progress, but they are yet to be adopted.

1923 proposal

An astronomical rule for Easter was proposed by the 1923 Pan-Orthodox Congress of Constantinople that also proposed the Revised Julian calendar: Easter was to be the Sunday after the midnight-to-midnight day at the meridian of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (35°13'47.2"E or UT+2^h20^m55^s for the small dome) during which the first full moon after the vernal equinox occurs.^[9][10]

Although the instant of the full moon must occur after the instant of the vernal equinox, it may occur on the same day. If the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter is the following Sunday. This proposed astronomical rule was rejected by all Orthodox churches and was never considered by any Western church.

1997 proposal

The World Council of Churches (WCC) proposed a reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in Aleppo, Syria, in 1997:^[11] Easter would be defined as the first Sunday following the first astronomical full moon following the astronomical vernal equinox, as determined from the meridian of Jerusalem.^[12] The reform would have been implemented starting in 2001, since in that year the Eastern and Western dates of Easter would coincide.

This reform has not been implemented. It would have relied mainly on the co-operation of the Eastern Orthodox Church, since the date of Easter would change for them immediately; whereas for the Western churches, the new system would not differ from that currently in use until 2019. However, Eastern Orthodox support was not forthcoming, and the reform failed.^[13] The much greater impact that this reform would have had on the Eastern churches in comparison with those of the West led some Orthodox to suspect that the WCC's decision was an attempt by the West to impose its viewpoint unilaterally on the rest of the world under the guise of ecumenism.

2008–2009 proposals

In 2008 and 2009, there was a new attempt to reach a consensus on a unified date on the part of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant leaders.^[14][15] This effort largely relies on earlier work carried out during the 1997 Aleppo conference.^[8][16] It was organized by academics working at the Institute of Ecumenical Studies of Lviv University.^[17]

Part of this attempt was reportedly influenced by ecumenical efforts in Syria and Lebanon, where the Greek-Melkite Church has played an important role in improving ties with the Orthodox.^[18][19] There is also a series of apparition phenomena known as Our Lady of Soufanieh that has urged for a common date of Easter.^[20]

2014-2016 proposals

In May 2014, on the anniversary of the meeting between himself and Pope Francis, Coptic Pope Tawadros II wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking for him to consider making renewed effort at a unified date for Easter.^[21]

In response, on 12 June 2015, Catholic Pope Francis remarked to the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services 3rd World Retreat of Priests at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome that “we have to come to an agreement” for a common date on Easter, the date calculated under the Orthodox churches' Gregorian Calendar. Lucetta Scaraffia, an historian, writing in the Vatican daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, said the Pope is offering this initiative to change the date of Easter “as a gift of unity with the other Christian churches” adding that a common date for Easter would encourage “reconciliation between the Christian churches and …a sort of making sense out of the calendar.” A week later Aphrem II, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, met with Pope Francis and noted that the celebration of Easter "on two different dates is a source of great discomfort and weakens the common witness of the church in the world."^[22]

In January 2016, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby announced that he had been in discussions with the Catholic, Coptic and Orthodox leaders over a fixed date for Easter, and that he hoped it would happen within the next five to ten years.^[23] Welby has suggested that Easter be fixed on either second or third Sunday of April (relative to the Gregorian calendar).^[24] This proposal remains to be approved, especially by Eastern churches which currently determine Easter using the Julian calendar.

See also

• Computus
• Easter controversy

References

External links

• Notes on calculating Orthodox Pascha ("Easter") at the Wayback Machine (archived March 4, 2000)
• An Orthodox article arguing for preservation of the current method of calculating the date of Pascha
• THE DATE OF EASTER: SCIENCE OFFERS SOLUTION TO ANCIENT RELIGIOUS PROBLEM