Establishing Bridges: Pope Suggests Unified Easter Date for All Christians

Pope Francis suggested to establish a common date to celebrate Easter, one of main Christian holidays, an Italian newspaper said.
Natalya Mihailova | 15 June 2015
ROME (Sputnik) — Francis said that he had already proposed to fix the same date of Easter to patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I and to patriarch of Moscow Kirill.

“[Roman Catholic] Church is willing to establish a fixed date for Easter, so it can be celebrated on the same day by all Christians, Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox,” the pope said Friday during the International retreat for priests in Rome, as cited by the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The date to celebrate the Resurrection was fixed during the Council of Nicaea in 325. It changes from year to year as the holiday falls on the Sunday following the first full moon of spring.

Catholics use the Gregorian calender to calculate the date of Easter, while the Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, so usually they celebrate the holiday on different days. Although in 30 percent of cases the date of Easter is the same for Catholics and Orthodox.

Since you are here…

…we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong.

Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable.

For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir.

If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life's purpose, family and society.