For the Orthodox churches, we all celebrate Pascha on the same day, regardless of which calendar our particular branch follows. It will be next Sunday. Christmas and all the other feasts vary by Julian or Gregorian calendar, but not this one.
How about the Catholic Church? Do the Byzantine Rite churches follow the same liturgical calendar as the Latin Rite or have their own?
Passover is, as I understand it, the main reason the Eastern and Western Easter often fall on different dates. The ancient formula for determining the date included that it had to come after the Jewish Passover. The Catholic Church decided at some point to disregard that rule, but the Orthodox have kept it.
Yikes! After reading the almanac.com page Grim linked below, which did not mention the ancient formula or link to the Jewish Passover, I did some research on Orthodox sites. It seems that what I posed about why the dates are different is completely wrong. It is all just a difference in calendars.
According to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, this whole 'ancient formula' thing is a common error among Orthodox Christians, so at least I'm Orthodoxly wrong. :D
Well, not just which calendar. The Julian calendar is consistently 13 days behind the Gregorian, so what accounts for the Orthodox and Western Easter falling on the same day this year?
The best I can find is that many many moons ago the Eastern churches adopted a 19-year paschal cycle and the Western church adopted an 84-year paschal cycle. I don't know how those cycles work, but I think they are designed to account for the calendar's drift from the astronomical equinox. As Grim notes, the Celts also used a 19-year cycle at one time.
The difference between the cycles can put Easter on the same date or up to 5 weeks in difference.
In the Western churches, Easter can fall from March 22 and as late as April 25. In the Eastern, from April 4 to May 8.
Many a man has gotten lost in trying to spell the stars in this way. I trust God knows his own, and will forgive us for this minor error as he forgives far greater sins.
I can't claim to be Jewish, but my beloved's father is an agnostic Jew who survived the Budapest Ghetto. Funny thing is after we had kids, her nominally Catholic mother got us to start celebrating (in a not terribly orthodox way) the major holidays, so we do a crude Passover with them and my sister-in-law and Jewish brother-in-law. My FIL has been known to quip "She's a better Jew than I am!". My parents parish also does a Passover, for educational and community bonding purposes, which we've been to many times. Not being Orthodox, and as the in-laws are in Vegas, we will move our 'Seder' to Easter Vigil, but we will have it. I like how it is a great example to our kids of how you keep tradition alive through storytelling and ritual, and that we honor our father/grandfather as well.
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For the Orthodox churches, we all celebrate Pascha on the same day, regardless of which calendar our particular branch follows. It will be next Sunday. Christmas and all the other feasts vary by Julian or Gregorian calendar, but not this one.
How about the Catholic Church? Do the Byzantine Rite churches follow the same liturgical calendar as the Latin Rite or have their own?
Passover is, as I understand it, the main reason the Eastern and Western Easter often fall on different dates. The ancient formula for determining the date included that it had to come after the Jewish Passover. The Catholic Church decided at some point to disregard that rule, but the Orthodox have kept it.
And, Happy Passover for any of the Jewish faith here!
There's a fairly thorough article about that here:
https://www.almanac.com/content/when-is-easter
How one calculates Easter was also one of the ways in which the Celtic church differed from the Roman one in the old days.
Yikes! After reading the almanac.com page Grim linked below, which did not mention the ancient formula or link to the Jewish Passover, I did some research on Orthodox sites. It seems that what I posed about why the dates are different is completely wrong. It is all just a difference in calendars.
According to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, this whole 'ancient formula' thing is a common error among Orthodox Christians, so at least I'm Orthodoxly wrong. :D
Well, not just which calendar. The Julian calendar is consistently 13 days behind the Gregorian, so what accounts for the Orthodox and Western Easter falling on the same day this year?
The best I can find is that many many moons ago the Eastern churches adopted a 19-year paschal cycle and the Western church adopted an 84-year paschal cycle. I don't know how those cycles work, but I think they are designed to account for the calendar's drift from the astronomical equinox. As Grim notes, the Celts also used a 19-year cycle at one time.
The difference between the cycles can put Easter on the same date or up to 5 weeks in difference.
In the Western churches, Easter can fall from March 22 and as late as April 25. In the Eastern, from April 4 to May 8.
Many a man has gotten lost in trying to spell the stars in this way. I trust God knows his own, and will forgive us for this minor error as he forgives far greater sins.
And boy were they serious about that. They did not regard it as a minor difference.
There is a lunar cycle of 19 years that was likely the basis for Celtic practice. Sorry if that was at the link, which I didn't read.
Indeed. I suspect God finds this error quite amusing rather than sinful.
I can't claim to be Jewish, but my beloved's father is an agnostic Jew who survived the Budapest Ghetto. Funny thing is after we had kids, her nominally Catholic mother got us to start celebrating (in a not terribly orthodox way) the major holidays, so we do a crude Passover with them and my sister-in-law and Jewish brother-in-law. My FIL has been known to quip "She's a better Jew than I am!". My parents parish also does a Passover, for educational and community bonding purposes, which we've been to many times. Not being Orthodox, and as the in-laws are in Vegas, we will move our 'Seder' to Easter Vigil, but we will have it. I like how it is a great example to our kids of how you keep tradition alive through storytelling and ritual, and that we honor our father/grandfather as well.
Easter is still quite a ways off this year, depending upon whether your church follows the Gregorian or the Julian calendar.
I didn't make it terribly clear above, but Easter coincides for us all this year. The Eastern Orthodox will celebrate it next Sunday, April 20.
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