www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Calendar-Easter

The Julian and Gregorian calendars have Pascha 5 weeks apart this year.
When will we get a common date for Easter?

Side-by-side Easter calendar reference for the 21st century

http://5ko.free.fr/en/easter.php

Thank you for the link.

I had forgotten that, after next year's blessed alignment of the Feast of feasts, Christendom must wait another eight years.

For many who celebrate next year, their next universal Pascha will be in Christ's Eternal Kingdom.

We will get a common date for Easter when the West simply returns to the way of calculating it that was prevalent throught the once united Orthodox Catholic Church of Christ.

It was the West that introduced this innovation, not the East. The East cannot be faulted for maintaining the ancient tradition. Time for the West to "come home" in this regard.

The theory of celebrating Easter on the unmoveable date of the second Sunday in April each year will never be acceptable to all parties, even to many in the West.

Why does the West have this mentality that any return to the real tradition of the Church is a form of "giving in" to the East and a tacit admission that it was "wrong?"

The West likes to experiment with things, like the various Unias (which the Balamand statement has repudiated) and liturgical traditions (which did not result in bringing Protestants any closer to Rome - the only Protestants seeking reconciliation with Rome are High-Church ones who maintain the rites of the pre-Vatican II era).

Rome needs a bit of a shake-up in this regard and, until then, should stop spewing ecumenical niceties that amount to ... nothing.

Alex

I don't think a common date will occur anytime soon. Neither East nor West has any serious interest in a common witness of the Resurrection.

My vote is to follow the traditional Eastern Christian method of calculating Pascha with one modification - that is to use the actual date of the astronomical equinox rather than the Julian-calculated equinox that is currently 13 days after the one we see in the sky. But I fully realize that neither East nor West is going to be open to compromise anytime soon.

Pope Francis seems to be interested in a common date.
Isn't the equinox March 20/April 2?

April 27? Surely not! Not on anyone's calendar!

Unfortunately when an institution makes innovations and changes going back on them is like admitting they made a mistake which is something Rome will never do!

Don't forget the Finnsh and Estonian Orthodox Churches, http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/06/the-date-of-orthodox-easter-in-finland.html

What would happen if Rome simply went back to the Orthodox date of Easter as it has previously observed for many centuries?

Why is Rome's perspective on returning to the "early Church" etc. positive thing for it, whereas returning to the once shared tradition with the East viewed as a form of "giving in" to the Orthodox?

Why the double standard?

Alex

As extensive past posts in calendar threads on this forum have indicated this is not accurate.

First it should not be a case of East vs. West but right vs. wrong, correct vs. incorrect, fact vs. fiction.

It is generally accepted that the Council of Nicaea gave a prescription for reckoning Pascha/Easter. By the 16th century the calendar used to accomplish that prescription was 10-11 days in error (it is currently ~13 days in error). The error is in the timing of the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) which the Council of Nicaea (again, as accepted, though not codified in its extant official decrees but from related documents) wanted to be on March 21 which is when it occurred at the time of the Council. Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian Reform of the Calendar on February 24, 1582. The Bull containing this reform, Inter Gravissimas, is explicit in noting the corrections are to restore the determination of Easter to the desires of the Council of Nicaea:
An old calendar was (and still is) wrong, like a watch that does not keep correct time, and this in a crucial element for following the prescription of the Council of Nicaea. Those who would follow that calendar (the Julian and its Paschalion) more often than not fail to celebrate Pascha according to the rule of Nicaea. The lunar cycle of the Julian and its Paschalion is so out of wack from reality (the actual cycle of the moon) that it is an embarrassment as an astronomical determination; the solar calculation is off 13 days and growing ~1 day more in error every ~120 years (In A.D. 325 it was already 4 days in error from Caesar's original date of March 25 for the vernal equinox, which is why the Council gave March 21 as the date.)

Please, those who pronounce on the calendars, don't assume with the usual characteristic smugness the superiority of the Julian calendar and its Pashcalion because it must be since it's traditional and "Orthodox," and of course the Roman West must be wrong. Here, Rome, the West, the Pope, got it right. The world knows -- acknowledges-- this implicitly. The Gregorian calendar is the present international standard; it is a great accomplishment for what a calendar is supposed to do. It is not an innovation but a much needed correction. The fault if any should be on those who "come home" most years to a Pascha that is at odds with the sun and the moon and the Council of Nicaea and then simply insist that's the way it must be.

Dear ajk,

Actually, the smugness you mention here is rather your own perception. The point under discussion is something of another kind.

The point is raised, by the initiator of this thread, that the two Paschas this year are five weeks apart and so he puts the question bluntly: When will we have a common Pascha?

Your point about the Gregorian calendar being "correct" begs the question, "Correct in what exact way?" In fact, we had a thread year some time ago where a scientific community - astronomers, I think, but I could be wrong - do in fact use the Julian calendar for purposes of calculation etc.

At the same time, even when we see the Gregorian calendar to be correct, that doesn't resolve the issue of the anomalies to the Christian liturgical year that the Gregorian calendar has introduced (about which Fr. Keleher wrote extensively).

Be that as it may, even Rome is not married to its date for Pascha as we see in the proposals being put forth regarding a fixed date for Pascha.

So even Rome is ready to abandon how it calculates Easter for the sake of unity.

In that case, why could not Rome simply adopt the Eastern Pascha (when so many Eastern Churches are already on the Gregorian calendar)?

From Rome's standpoint whether Pascha is in the second week of April each year or in accordance with Orthodox Pascha - it doesn't appear to matter to it.

It DOES matter to the Orthodox East, whether the Churches in question are on the Julian or "Reformed Julian" calendars.

It matters so much that the East will not countenance any discussion of the matter and believes it was mandated by Ecumenical Council etc. And the West did follow the same Pascha until the Gregorian reform.

So there is no question of "smugness" but of determining a way to come to unity quickly and practically.

You are quick to attach the label of "characteristic smugness" to the East, but you overlook completely what could also be termed "Roman arrogance" with respect to a number of dogmas it introduced that have no real grounding in the first 1000 years of the one Christian Church's existence - especially Roman papal triumphalism.

The Orthodox East doesn't like change. From the standpoint of traditionalism - which many would argue is a good standard for judging matters of faith and morals - change should only be introduced very carely, after due consideration, and always by mutual, conciliar agreement rather than the top-down papal pronouncement that accompanied, for example, the calendar change.

So my point is simply this - Rome doesn't seem to care, the East does care, so let's go with the East and be done with it.

I don't believe I ever said Rome was wrong. What I did say is that Rome-Orthodox relations have tended to be a tug of war to satisfy either side that it is right and the other was wrong. That is not good ecumenism and it is not good Christianity.

Alex

I could vote for that too.

The "traditional Eastern Christian method" is also the traditional Western Christian method, that is, the directives attributed to the Council of Nicaea I, and explained as applied under ecclesiastical rules quite nicely by The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) [aa.usno.navy.mil]. Using the astronomical equinox is essentially the Aleppo Statement [oikoumene.org] produced by the WCC with significant Orthodox participation (and not Catholic). It is a move in the right direction and I'm confident it would be supported by the Catholic Church as the USCCB's Common Response to the Aleppo Statement on the Date of Easter/Pascha [usccb.org] indicates.

Looking at the Table for finding Easter/Pascha dates [oikoumene.org] attached to the Aleppo Statement, however, indicates that the Gregorian Paschalion is already doing the job as well as Nicaea would have expected.

If you can convince the Orthodox East to agree - I would be all for it too!

But as some would say, "rotsa ruck!"

(And don't you BCC'ers already follow the Gregorian Calendar and Western calculation for Easter? Fr. Deacon and the Administrator here really do have a conflict of interest in discussing all this! ).

Alex

It's both some of the Orthodox and Catholic East that need convincing. There's no convincing those who aren't open to the truth. The data is there, the conclusion is obvious, the Orthodox who worked on and ascribed to Aleppo are convinced. So what's the problem?

The problem is inconsistency in acknowledging Nicaea's rule and a 2000 year effort by both East and West to follow it and then the solution that the West must accommodate the East by determining the date of Easter by a method that is inferior and in serious error relative to the prescription of the Council of Nicaea I. The error is that the Julian calendar and its Paschalion are inaccurate to such an obvious and objective extent that it puts Easter at a time (more often than not) that goes against the Council of Nicaea. The sun and the moon are witness to this.


Hardly a conflict of interest since the practice of the BCC has not entered the argument which has centered on the facts. Practicing what is true and certain against what is false cannot be a conflict of interest. My argument and the data, historical and scientific, is against the present day validity of the Julian calendar and its Paschalion. There are several valid solutions. The Gregorian calendar and its Paschalion are one of the valid solutions.