Does Easter belong to Jesus Christ, or to a calendar?

For Pope Francis, the answer is clear: “Easter belongs to Christ!” the pontiff declared in September 2024, when he met with representatives of the Pasqua Together 2025 Initiative, an assemblage of various lay associations and movements of several Christian confessions.

They were gathered to discuss a coincidence and a concern that, for all involved, represents an occasion of unity the Pope said “must not be allowed to pass by in vain.”

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Because this year, churches both East and West will celebrate Easter, the Day of Resurrection, on the same date: Sunday, April 20, 2025.

It’s notable because Western churches — Catholics of the Latin Church and most Protestants — follow the Gregorian calendar. So do most Eastern Catholic churches. The Eastern Orthodox churches — along with some Eastern Catholic churches — use the older or revised Julian calendar.

That divergence currently results in a 13-day disparity between the Gregorian and Julian calendars — and the calculations for Easter based on those divergent calendars typically lead to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on different dates.

“It’s a complex problem, one that is bound up in so many different elements,” said Fr. Alexander Rentel, an archpriest of the Orthodox Church in America and assistant professor of Canon Law at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York.

“I would be hard pressed to highlight one or another issue. The lack of dialogue, mistrust, centuries of practice, but also estrangement. Further, religious and especially liturgical practice, once set, is hard to change.”

The Catholic Church’s rubrics used to determine the date of Easter were established at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 — marking a 1,700-year anniversary in 2025 — which decreed Easter as occurring on the same day throughout the Christian world. The calendar then in use was the Julian Calendar, which — as its name implies — was established by Julius Caesar, in 45 B.C.

The Great Schism in 1054 broke communion between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church — but the major calendar shift took place in 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian Calendar. Intended to correct an error in the Julian Calendar, it’s widely in use around the world today — but not by the Eastern Orthodox Church, which remains on the Julian.

Nonetheless, given the 2025 Easter convergence, there’s been talk of unity.

“This common date has given a lot of energy to older discussions about establishing a common date for the celebration of Easter,” said Fr. Stefanos Alexopoulos, a Greek Orthodox priest and director of The Catholic University of America’s Institute for the Study of Eastern Christianity.

“This hope and wish have been expressed both by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis,” Alexopoulos noted. As Archbishop of Constantinople and 270th successor of St. Andrew the Apostle, the ecumenical patriarch is seen as the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church. “The will from both leaders is without question there and is honest; the implementation is difficult.”

Alexopoulos said he sees three possibilities.

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“The one option is that the Roman Catholic Church align its date of Easter with that of the Orthodox Church,” he suggested. “While this would solve many inter-Orthodox problems, it would mean that the Roman Catholic Church would follow a calendar for Easter that is astronomically not accurate. In addition, many secular calendars of Western countries would have to be revised, as their schedule of holidays are tied to the Western date of Easter.

“The second option is that the Orthodox Church aligns its date of Easter with that of the Roman Catholic Church,” explained Alexopoulos. “This is a non-starter as many Orthodox churches would refuse to do so, and would create further division among the Orthodox.

“The third option,” he remarked, “is that both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches seek an alternative common way of calculating the date of Easter, independent of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. Such a decision would be very difficult to accept, as it would do away with a decision of an ecumenical council.”

Aristotle Papanikolaou, co-founding director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University in New York City, also forecast a doubtful outlook.

“I’m very happy that the Pope is speaking in that way, and taking the initiative,” he said. “And of course, the ecumenical patriarch has also made one or two comments recently regarding that. I think in ecumenical relations, public statements are made in such a way as to try to at least identify something where churches can move towards some kind of agreement.

“But,” Papanikolaou said, “I’m going to be a little bit pessimistic, I’m sorry to say.”

His pessimism, he shared, is rooted in the complexities of historical identity.

“It’s a procedural issue, but yet it remains a self-identification issue. And there are just some Orthodox who feel that on these issues that divide us — not every single issue that divides us — the Catholics and the Protestants have to capitulate,” Papanikolaou said. “So on the institutional level in the Orthodox Church, I’m afraid that most institutional players — not necessarily all, but most — would not move forward with this because of the kind of reaction they would get from their Orthodox constituents.”

Rentel echoed that prediction.

“I don’t anticipate much to change past this year. I am skeptical, in other words, that anything will change,” he said. “People will talk, argue, try and agree, but little more will happen.”

But, he added, there is always room for grace — and so, the unexpected.

“Ultimately, God can inspire us and move us in ways according to the purpose of fulfilling His will,” the archpriest reflected. “In other words, even though these problems seem insurmountable, they can be overcome by God’s grace.”

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Alexopoulos agreed.

“May this year’s common date,” he petitioned, “be the beginning of a common witness of Christ’s Resurrection to the whole world.”