“If last year the date of Easter celebrations coincided among Western and Eastern Christians, then this year it is different,” the church noted.
The OCU drew attention to the fact that every year on the eve of Easter the question of why Christians celebrate Easter on different dates is discussed.
“Let us remember that this question is not new. Already in the 2nd century after the Nativity of Christ, disputes began to arise between Christians over the exact date of Easter. Some Christians celebrated it together with the Jews according to the Jewish calendar, on the 14th of Nisan (Nisan is the first month of the year in the Babylonian and Jewish religious calendar, approximately our modern March-April). And others – on the first Sunday after the Jewish Passover,” the message says. “First Ecumenical The council in 325 decided that all Christians should celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon, which will occur after the vernal equinox. Then the church was united, and it was to this “formula” that the method for calculating the date of Easter, which we use to this day, was tied.
After Christianity split, controversy arose over the different calendars used by the Catholic and Orthodox churches. And this, in turn, entailed a difference in the calculation of the vernal equinox – due to the difference between the calendars of 13 days.
“Orthodox churches, with the exception of the autonomous Finnish Orthodox Church, which uses the Gregorian calendar, count the date of Easter from the date of the equinox according to the Julian calendar. At the same time, Catholics and Protestants calculate the date from the astronomical equinox according to the Gregorian calendar,” explained the OCU. “This is precisely the main difference in the calculations. In addition, Christians of the Eastern tradition adhere to the rule, that Easter cannot coincide with or be celebrated before the Jewish Passover.
Catholics do not observe this.
