Easter in 2026, celebrated on different dates by Orthodox and Catholics. In what year will the date coincide again
Orthodox and Catholic believers, who in 2025 celebrated Easter on the same date, April 20, will not have this opportunity again in 2026. But it will happen one more time until 2030.
Easter is still celebrated on different dates in the Christian world PHOTO: AP
Easter is celebrated, in 2026, earlier than last year, and the dates for Orthodox and Catholic Easter no longer overlap.
In 2026, Catholics will be the first to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord, on April 5. On the same date, Orthodox Christians celebrate Flowers, a holiday with a variable date, marked on the calendar a week before Easter. Orthodox Easter falls this year on April 12, a week after the Catholic one, after in 2025 the dates coincided (a phenomenon that does not happen very often).
Why are the dates different?
The celebration of the Resurrection on the same date happens when the first full moon after the spring equinox appears late, after April 3, according to basilica.ro.
The date of Easter is still calculated today following three criteria adopted during the Council of Nicaea in 325:
– The Resurrection of the Lord will always be celebrated on Sunday;
– the Sunday on which Easter is celebrated will be the one immediately following the full moon after the spring equinox;
– when Nisan 14 (of the Jewish calendar) or the first full moon after the spring equinox falls on a Sunday, the Christian Easter will be celebrated on the following Sunday, so that it is not celebrated together with the Jewish Easter, but not before it (a rule still strictly observed by the Orthodox).
The difference in dates between Orthodox and Catholics arises because of the use of two different calendars. Thus, the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant confessions use the Gregorian calendar, i.e. the same civil calendar used today all over the world, while the Orthodox Church uses, for the calculation of Easter, the Julian calendar (or a formula derived from it), which is currently 13 days behind the current calendar.
For 2026, calculations based on the Gregorian calendar lead to April 5 for the Catholic Easter, while using the traditional Orthodox formula, Easter is set on April 12, which is a week later.
In some years, the calculations coincidentally fall on the same Sunday, which is why Easter is common. The last example was 2025, and previously Christians celebrated Easter on the same day in 2017, in 2014, in 2011, in 2010, etc.. The next year when the date will be common again is 2028.
How Easter falls in the period 2026-2030
Orthodox Easter and Catholic Easter will be celebrated on the same date, in the interval 2026-2030, only in the year 2028, respectively on April 16. Here are the dates on which Easter will be celebrated in 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030, according to basilica.ro:
Orthodox Easter:
• 2025 – April 20
• 2026 – April 12
• 2027 – May 2
• 2028 – April 16
• 2029 – April 8
• 2030 – April 28
Catholic Easter:
• 2025 – April 20
• 2026 – April 5
• 2027 – April 28
• 2028 – April 16
• 2029 – April 1
• 2030 – April 21.
The Resurrection of the Lord or Easter is the most important celebration of Christianity, when the Resurrection of the Savior Jesus Christ is celebrated, three days after he was crucified on the cross. Easter is preceded by a period of fasting and prayer, the Easter Lent being the longest of the year. Easter Lent begins this year on February 23 and ends on April 11.
For many years there has been talk about celebrating Easter on a common date throughout the Christian world, but to fulfill this wish, a common decision among the Orthodox Churches is needed. Although the Romanian Orthodox Church adopted the corrected calendar in 1924, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the Macedonian Orthodox Church did not. BOR decided, thus, to respect Orthodox unity, to maintain the same date of celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord.
