We will celebrate Easter on May 5

"So this year Easter will be in a new way, or still in the old way?" - two women talk to each other near the church in Lviv, where they have already switched to the new calendar, but they cannot understand what is going on with Easter.

It may come as a surprise to some, but all Orthodox and Greek Catholics continue to celebrate this main Christian holiday in the old way. In 2024, it will be May 5, and Catholics will celebrate it five weeks earlier - on March 31.

It turns out that while some are just entering Great Lent, others (and there are about 1.5 million Catholics in Ukraine) will already be preparing to celebrate, and the unification of calendars, as some believed, has not completely taken place.

Some of the Ukrainian Orthodox (OCU) and Greek Catholics have abandoned the old Julian calendar since September 2023 and celebrated Christmas on December 25 instead of January 7.

However, with Easter (popularly called Easter), as well as with a number of other so-called moving holidays, in particular the Trinity, everything is not so simple.

The fact is that Ukrainian churches did not switch to the pure Gregorian calendar, but in fact to the updated New Julian calendar, in which the so-called moving holidays are still determined in the old way.

And the definition of Easter for Christians is generally a complicated and controversial thing. Because of many nuances, Catholics and Orthodox have big disagreements and have been arguing for hundreds of years.

One hundred years ago, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, followed by a number of other Orthodox churches in Europe, switched to a new calendar. But even they did not dare to touch Easter and still celebrate it in the old way.

At the same time, next year 2025 (such a coincidence happens once every 3-4 years) both Catholics and Orthodox will celebrate Easter on the same day. How is it calculated, why is everything so complicated and is there a chance that starting next year most Ukrainians will celebrate Easter in a new way?

Such a different Easter

The problem of Easter is not solved by a simple transition from the Julian calendar to the new calendar due to a long-standing and deep dispute.

Easter is not tied to a date, but to the vernal equinox and the full moon. And here, the Catholics and the Orthodox diverged a long time ago, although these nuances are not easy to understand and explain.

Old Paschalia is tied to the Julian calendar - the method of determining the date of Easter, which was approved in 325 by the Council of Nicaea, which was still the only church at that time.

That council established that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

Supposedly, the rule is simple, but in reality the scheme of calculations is complex, the church calendar over time began to differ greatly from the astronomical one. Therefore, after the calendar reform of the 16th century, the vernal equinox in the west and east began to be calculated differently. Catholics switched to calculations that are close to astronomical, and Orthodox continued to calculate in the old way. Therefore, the same supposed rule began to produce different dates.

In short, the difference between the dates of Easter according to the Eastern and Western traditions is caused by the difference in the calculation of the vernal equinox due to the difference between the calendars of 13 days. After the reform, the western tradition of determining the vernal equinox is closer to the astronomical equinox, while the eastern one may be "late".

Therefore, the first full moon after the vernal equinox is counted differently for everyone, and most often it comes earlier for Catholics.

For example, according to the "civil calendar", which practically coincides with the Gregorian calendar, the vernal equinox in 2024 will be March 20 (according to the church - March 21). The first full moon is March 25, and therefore Easter is on the first Sunday after such a full moon - March 31.

And the old method of determining the equinox according to the Julian church calendar, which does not correspond to the astronomical one, brings Easter up to May 5 (the Jewish Passover on April 23-30 played a role here, before which the Orthodox do not celebrate Easter, so the celebration was moved from April 28 for another week) .

Sometimes the difference with the equinox according to both calendars is not significant, and the dates of Easter coincide.

Therefore, according to the Gregorian calendar, in 45% of cases, Easter is celebrated a week earlier than according to the Julian calendar. In 30% of cases, Easter coincides (this will be the case in 2025), 5% - a difference of four weeks, 20% - a difference of as much as 5 weeks (more than the lunar cycle - this will be the case in 2024).

There is no difference of two or three weeks. As you can see, there is no sacred connection to a specific date here. People normally perceive both celebrations together and separately.

It so happened that according to the Julian calendar, Easter must be celebrated after the Jewish Passover, while the Gregorian calendar, due to astronomical and mathematical features, sometimes violates this rule.

Although the insistence that Easter cannot be celebrated at the same time or before the Jewish Pesach appeared already in the 11th and 12th centuries in Byzantium.

Among other arguments for not updating the old method of calculation, they cite the fact that Jesus Christ himself lived according to the Julian calendar. They also mention the blessed fire, which, according to churchmen, goes down in the Church of the Resurrection (the Holy Sepulcher) in Jerusalem on the eve of the "old Orthodox" Easter, not the "Catholic-Protestant".

Can there be a permanent joint celebration of Easter?

At first glance, especially for a person who has difficulty understanding the nuances of calculating the equinoxes and calendars, what could be easier than agreeing to celebrate Easter together.

Moreover, it is not so rare that it happens by itself - the joint celebration will be on April 20 in 2025, then on April 16 in 2028.

In recent years, the media around the church have written that certain negotiators from the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch are working to try to agree on a common date for Easter in the future for all churches that have switched to the new calendar.

Such negotiations and attempts took place more than once since the 17th century and ended in failure.

There is now a good reason for this - in 2025, not only will all Christians celebrate Easter on the same day, but that year they will also celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which established the rule for calculating Easter.

However, the chances of this, as interlocutors of the Ukrainian BBC in church circles say, are small.

"This is a good opportunity for dialogue about the date of Easter. But this does not mean that there will be a quick result," says the interlocutor in the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

He notes that now there is a certain level of desire to try to find ways to count and celebrate Easter together.

"This coincidence and the celebration of the cathedral is a good opportunity to open negotiations. But who knows what will happen in the world in 12 months," says the interlocutor.

He admits that in the conditions of Russia's war against Ukraine and uncertainty in the Orthodox world, no one will make any predictions.

Some Orthodox churches, such as the Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Jerusalem Patriarchates, still live according to the Julian calendar, and they will not want to change the calculation of Easter according to the agreement of Constantinople and Rome.

The Russian Church has severed communication with Constantinople and will definitely not switch to the new calendar, just like the UOC MP, which is actually subordinate to it in Ukraine.

Moreover, no one can predict how those Orthodox churches that switched to the New Julian calendar and, for example, celebrate Christmas on December 25, will react to the change in the celebration of Easter, if Constantinople and Rome come to an agreement.

Therefore, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, UGCC and religious experts interviewed by BBC Ukraine are of the opinion that changes in the calculation of Easter should not be expected in the foreseeable future.

The interlocutor of the Ukrainian Air Force in the leadership of the OCU without optimism calls the attempts to agree on Easter "empty fantasies." Firstly, they do not really believe in the possibility of an agreement between Constantinople and Rome, and secondly, there may be an even greater split among the Orthodox.

They are more optimistic in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (which is subordinate to Rome, but has an Eastern rite), where they still have certain hopes for negotiations in 2025.

In a conversation with VVS Ukraine, UGCC spokesman Father Ihor Yatsiv expressed hope that the dialogue between Rome and Constantinople will end successfully, and after 2025 "there will already be a joint celebration of Easter."

But in any case, the transition to the new definition of Easter in the church wants to be done simultaneously with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, so if there is no global agreement, then the transition in the country is unlikely to happen.

"In Ukraine, we live together with our Orthodox brothers, so we don't want to create calendar divisions between us, so as not to celebrate Easter differently," Father Ihor Yatsiv insists.

In his opinion, the current year, when the difference between the dates of Easter is as much as five weeks, clearly shows the problem, and therefore it is necessary to move, but carefully and at the same time.

"Great Lent begins on March 18, and Easter is already on March 31 according to the Gregorian calendar. That's why some are just entering the fast and bowing, while others are already on holiday," he says. Churchmen do not want to allow this, especially in villages where the OCU and UGCC communities share the same churches.

Easter is a unique holiday for Ukrainians, when many not very religious people go to churches, even at Christmas there is no such thing, when it is celebrated at home.

That is why the difference in calendars for Easter is so important, and churchmen here are most wary of sudden movements.