Pope ponders Easter date move
Rome – The Pope may alter the date of Easter so Catholics and Orthodox Christians can celebrate the resurrection on the same day.
The head of the 1.2 billionmember Catholic Church raised the vexed topic in his meeting in Jerusalem yesterday with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians.
On his flight home, Francis said the two had discussed whether ‘‘something can by done’’ about the date for Easter. ‘‘It is a bit ridiculous: ‘Tell me, when does your Christ rise from the dead?’ ‘Mine will next week.’ ‘Well, mine was resurrected last week’,’’ Francis observed.
Easter is the holiest festival in Christianity. The fact it falls on different dates in the Catholic and Orthodox churches is a hugely symbolic obstacle to Christian unity. The Council of Nicaea, called by the Christian emperor Constantine in AD325, established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. At the time, the Romans used the imperfect Julian calendar. By the 16th century, this calendar was 10 days out of sync with the equinox. The problem began in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII instituted a new calendar for Catholics, which was adopted by Britain and its American colonies in 1752.
Eastern Orthodox churches, however, continued to follow the Julian calendar, which is now 13 days out of sync. As a result, Orthodox and Catholic Easter can fall on the same day, or up to five weeks apart. Agreeing on a single date would be a boon for Christians in the Middle East, where Catholics and Orthodox often live side by side.
In 1997, the World Council of Churches met in Aleppo, Syria, to discuss a proposal to use the Nicaean formula with the date based on astronomical observation of the Moon.
Liturgical theologist Paul Meyendorff, a professor at St Vladimir’s Orthodox seminary of New York, said the advantage of the Aleppo proposal was that it was based on neither calendar. With Russian and other Slavic Orthodox churches still firmly opposed to changing the date, he said, the chances of agreement at this stage were nil.