Athens, Greece – For more than 400 years, Catholic and Orthodox churches have used different ways to determine the date of Easter. But this Sunday will mark a special moment for Christians, while the churches celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on the same day.
In addition, the best religious leaders – including Pope Francis – express the desire to keep it so. But the unusual alignment has aroused the underlying distrust between the two main Christian communions.
The mobile date for Easter follows an apparently simple rule: the Sunday following the first full moon at or after the spring equinox. But the two churches began to use different calendars after the adaptation of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, when the Western Church adopted the Gregorian calendar while the Eastern Orthodox Church kept the former Julian.
In addition, each church uses its own ecclesiastical calculations for lunar cycles and equinox, which do not perfectly correspond to scientific projections.
The result is that Easter dates can be up to five weeks apart. They can coincide in consecutive years, or a decade can pass without it happening.
A few days before his hospitalization of five weeks, Pope Francis referred to the celebration of Easter this year while invoking the 1700th anniversary of the Historical Council of the Nicea, when Christian leaders gathered to settle the fundamental disputes on faith.
“Once again, I renew my attraction: that this coincidence serves as a sign – a call to all Christians to take a decisive step towards unity around a common date for Easter,” said Francis while leading prayers to the Basilica of Saint -Paul in Rome.
Francis’ invitation, delivered at the end of a prayer for Christian unity with Orthodox priests present, was not new. Back from a trip to Türkiye in 2014, he told journalists on the plane that a unified date would be logical.
“It’s a bit ridiculous,” he said, then organized an alleged conversation: “” Tell me, your Christ, when is it resurrected? Next week? Mine was resurrected last week. “”
He found an ally in the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, another octogenarian and spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christians in the world. The two “talk to each other as brothers,” said Francis. For his part, Bartholomew called Francis “our older brother” and described the initiative of Easter as “a real step towards the repair of old conflicts”.
The idea of a common Easter has been discussed since the 1960s, with an interest which often reached a peak when the celebrations coincide. The key obstacle has always been the involvement that one side should concede.
Protestants, who follow the same calendar as Catholics, also participated in the discussions.
The World Council of Churches based in Geneva – a scholarship of Orthodox and Protestant organizations – has proposed a compromise. He suggests using modern astronomy, base the calculation on the time of Jerusalem and to follow the same set of basic rules centuries ago.
“It has never been so important as now, because we live in a polarized world and people around the world aspire to more unit,” the association Press told his home, the Lutheran bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, a senior Coe official at the Associated Press from his home outside Berlin. “All the other questions – on the calendar, on time, on the moon and the stars and everything – it’s not primary; it is secondary.”
While the wishes of the Pope can lead to a powerful influence through the highly centralized authority of the Vatican, the role of Bartholomew is largely symbolic on the national and autonomous local churches. And the discussions between Russia, the most populous country in the Orthodox world, and the churches of other Orthodox majority countries remain in a standstill due to the war and the divisions of the Church in Ukraine.
Another complication of consensus perspectives is a story characterized by centuries of distrust, largely motivated by the distrust of the Vatican supremacy.
During a service of Holy Week Monday in Athens, Father Anastasios welcomed parishioners in the church of Saint Dimitrios Loumbardiaris, a stone chapel restored near the Acropolis. He said he was standing for links with the other branches of Christianity – but with caution.
“We can try to build bridges, but we cannot distort our faith or the traditions of our ancestors, or the dogmas that Christ himself has transmitted,” he said. “There are deeply rooted differences. From my point of view and that of many people here, the unity sought in the past by the Roman Catholic Church was often not sincere; it had come with attached strings, was more a matter of dominance than authentic reconciliation.”
While the dialogue between the churches takes place slowly, the current Easter celebrations are already a practical reality in a few places. The Orthodox Church in Finland changed dates in the 1920s to align celebrations with the Lutheran majority. And Catholics in Greece – while making no official change in their calendar – have celebrated with the rest of the country since 1970.
Joseph Roussos, member of a Catholic community on the Greek island of Syros, made his first trip to the Vatican last month.
At 67, he remembers when the boxes in Greece were separated: when schools and merchants on the island closed different holidays, and the church bells entered angry for two distinct saints.
“It was not a good situation. But when we celebrated Easter together, there was great harmony,” he said. “We live very well (today), and it’s really beautiful. I hope it will stay like this. ”
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Barry reported to Rome. AP journalist Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
