Sunday, April 20 Photo by Pēteris
Easter (Easter Sunday) or Pascha is the oldest and most important Christian feast, celebratingthe Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion, asdescribed in the New Testament. Easter is preceded by Lent, a forty-day period offasting and penance that starts on Ash Wednesday.
Moveable Feasts Related to Easter
Dates of many of the most important Christian holidays are related to the dateof Easter. Below you can find a list of most of them in 2025 year.Please note that some of them are only observed by the Roman Catholic church whileother by most of the Christian churches around the world. Their "popularity"also varies from country to country.
Date | Holiday name | Time left |
---|---|---|
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 | Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) | 6 weeks (42 days) |
Wednesday, March 5, 2025 | Ash Wednesday | 6 weeks & 1 day (43 days) |
Sunday, April 13, 2025 | Palm Sunday | 11 weeks & 5 days (82 days) |
Thursday, April 17, 2025 | Maundy Thursday | 12 weeks & 2 days (86 days) |
Friday, April 18, 2025 | Good Friday | 12 weeks & 3 days (87 days) |
Sunday, April 20, 2025 | Easter | 12 weeks & 5 days (89 days) |
Monday, April 21, 2025 | Easter Monday | 12 weeks & 6 days (90 days) |
Thursday, May 29, 2025 | Ascension of Jesus | ~ 4 months & 1 week (128 days) |
Sunday, June 8, 2025 | Pentecost | ~ 4 months & 2 weeks (138 days) |
Thursday, June 19, 2025 | Corpus Christi | ~ 5 months (149 days) |
How is the date of Easter determined?
Easter is a moveable holiday meaning that its date varies from year toyear. In Western churches, like the Roman Catholic Church, which use theGregorian calendar, the earliest possible date is March 22, while thelatest is April 25. However, these are very rare — the next time Easter fallson April 25 is in the year 2038, and the next time the date is March 22 will be inthe year 2285. The most common date between the year 1900 and 2100 is April19. Eastern churches, including the Eastern Orthodox Church, use the Juliancalendar, therefore the date usually differs from the Gregorian calendar,even though the dates are computed in a similar way.
The date of Easter is determined as the first Sunday after the Paschal fullmoon falling on or next after the spring equinox (March 21 — a fixed date notthe real, astronomical equinox). The Paschal full moon refers to the 14th dayof the ecclesiastical lunar month and not the real, astronomical Full Moon, andits date is determined from tables. However, most often the two dates coincide,and between the year 1900 and 2100 there are only 18 differences between thedates calculated using the two methods. A well-known method of calculating thedate of Easter was given by Carl Friedrich Gauss, however a simpler method wasdescribed by Jean Meeus in [1].
Early Easter Date Calculations
The first Christians followed the biblical Hebrew calendar andtimed the observance of Easter in relation to the date of the Jewish Passover.Passover was celebrated by the Israelites to commemorate their deliverance from theslavery in Egypt. The Passover meal was eaten at sunset on the 14th day ofNisan (Aviv). Jesus was crucified on the 14th and rose from the dead some timebefore sunrise on the 16th day of Nisan. Because the Jews got away from thebiblical Hebrew calendar (in 221 AD and further in 400 AD), and because theChristians wanted the date to be independent of the Jewish calendar,the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) established the independent and uniformcalculation of the Easter date.
Easter Celebrations
In many countries, Easter is a public holiday, and as it always falls onSunday, some countries also have Easter Monday as a public holiday,including Australia, Germany and Ireland.
Although, Easter is the most important Christian holiday it is not as popular asChristmas. It joins two important events of which the first is profoundlysad and dramatic while the other is just the opposite. The first one is, ofcourse, the Crucifixion and Death of Christ after which his body was placed inthe tomb. Three days later he Resurrected beating death. Resurrection is atriumph of life and even more astonishing than the miracle of Christ birth.
In addition to religious celebrations involving Church services, Easter iscelebrated in several ways in the United States, Europe and other parts of theworld. Some of these celebrations have little to do with the Christian meaningof the holiday. The most popular include family meals, Easter eggsdecoration, hiding the decorated eggs for children to find and giving childrenbaskets with candy.
In the USA, the Spring break for high school and college students usuallyoccurs about Easter time, hence many families leave the cold of northern statesto visit amusement parks or sunny beaches in the south.
[1] Meeus, Jean H. Astronomical algorithms. Willmann-Bell, Incorporated, 1991.