I looked at a calendar and realized

[conuly]

this is a weirdo year in which (Western) Easter is early and Passover (and, perforce, Orthodox Easter) is late.

Actually I'm not entirely sure which Orthodox churches have determined that Easter must fall after Passover. Is it all of them? Or only some of them? Well, whichever ones they are, they're having their Easter in May!

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Comments

[calimac]

Yes: my calendar shows Eastern Orthodox Easter as taking place this year on May 5 (Cinco de Mayo!)

[viggorlijah]

It’s always after Passover I think uh 40 days or something - it’s usually 40 days! And the Passover is moon based so it changes all the time. Christmas changes between old and new calendar for the Russians and maybe Syrians but we all do pascha at the same time each year.

[conuly]

And the Passover is moon based so it changes all the time.

Does not, it starts Nissan 15 every year!

[flemmings]

But IIRC this year is a leap year in the Hebrew calendar, meaning there's an extra month pushed in to set things straight. Hence the late Passover.

[conuly]

Sure, but we don’t say October moves around because of our solar leap year, do we?

[viggorlijah]

You are absolutely right! It is the Gregorian calendar translation of Nisan 15 that changes.

[conuly]

:D

Sometimes pedantry is a goal in and of itself, I have to admit. I shouldn't admit it, but... yeah, it's me.

[steorra]

It's actually a misconception (a widespread misconception even among Orthodox Christians) that Pascha (Orthodox Easter) is the date it is because it has to be after Passover. The *actual* reason is because the Julian calendar is still used to calculate Pascha. If you go back far enough in history, before the Julian calendar had gotten as much out of sync with the solar year as it is now, there were actually times when Pascha wasn't before Passover.

Regardless, Pascha is very late this year.

Also, as far as I'm aware, the one Orthodox Church that celebrates Pascha on the Gregorian calendar is the Finnish Orthodox Church.

[conuly]

The Julian Calendar is used to calculate Christmas and it's not as far out of sync as Easter. Furthermore, in many years Easter for both Orthodox and Western Christians is either on the same date nor no more than a week offset.

[conuly]

I googled this - without the word "passover" because I definitely didn't want to skew the results, but that's only made it harder - and I got this:

The formula used by Orthodox to determine the date of Pascha has its roots in the First Ecumenical Council, which was convened in 325 A.D. in the city of Nicea. It utilizes the Julian calendar that was in use in the time of Christ. It additionally takes into account the date of the Jewish Passover, but calculates it according to the method used by Jews during Christ's life.

I wish they'd just tell us all what that formula is, because I don't know what that means.

[alexseanchai]

I don't know specifically about Orthodox churches today, but if they're using substantially the same formula the Catholics were using before Pope Gregory, it's "first Sunday after first full moon on or after March 21". the irony is they originally set it to "after the equinox, which is decreed to be March 20" for ease of calculation reasons. (well. for 'being able to tell parishioners the date of Easter well in advance' reasons.)

first full moon after the equinox isn't always going to hit on Nissan 15, again for ease of calculating dates in advance reasons, but that date is never going to be more than two days off of a full moon: as with the Gregorian calendar, if one knows the month name then one knows how many days the month has, except there's two months that can vary by a day instead of one, since there's three days of the week Rosh Hashanah isn't allowed to be on and which direction to move it depends on what keeps the total year length at 353, 354, or 355 days (except in leap year when add 30)

I think the Jewish calendar switched from observation-based to calculation-based later than 100 CE but before Council of Nicea? idk, I have enough brain to regurgitate stuff I read during my teenage hyperfixation on calendar mechanics but not enough to look anything up myself. anyway if I'm remembering correctly then who even knows what Orthodox churches say is how Jewish people during Christ's life calculate Passover

so, given that Passover is a week long, if the Jewish, Orthodox, and Western Christian calendars agree on which is the first full moon after the equinox, then Easter and Pascha are both the Sunday during Passover

but the leap month structure means sometimes mid-Nissan is the second full moon after the astronomical equinox, and the Julian and Gregorian calendars having most of two weeks' difference of opinion on when March 20 happens means sometimes the first full moon after that date by the Julian calendar is the second full moon after that date by the Gregorian calendar

and sometimes that means only two of Easter, Pascha, and Sunday During Passover are happening at the same time, and which two varies year to year

[adrian_turtle]

I think the Jewish calendar switched from observation-based to calculation-based later than 100 CE but before Council of Nicea? idk, I have enough brain to regurgitate stuff I read during my teenage hyperfixation on calendar mechanics but not enough to look anything up myself. anyway if I'm remembering correctly then who even knows what Orthodox churches say is how Jewish people during Christ's life calculate Passover

The calculation-based Jewish calendar is from about the same time as the Council of Nicea. It was developed by the SECOND Rabbi Hillel (in the Sanhedrin 320-385 CE, thus not the guy who disagreed with Shammai so much 300 years earlier. Though many people mix them up and forget to say "Hillel the Elder" or "Hillel II.") It wasn't a coincidence that they developed the calculation-based calendar around the time of the Council of Nicea...Constantine was less than thrilled with Jewish messengers running back and forth to say it was time to do something so non-Christian as celebrate Rosh Hashanah.

[alexseanchai]

oh that makes sense

[steorra]

There's a good explanation of what I'm talking about in the "Urban Legend #1" section of this link.

The difference between Gregorian and Julian Pascha can be as much as 5 weeks due to different different dates in the calculation of full moons on top of different dates in the calculation of the Spring Equinox.

[conuly]

Thanks :)

Do you mind if I repost that?

[steorra]

Go ahead! :-)

[alexseanchai]

I bet Ukrainian Orthodox churches celebrate it on the Gregorian calendar now, after that announcement they were switching the date of Christmas off Russian Orthodox rules

[steorra]

No, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine switched in 2023 to the Revised Julian Calendar, which is the "new calendar" used by most Orthodox Churches that essentially leaves Pascha (and all feasts calculated relative to Pascha) on the Julian date but puts Christmas and other fixed feasts on dates that match the Gregorian calendar.

[alexseanchai]

thank you for the correction!