Reader Question: Why Does Easter Come Before Passover This Year?

As a Catholic married to a Jew, I find this answer offensive. The reason Passover falls out in April this year is that it is a Jewish leap year and there are two months of Adar. To suggest that Jews calculate Passover incorrectly and that “WE” are correct is insensitive and unnecessary. It does nothing to enhance Catholicism and in fact diminishes it. Why could not the explanation that Jews and Catholics use different calendar be given? Different, not necessarily better?

Sandra, you’re reading too much into what I wrote. I never said that “Jews calculate Passover incorrectly”; they calculate it correctly according to the standardization of the Hebrew calendar in the fourth century A.D., as the distinguished astronomer that I quoted explains.

The fact that “We” (as you put it) are “correct” (as you put it) in our calculation of Easter has to do with the combination (as I discuss) of our following the formula developed at the Council of Nicaea and the Gregorian reform, which brought the Western calendar back into line with the astronomical calendar.

That makes no judgement about whether the Jewish calculation of Passover is “incorrect”; in fact, it’s obviously correct for those who celebrate Passover.

The formula created by the Council of Nicaea makes no reference to the calculation of Passover whatsoever. Many Catholics, however, erroneously believe that the calculation of the date of Easter is somehow based on Passover. My response simply explains how it is calculated–that is, without any reference to Passover at all.

Mr. Richert’s explanation is partially correct. For the modern calculation for the date of Easter does indeed have no connection to Passover. However, his implied explanation that Easter preceeds the Passover this year because the Gregorian calendar is used, rather than the Hebrew calendar, is incomplete. He does not recognize that Easter is a pagan holiday and that the date is totally capricious. The name Easter is derived from the Goddess Eastre in Germanic paganism. If the date for Easter was in fact the date of Jesus’ resurrection after the crucifixion, then it would certainly have to made in reference to Passover, which was also Jesus’ last supper. Mr. Riechert is simply confirming the pagan nature of the holdiay, indicating that it has no connexion to the historical events of Jesus’ death.

Mr.Richert,
It makes no sense whatsoever to celebrate Easter before Passover. This explains why Greek Orthodoxy is the fastest growing religion in the United States. The Catholic Church likes to tell people that they were the official church of the Roman Empire. On the basis of this assertion, they have tricked large numbers of people into joining the Catholic Church. It is not true at all. The Orthodox Church was the official church of the Roman Empire. The Catholic Church broke away from the Orthodox Church after Western Europe was overrun by barbarian tribes.

Sonia, it’s a very common misconception among Orthodox Christians that the date of Easter depends upon Passover (and must be after it). The misconception is so common, in fact, that Archbishop Peter, the bishop of Diocese of New York and New Jersey of the Orthodox Church in America, wrote an article in 1994 to dispel this myth. You can find the text here: “The Date of Pascha,” by Archbishop Peter.

The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America has another document (also from 1994) explaining, in terms similar to those I used in this post, why Easter is related historically to the Passover, but why the calculation of Easter is separate from the modern calculation of Passover. You can find that article here: “The Date of Pascha”.

If you read both, you’ll find that they agree with what I’ve written.

As for the odd claim that “The Catholic Church likes to tell people that they were the official church of the Roman Empire,” I’m a cradle Catholic, almost 40 years old, who is quite well read in Catholic history and theology, and I have never once read anything that makes that claim. Rather, Catholic historians (and the Church Herself) state, quite rightly, that Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, seven centuries before the split between Rome and the Eastern Churches.

To speak of the united Christianity before 1054 as “Orthodoxy” is an anachronism.

I say all of this as a very pro-Orthodox Catholic who has spent over 20 years studying Patristic writings and Eastern Christian theology. The growth of Orthodoxy in the United States today is, I believe, overall a very healthy phenomenon. The Orthodox have a proper sacramental theology and a beautiful liturgy, and, as Pope Benedict reiterated this past summer, the Orthodox, unlike Protestant communities, are Churches in the fullest sense of the term.

There is a downside to the tremendous growth of Orthodoxy in the United States today, however. Much of that growth has come from the evangelical community (that’s a good thing), but many of those from that community who convert to Orthodoxy choose Orthodoxy rather than Catholicism, at least in part, because of a deep-seated aversion to Catholicism. That has led to an increase in tensions between Orthodox and Catholics in the United States.

Cradle Orthodox, on the other hand, while understanding their divisions with Rome, tend to be much more open to proper dialogue between the Churches.

Mr. Richert,

Pope Benedict last summer did state that Catholicism was the only true Christian Church. He made headlines around the world. Mr. Richert, I am definetly not a religious historian on dates but, how can it be that 2 of the worlds great religions(Judaism and Eastern Orthodoxy) both have the dates wrong, and the Catholics always get it right? Someone told me that the Eastern Roman Empire’s(Byzantine Empire) capitol was indeed Constantinople, present day Istanbul, where the capitol of the Orthodox Church presently reigns and has reigned since the time of Constintine. I just cant imagine the Orthodox church getting the days wrong if it all started from there. And the Jews, how can they be wrong on the dates? They celebrated passover way before any of us!

i am offended when you say that the eastern orthodox follow an incorrect calendar as i am coptic orthodox. it is not incorrect just merely a different calendar.

Marina, I did not say that the Orthodox follow an “incorrect” calendar; I said that you follow an “astronomically incorrect” one. That is a very important difference. No Orthodox clergyman will claim that the Julian calendar is astronomically correct today; the argument for continuing to use it has to do with tradition.

Thus, no offense was intended, and I would ask you to rethink the offense that you took.

I see this article was written last year. My question, as it pertains to Easter/Passover 2009, is why do the Greek Orthodox wait until the first Sunday after Passover is completed to celebrate Easter? If Jesus was crucified on a Thursday and resurrected on a Sunday, and this year’s Passover began on a Wednesday, what is the reasoning for not celebrating Easter until the following week?

Also, you explain what calendars are used in order to determine the dates for the mentioned holidays, but not the process? I know Passover begins on the same day in the Hebrew calendar every year, but what in the other calendars determines when [the] Easter[s] are? Like, first Sunday after such-and-such…?

Shira,
I am by no means an expert on this, but after 56 years as a practicing Greek Orthodox, my understanding is, Orthodox Easter in the first Sunday, after the spring equinox, after the full moon, after Passover.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Mr. Richert, how or why is the calender the Eastern Orthodox follow “astronomically incorrect”?

Terry, Orthodox Easter is not calculated with reference to the modern Jewish calculation of Passover. This is a common misconception among Orthodox–so common, as I noted in comment #5 above, that Archbishop Peter, the bishop of Diocese of New York and New Jersey of the Orthodox Church in America, wrote an article in 1994 to dispel this myth. You can find the link in that comment.

In other words, you don’t have to take my word for how the Orthodox Church calculates Easter: Instead, take the word of an Orthodox hierarch.

Shira’s question, by the way, itself proves that the claim that Orthodox Easter is pegged to modern Jewish calculations of Passover is incorrect. If that were the reason for the difference between Western Easter and Eastern Easter, then the two would coincide this year (2009), because modern Jewish Passover began on Western Holy Thursday, just as it did in the year that Christ was crucified.

There are some minor differences in the calculation of the date of the ecclesiastical full moon between East and West, but the major difference that accounts for the difference in the date of Easter is the continued use of the Julian calendar by the Orthodox.

How is the Julian calendar “astronomically incorrect”? Ask yourself this, Terry: Do you run your business life by the Julian calendar, or by the Gregorian one? I’ll bet it’s the latter.

Why? Simple: March 21 (the ecclesiastical date of the spring equinox) is, in the Gregorian calendar, March 21. However, in the Julian calendar, March 21 currently corresponds to April 3 in the Gregorian calendar–and the gap between the two calendars continually increases. In other words, if you ran your business life according to the Julian calendar, you’d currently be running about two weeks behind all of the rest of the businessmen in the Western world.

Why does the gap between the two calendars continually increase? Because the reforms of the calendar made by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 were designed to bring the Julian calendar (which was used until that point) back into line with the solar year. By continuing to use the older Julian calendar for their calculation of Easter, the Orthodox find their ecclesiastical spring equinox (March 21 according to the Julian calendar; April 3, according to the Gregorian equivalent of the Julian date) increasingly distant from the astronomical spring equinox (March 20, 2009, according to the Gregorian calendar).

Shira, I explained the process for calculating the date of Easter in “How Is the Date of Easter Calculated?,” to which I linked in the article above.

The short version is very close to what Terry wrote, minus the common misconception that the calculation of the date of Easter has anything to do with the calculation of the date of the modern Jewish Passover. As I wrote in that article, “The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the Sunday following the 14th day of the paschal full moon, which is the full moon whose 14th day falls on or after the vernal (spring) equinox.”

Both Catholics and Orthodox accept that definition. Neither, as Orthodox Church in America Archbishop Peter points out in the article I referenced in my reply to Terry, calculates Easter with reference to Passover. Indeed, as Archbishop Peter points out, such a calculation was expressly forbidden by the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea.

Terry, you should also read the second article I linked in comment #5, from the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. There, you will find this very clear and unequivocal statement, which agrees with everything I’ve written in this post and in these comments:

“Our observance of the Resurrection is related to the ‘Passover of the Jews’ in a historical and theological way, but our calculation does not depend on when the modern-day Jews celebrate. The reason why Orthodox and Western Christians celebrate at different times is because we still go by the old Julian calendar in calculating the date of Pascha, even though we go by the new calendar for all the fixed feasts (like Christmas and so on). Protestants and Roman Catholics use the Gregorian Calendar for everything.”

That same article also clearly explains what it means to say that Julian calendar is “astronomically incorrect”:

“Unfortunately, we have been using the 19-year cycle in calculating the date of the Resurrection ever since the fourth century without actually checking to see what the sun and moon are doing. In fact, besides the imprecision of the 19-year cycle, the Julian calendar itself is off by one day in every 133 years. In 1582, therefore, under Pope Gregory of Rome, the Julian Calendar was revised to minimize this error. His ‘Gregorian’ calendar is now the standard civil calendar throughout the world, and this is the reason why those who follow the Julian Calendar are thirteen days behind. Thus the first day of spring, a key element in calculating the date of Pascha, falls on April 3 instead of March 21.”

Again, these are Orthodox sources, so you don’t need to take the word of a Catholic (even a very pro-Orthodox Catholic such as myself) for it.