Vatican calls for all Christians to set joint date of Easter

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican’s theological advisory body has issued a text marking the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, containing a call for a common date for Christians to celebrate Easter.

In a newly published text, the International Theological Commission has echoed calls made by Pope Francis for all Christians to celebrate a common date for Easter. The document, issued April 3, is titled “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” and marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in 325.

It has the dual objective of “recalling its fundamental meaning and highlighting the extraordinary resources of the Creed, relaunching them in the perspective of the new stage of evangelisation that the Church is called to undertake in the current change of epoch”

Much ecumenical attention has been paid to the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which occurs this year. The year 2025 gives rise to a rare occurrence in that the See of Rome and those of the East celebrate Easter on the same date, which has in turn given further motivation to the ecumenical bodies of both parties.

Highlighting this notable aspect of the aligning of the various liturgical calendars in 2025, the ITC wrote for a shared common date for Easter henceforth:

Is this not a providential opportunity to be seized, to continue celebrating Christ’s passion and resurrection, the “feast of all feasts” (Byzantine Easter Matins), in communion in all Christian communities?

There are already numerous proposals for an undivided date that are quite realistic. On this question the Catholic Church remains open to dialogue and an ecumenical solution.

Controversies and debates over the date of Easter go all the way back to the early centuries of the Church, and have notably formed part of the division between the East and the West.

Prior to the Council of Nicaea Easter was celebrated on different dates, and thus the council stipulated that it would henceforth be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon of the spring equinox. However, since then, discrepancies have emerged between two calendars: the Julian, which was used at the time of Nicaea, and the Gregorian, which replaced the Julian in Europe in 1582 upon order of Pope Gregory XII due to the Julian calendar being out of sync with the seasons.

The See of Rome determines the date of Easter by following the Gregorian calendar and holding Easter on the first Sunday after the full moon of the spring equinox of March 21.

In contrast, the Orthodox follow the Julian calendar and also use a precise set of rules to find the date of Easter. Due to the Julian calendar being less accurate, the day it uses is not always in line with the spring equinox, causing the differing Easter dates.

Though the Gregorian calendar is more in sync with the seasons of the year, the Vatican has left it open as to which calendar could be followed in determining a common date for Easter.

During ceremonies for Christian Unity Week earlier this year, Pope Francis again called for a unified date for Easter, thus echoing an appeal he made in his Papal Bull launching the Jubilee year:

I renew my appeal that this coincidence may serve as an appeal to all Christians to take a decisive step forward towards unity around a common date for Easter. The Catholic Church is open to accepting the date that everyone wants: a date of unity.

Establishing a common date for Easter is something dear to a number of ecumenical organizations such as the World Council of Churches. “We hope that the anniversary of Nicaea will help create a momentum so that in the future, all Christians can celebrate Easter together,” said Martin Illert, the group’s program executive for faith and order.

Following his November 2022 visit to the Vatican, Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople also expressed his joint desire, along with the Pope, to find a common date for the Easter celebrations. “Maybe it is not yet time to talk about the details, but I want to emphasize that there is this good intention on the Orthodox and Catholic sides to finally set a common date for the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ,” he said.

This seems to be the ever-present problem, in that despite a number of texts and statements from Catholic and Orthodox leaders about finding a common date for Easter, neither side has made public moves about actually following this through.

Commentators have argued that the Gregorian calendar should be that which is followed, given its more accurate alignment with the seasons of the year. But the fact that no official Orthodox compromise has been made suggests that the process of finding a common date will not be easy.

Opining on the probability of achieving such a goal, the traditionalist group Society of St. Pius X wrote in February, “will Pope Francis – if he recovers his health – succeed in unifying the date of Easter for all Christians? We can hope so, but it may prove to be a Herculean task.”

The ITC – a body of theologians set up by Pope Paul VI in 1969 to advise the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith – operates under the auspices of the dicastery.

The nearly 70-page document released today was issued to the press under embargo with less than an hour’s warning, although promotional material for a May 20 conference on the text has been posted in Vatican curial offices since late January. It was written between 2022-2023 by a group set up within the ITC, then voted on with unanimous approval, before being submitted to the dicastery Prefect Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and receiving papal approval on December 16.

It forms part of a larger body of work, and especially ecumenical endeavors, which advocate for Catholics and Orthodox to unite in the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Whether such a goal is achieved remains to be seen and it will be notable to see who makes the first proposal of a date.

Pope Francis had been due to visit Turkey in May for the Nicaea anniversary, but plans have since been placed on hold due to his unstable health condition.