wfn.org | World's Christians near Setting Common Date for Easter

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

31-March-1998 
98121 
 
    World's Christians Near Setting Common Date for Easter 
 
    by Religion News Service 
 
WASHINGTON-An ecumenical proposal to establish a common date for Easter 
throughout all Christendom has won strong support from some prominent 
church leaders. 
 
    Easter, the feast celebrating Jesus' Resurrection, is usually 
commemorated on two separate dates, one by most Protestants and Roman 
Catholics (April 12 this year) and the other by most Orthodox Christians 
(April 19).  The division, known as the "Paschal controversies," developed 
over disagreement on the reformation of the calendar by Pope Gregory XIII 
some 400 years ago. 
 
    The Rev. Thomas Fitzgerald, an Orthodox priest and director of the 
Program for Unity and Renewal at the World Council of Churches (WCC), said 
he was "pleasantly surprised by the positive responses" to a WCC proposal 
developed last year in Aleppo, Syria, that would set the first common date 
for Easter as April 15, 2001. 
 
    "It shows that many churches take the issue seriously and recognize the 
value of the proposals from the Aleppo meeting," Fitzgerald told Ecumenical 
News International (ENI), the Geneva-based religious news agency. 
 
    At the Aleppo meeting, representatives of the world's major Christian 
groups agreed on a proposal that would calculate the date of Easter based 
on the formula developed by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 
A.D. using more modern astronomical techniques. 
 
    In that case, "Easter should fall upon the Sunday following the first 
vernal full moon," Fitzgerald said. 
 
    The year 2001 was chosen as the first opportunity to present a unified 
date for Easter because the dates using the current methods coincide that 
year and because it would be the first year of the third Christian 
millennium. 
 
    In a letter to the WCC, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the 
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, wrote, the "Catholic 
Church is ready to endorse the conclusions of this consultation, and to 
work together with other Christians toward this much desired goal. ..." 
 
    Said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the world's Orthodox 
Christians, "The only solution for a pan-Christian celebration of Easter on 
the same date would be the faithful application of the decision taken by 
the Council of Nicaea," ENI reported. 
 
    Also expressing interest in the proposal are the Syrian Orthodox 
Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the South African Theological 
Commission and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), among others. 
 
    The Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, has called for the 
issue to be put on the agenda of the WCC's Eighth Assembly, to be held this 
December in Harare, Zimbabwe. 
 
    "There is a move [for a common date], there's no doubt about that," 
said Fitzgerald, who called the division over Easter "an internal scandal" 
for Christianity. "It's not an easy process, but at least there is 
awareness of the issue." 

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