WCC encourages churches to work together for a common Easter celebration.
2025 is a particularly noteworthy year as both the Julian and Gregorian calendars align. Each of our churches, Eastern and Western, use one or the other of these calendars to calculate feast days and other religious rituals. Often this leads to Easter being celebrated weeks apart. This year however, on 20 April, all Christians will celebrate Easter at the same time.
This year also finds us celebrating the 1700 anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. Both these occurrences have prompted the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission to publish a paper “Towards a Common Date for Easter” in the hope that churches will work together for an annual shared date for the celebration of the resurrection.
“Towards a Common Date for Easter” contains four contributions from different church traditions on the search for a way to celebrate Easter on a common date every year that were presented at a webinar organized by the Commission on Faith and Order on “Easter 2025: Celebrating Together to Strengthen Unity.”
“We hope these offerings—which include historical depth, rich reflection, and exciting practical suggestions—may help animate the churches of the world and Christians in their own contexts to work with one another toward a common celebration of Easter,” coeditor, Rev. Prof. em Dr Sandra Beardsall.
Why would we need a common Easter? What would be the purpose of such a shift? Dr Sandra Beardsall explains:
“For we could then give visible witness to that mystery of faith that truly unites us, that refuses to give the last word to despair, and that invigorates us anew to pursue life for all in the world God so loves.”
Read WCC News: WCC publishes Faith and Order paper encouraging churches to work for common celebration of Easter | WCC -oikoumene.org | 3 April 2025
Download the full publication: Towards a Common Date for Easter
Watch: recording of the webinar: Easter 2025: Celebrating together to strengthen unity
Interview: WCC general secretary reflects on common date for celebration of Easter