The feast the whole year turns on
When Is Easter?
Almost every moveable date in the Church's year is measured from Easter — and Easter is measured from the moon. Here is the date, and the reasoning behind it.
Working it out…
The rule, in one sentence
Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. The equinox is fixed for this purpose at 21 March, and the full moon used is an ecclesiastical approximation rather than the astronomical one — which is why a printed almanac and the Church calendar can occasionally differ by a day.
Because Ash Wednesday is counted backwards from Easter, the entire penitential season moves with it. The effect is that Easter can fall anywhere between 22 March and 25 April. Both extremes are rare; the date usually lands in the first half of April.
Everything that moves with it
These are not separate calculations. Each is simply counted from Easter, which is why the whole shape of the liturgical year shifts together. Several of them are also holy days of obligation.
| Feast | Counted from Easter | Date |
|---|
Easter in the years ahead
| Year | Easter Sunday |
|---|
Why not simply fix the date?
Because the timing carries meaning. The first Easter happened at Passover, and Passover is set by the Hebrew lunar calendar. Keeping Easter tied to the moon keeps it tied to the Passover it fulfilled, rather than to the convenience of a printed calendar.
Proposals to fix Easter to a set Sunday in April have been raised for over a century, and the Second Vatican Council indicated the Church would not object provided other Christians agreed. That agreement has never arrived.
These dates follow the Gregorian calendar used by the Latin Church and most of the West. The Orthodox Churches generally compute Easter on the Julian calendar, so Eastern Pascha often falls on a different Sunday — occasionally more than a month apart.
Common questions
When is Easter this year?
Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon falling on or after the spring equinox, which is fixed for this purpose at 21 March. This page calculates the exact date automatically for the current and coming years.
Why does the date of Easter change every year?
Easter is tied to the lunar calendar rather than the solar one, because the first Easter took place at Passover, which is set by the Hebrew lunar calendar. As a result the date shifts each year and can fall between 22 March and 25 April.
What is the earliest and latest Easter can be?
Easter can fall no earlier than 22 March and no later than 25 April. Both extremes are rare. In most years the date falls somewhere in the first half of April.
Which feasts depend on the date of Easter?
Ash Wednesday, the whole of Lent, Palm Sunday, the Triduum, Divine Mercy Sunday, the Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi are all counted from Easter, so they all move with it each year.
Why is Orthodox Easter on a different day?
The Orthodox Churches generally calculate Pascha using the older Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian one. The two reckonings sometimes coincide, but often differ by a week or more, and occasionally by over a month.
Could the date of Easter ever be fixed?
It has been proposed for more than a century. The Second Vatican Council indicated the Church would not object to a fixed date provided other Christians agreed to the same Sunday. That common agreement has never been reached.
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