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Referring to the fact that in most years there are two dates for Easter, Tom Best, executive secretary of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC), told ENI that this was "a terrible counter-witness to the unity we share in Christ. This is the core festival of the Christian faith. An important way to show our unity would be for all Christians to celebrate it together every year."

Best referred to an initiative launched in 1997 by the Middle East Council of Churches and the WCC to enable all churches to celebrate Easter together every year. The initiative has been warmly welcomed by many churches around the world, though hopes that this year might mark the end of division over the dates have proved unrealistic.

Differences over Easter date back to early Christianity. At present Western churches calculate the date of Easter using the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582 and now the standard calendar world-wide, whereas most Orthodox churches, including the Russian church, maintain the older Julian calendar to calculate the date of Easter.

The division about what is known as "the Paschal controversies" has prompted many discussions over the centuries, and especially in recent decades, at the highest level in churches. The issue was one of the reasons for calling the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325—on the site of present-day Iznik in Turkey.

At a meeting held in Aleppo, Syria, in March 1997, representatives of the world's main Christian traditions agreed on what the WCC described as "an ingenious proposal to set a common date for Easter."

Best told ENI that the Aleppo proposal sought to avoid a "clash of calendars" by continuing to use the Nicene formula to determine the date of Easter, basing calculations on the best astronomical data available and taking the meridian of Jerusalem as the reference point.

According to Best, about 25 churches have sent positive responses to the WCC over the Aleppo proposal, although the initial response from the (Orthodox) Church of Greece was negative. He pointed out that several international Christian bodies, including the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Conference of European Churches and the Lutheran World Federation have expressed strong interest in the plan. Two leading Orthodox bodies, the patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow, have informed the WCC that they are studying the proposal, which has also been welcomed by other Orthodox-linked agencies in North America. In the meantime, a leading Russian Orthodox official, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, who heads the Moscow Patriarchate's department of external relations, has called on Western churches to reform their religious calendars and calculate the date of Easter using the Julian system. Orthodox churches in Australia have made a similar suggestion to the WCC.

Asked by ENI about prospects for the Aleppo proposal, Best told ENI that "the reaction is very positive so far. We understand that the Orthodox churches have particular difficulties with the proposal—the tradition of using the Julian calendar to determine the date of Easter is deeply rooted for the Orthodox churches and we understand that it would be difficult for them to make an abrupt change."

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April (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45