There’s Easter, and then there’s Wester, jokes the Rev. Ephraim Vest.
The feast of Christ’s resurrection, called Pascha in many Eastern rite Christian traditions, often falls anywhere between one and six weeks after the traditional date for Easter.
This year, “Easter” (the celebration for the Eastern church) and “Wester” (the celebration for the Western church) fall on the same day. The dates align every few years, most recently in 2014 and 2017 and set to occur again in 2028 and 2031.
“The Western Church started calculating Easter differently than the Eastern Church, and we started to have separate Easter days,” explained Father Vest, pastor at St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Sylvania. “Every now and then, because of the way it's calculated by both what the moon is doing and what the sun is doing, every now and then, that calculation comes out the same.”
Finding Pascha
Biblical accounts say Jesus rose from the dead on the Sunday after the Jewish feast of Passover.
“Easter is going to be calculated off of Jewish Passover,” said Peter Sibilio, a theology professor at Lourdes University. “We take when Passover and equinox are going to occur and then date Easter from that.”
Passover begins this year at sunset on April 12 — the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan — which is a Saturday. Easter, celebrated April 20 this year, falls two Sundays after Passover.
In the year 325, the early church set the date for Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox.
Originally dated on the Julian calendar, the holiday began to fall on different days with the 1582 introduction of the Gregorian calendar.
Using the same formula but on a calendar that’s 13 days ahead, Western Easter always falls between March 22 and April 25.
Eastern churches traditionally continue to determine holidays based on the Julian calendar.
“The Gregorian calendar, we think, is a little bit more accurate,” Sibilio said. “We can use that for secular purposes. But for religious purposes, we use the Julian calendar.”
But first, Lent
Before Christians can celebrate their savior’s rising from the dead, they first observe a 40-day season of preparation.
Lent began Monday for Orthodox Christians and on Wednesday for other denominations. The season is traditionally marked by an emphasis on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
"We up the fasting. We up our prayer time in church and at home. ... It’s an increased time of charity," Father Vest said. “Great Lent is kind of like re-upping what we do. ... Great Lent is like renewing our vows to God and remembering why he put us here.”
It's a way to clean out one’s heart to “get ready for this gusher of God's love coming from the empty tomb on Easter,” Sibilio said.
The main marker of the season in the Orthodox church is the Great Fast: “We basically go vegan,” the priest said. Orthodox Christians fast from meat and dairy, as well as alcohol and olive oil because they take a lot of human labor to produce. The one exception is shellfish.
“This is a time of repentance. This is a time to teach our bodies discipline. It was a lack of discipline that caused Adam and Eve to fall. It's a lack of discipline that usually causes all of us to fall into sin,” he said. “But the other part of it is ... we kind of declare peace on the animals for this period of time. Part of it, too, is to not to take life during Great Lent.”
The 40-day fast is rooted in Scripture: Moses fasted for 40 days on Mount Sinai while receiving the law from God; Elijah fasted for 40 days seeking spiritual strength; and Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert before beginning his public ministry.
“The Bible kind of establishes this idea that when we prepare to meet God face to face, we fast for 40 days,” Father Vest said. “That 40-day fast is a preparation to encounter Christ at Holy Week.”
Acknowledging that “not everybody can simply drop what they're doing and go out into the wilderness for 40 days,” Sibilio explained, Christians adopted practices such as not eating meat, only eating one meal, or giving up other luxuries. Many Christians will take up additional spiritual practices or offer a Lenten sacrifice to place a greater focus on God.
“Maybe we can't keep the fast exactly, but we can forgo something and give something up,” he said. “But we don't want it to be so great that you give up on Lent. You should not be discouraged.”
Marking the start of the solemn season for several Western Christian denominations is the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday.
Ashes and fasting were both ancient Jewish symbols of penitence, Sibilio said. Marking one’s head with ashes is a reminder of one’s mortality and a sign of repentance and humility.
Lent concludes on the Wednesday before Easter and is followed by the three-day season of the Triduum. During that Holy Week, Christians remember Jesus’ passion and death before gathering on Resurrection Sunday, Pascha, or Easter, to celebrate Jesus’ victory over sin and death.
Sibilio emphasized the significance of the resurrection for Christians.
“The first thing that Jesus’ followers said is Easter: he is risen,” the professor said. “The first Christian writings we have are from Paul, who doesn’t even mention much about Jesus’ life, let alone his birth. He just talks about Jesus, risen from the dead, soon to return, and here’s how it relates to your problems.”
First Published March 6, 2025, 11:30 a.m.
