Will Easter And The Passover Be Unified?

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As I was noting the dates for Good Friday and Easter this year of 2026, I observed that they coincide with the historical dates in 33AD. The crucifixion on Friday, April 3rd, and the resurrection on Sunday, April 5th. 

This brought me to a question: Should there be one unified date for Easter, or should the two current dates be kept? What I found in this study will surprise many of you, but please know that nothing is a coincidence with our Lord.

We know from the New Testament that Jesus' death and resurrection happened around the time of the Jewish feast of Passover. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke's Gospels, the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples was a Passover meal, while John's Gospel says that Jesus died on the feast of Passover itself. 

“And it was the preparation of the Passover (Friday), and about the sixth hour (noon): and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!” John 19:14

We need to identify what the Day of Preparation was preparing for. Every week, preparations had to be made for the Sabbath—food had to be prepared ahead of time. This led to the “Day of Preparation” becoming the common term for “Friday.” 

Although many preparations also had to be made for the Passover, there is no record of “Passover Eve” being called the Day of Preparation. The Day of Preparation was always Friday, the day before the Sabbath. I believe that this was not an error by John, but to specify the day and season of the event.

In those days, the Jews celebrated Passover on the "14th day of the first month" in accordance with the Bible's commands (see Lev. 23:5, Num. 28:16, Josh. 5:11). The months of the Jewish calendar each began at new moon, so the 14th day would be the day of the full moon. 

The first month, Nisan, was the month that began from the spring new moon. In other words, the Passover was celebrated on the first full moon following the vernal equinox and was therefore a movable feast.

In the 4th century it was decided that Easter would fall after the first full moon following the vernal or spring equinox. (The equinox is a day in the year on which daytime and night-time are of equal length). This happens twice a year, once in spring and once in autumn.

Early sources tell us that this very soon led to Christians in different parts of the world celebrating Easter on different dates. As early as the end of the 2nd century, some churches were celebrating Easter on the day of Passover itself, whether it was a Sunday or not, while others would celebrate it on the Sunday that followed it. By the end of the 4th century there were four different methods of calculating the date of Easter. 

In the year 325, the Council of Nicaea attempted to bring in a unified solution that would retain the link with the date of Passover as celebrated in Jesus' time. Eventually, therefore, Easter's date was established as movable.

The first thing to remember is that, even after the Council of Nicaea, differences in the date of Easter remained, since the Council had said nothing about the methods to be used to calculate the timing of the full moon or the vernal equinox.

But the real problem behind the situation we have today arose in the 16th Century, when the Julian calendar, which had been established in 46 BC, was superseded by the Gregorian calendar. It took some time for the new calendar to be adopted by all countries (it did not happen in Greece until the start of the 20th Century!). 

However, the Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar to this day to calculate the vernal equinox and the full moon that follows it. This is why they calculate a different date.

The calendar reform established by Pope Gregory XIII was necessary because the Julian calendar used in those days had begun to lag behind astronomical reality - which is to say that by the time 21 March came around on the calendar, the actual, astronomical vernal equinox had already happened.

The fundamental problem behind this is that the astronomical year - that is, the time the earth takes to make its journey round the sun - is not exactly 365 days: it's actually 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. 

However, as the year has to be divided into equal portions for practical purposes, leap years have to be introduced to resolve the problem. Thanks to this reduced number of leap years, the Gregorian calendar comes closer to astronomical reality - although it, too, is not "exact" - but the difference between the facts of astronomy and the calendar date is now only 26 seconds a year.

There's another complication here, which is that, alongside the equinox, the sun and moon have a part to play as well. 

Under the Julian calendar, the full moon is calculated using the so-called Metonic cycle (a 19-year cycle under which the phases of the moon fall on the same date every 19 years). However, this calculation is not astronomically accurate either, so it, too, leads to the dates shifting out of place. 

When this is added to the discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian equinoxes, it can lead to a difference of up to five weeks between the Orthodox and Western dates for Easter.

The Nicaea ruling contains one other provision that is extremely important for the Orthodox churches. It states that Easter should not be celebrated "with" (Greek "meta") the Jews. Today's theologians are no longer entirely certain what was meant by this, but Orthodox Easter still cannot fall on the same day as Passover. If it does, it is postponed for a week.

Efforts have been and are still being made to bring the two Easters together. For various reasons, there were particular efforts to tackle the question at the beginning of the 20th Century. 

In 1902, Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople began a discussion aimed at achieving greater unity among Christians. The decision of the Greek Parliament to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1923 sparked conflict between Church and State. It was not least for this reason that a pan-Orthodox congress was called in May 1923, which revised the Julian calendar to lend it greater astronomical accuracy. 

This calendar, known as the Meletian Calendar, is only two seconds longer than the calendar year, which means it takes 45,000 years to develop a lag of one day. Calculations are based on observations from Jerusalem rather than Greenwich. The calendar is thus the most accurate yet. 

However, its introduction led to divisions within the Orthodox Churches - particularly the Greek and Romanian Orthodox Churches. Since then, the issue has time and again been on the agenda of pan-Orthodox conferences.

In 1928, the British Parliament passed the Easter Act, calling for Easter to be held on a fixed Sunday - the Sunday following the second Saturday in April. However, the Act stipulated that this should only be introduced with the unanimous agreement of the Christian churches. With regard to the date of Easter, the British solution was proposed. 

The Committee asked the churches' opinion, and found that the majority of Protestant churches, as represented by the Ecumenical Council for Practical Christianity, favored a fixed date for Easter. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople replied that, although the Orthodox Church would favor a calendar that retained the continuity of the week, it would be open to a fixed date for Easter, as long as it remained a Sunday and all Christian churches were in agreement. 

The Roman Catholic Church's first response was that the issue could only be resolved by an ecumenical council. Some years later, however, it changed its answer to a definitive "no".

The efforts were taken over by the League of Nations' successor organization, the United Nations, but finally foundered in 1955, after the USA rejected the idea of a new calendar, fearing public opposition on religious grounds.

Then, at their first pre-conciliar conference in 1976, the Orthodox churches moved to hold a congress as soon as possible. This took place in 1977 in Chambesy. 

The congress dealt primarily with the pastoral problem that abandoning the Nicaea rule would lead to divisions. This conclusion was repeated at the second pre-conciliar Orthodox conference in 1982 and the revision of the calendar postponed until such time as would, God willing, be more suitable.

The two Easter dates coincide when the full moon following the equinox comes so late that it counts as the first full moon after 21 March in the Julian calendar as well as the Gregorian. 

This is not a regular occurrence, but it has happened more frequently in recent years - in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2025, but, after that, NOT AGAIN UNTIL 2034!

Could this recent change be considered coincidental, or does it serve as another possible confirmation of Christ’s return in 2033? 

If so, His return would occur just months before the next 'unified' celebration of Passover. Ezekiel confirms that there will be an annual celebration of the Passover in Christ's kingdom. 

“In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the PASSOVER, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for ALL the PEOPLE of the land a bullock for a sin offering.” Ezekiel 45:21-22

It might appear that He is tired of the bickering over a date that should be celebrated together by both Jew and Gentile.