National Council of Churches USA calls for common Easter date in all Christian traditions
Episcopal News Service. March 29, 2010 [032910-03]
Matthew Davies
The National Council of Churches USA, of which the Episcopal Church is a member, is renewing a call to all Christians to set a common date for Easter, the celebration of Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead.
Easter, as calculated by both Eastern and Western traditions in Christianity, will fall on the same day in both 2010 and 2011. Most years, Easter is celebrated on different dates in Western and most Orthodox churches because of ancient discrepancies in calculating the calendar.
The NCC, which describes itself as "the ecumenical voice of America's Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, historic African American and traditional peace churches," includes 35 member communions representing 45 million Christians in 100,000 congregations throughout all 50 U.S. states.
In a letter to member communions, the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, NCC general secretary, and Antonios Kireopoulos, NCC senior program director for faith and order and interfaith relations, lamented the fact that "almost every year the Christian community is divided over which day to proclaim this Good News. Our split, based on a dispute having to do with ancient calendars, visibly betrays the message of reconciliation. It is a scandal that surely grieves our God."
The letter proposes continued movement toward a common Easter date based on the recommendations of the World Council of Churches-sponsored Aleppo Conference of 1997, which called for, among other things, adherence to the decision in AD325 of "the first ecumenical council at Nicea to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, thus maintaining the biblical association between Jesus' death and Passover."
"This year and next," wrote Kinnamon and Kireopoulos, "may we truly revel in the joy that comes with our united proclamation of the Good News. May God grant that in 2012 and beyond we may continue to proclaim with one voice that "Christ is risen!" For he is risen indeed."
At its 73rd General Convention in 2000, the Episcopal Church, via Resolution A043 endorsed the WCC proposal for a commonly recognized date for Easter.
The Rev. Thomas Ferguson, the Episcopal Church's interim deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations, told ENS, "We have unity in Christ in our baptism, so it is a great wound to Christ's body, the church, that we do not celebrate his resurrection on the same day."
But a U.S. Orthodox official, as reported in a story by Religion News Service, says resistance among church members to change such a tradition runs deep.
"There's a conviction that you just do not touch the calendar," said the Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church in America. "Any attempt, even a perfectly appropriate one, in historical and theological terms, is interpreted at the popular level as an assault on tradition."
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said in a February statement that members of the Anglican Communion, "especially those with close relationships with the Orthodox families of churches, both Eastern and Oriental, may wish to take the opportunity to mark" the common Easter date in some way, "perhaps by sending greetings to their Orthodox neighbors or some meaningful joint gesture."