Once the first day of spring hits, it's a welcome invitation to decorate Easter eggs , fill your house with pastel decor, and tend to your flower gardens. But if you follow the Christian faith, then you know that this time of year is about much more than the Easter Bunny and egg hunts. Easter is undoubtedly the star of the spring months, often falling just a few weeks after the first day of the season. As you get ready for your Easter Sunday traditions — religious, celebratory or a mix of both — make sure you take into account when Easter falls this year, since it varies from one year to the next.
Below, find out when you can expect to celebrate Easter in and how you can determine the date in the future. To figure out when Easter is celebrated, it's helpful to take a step back to the very beginning. Ash Wednesday, which is observed on Wednesday, February 17, , is the official start of Lent.
The Lenten season — Wednesday, February 17, to Thursday, April 1, — leads the way for Easter, preparing believers for the Christian holiday with 40 days of penance and fasting.
Palm Sunday , which is celebrated on March 28, , kicks off Holy Week, seven days of religious significance in the Christian faith and the final countdown to Easter. Lent officially ends on Maundy Thursday, three days before Easter.
Easter Sunday, of course, is the grand finale — a day where Christians rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today in the Western Christianity world, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the Paschal Full Moon date of the year. As astronomers were able to approximate the dates of all the full moons in future years, the Western Christian Church used these calculations to establish a table of full moon dates.
These dates would determine the Holy Days on the calendar. By A. The Paschal Full Moon can vary as much as two days from the date of the actual full moon, with dates ranging from March 21 to April This year, Christians will celebrate Easter on Sunday, April 4, which is a little earlier than Easter , which was celebrated on April Next year, Easter Sunday is even a little later—April Regardless of the exact date, the reason to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus remains constant.
List of years with earliest and latest Easter dates. According to the Bible, Jesus Christ's death and resurrection occurred at the time of the Jewish Passover , which was celebrated on the first Full Moon following the vernal equinox.
This soon led to Christians celebrating Easter on different dates. At the end of the 2nd century, some congregations celebrated Easter on the day of the Passover, while others celebrated it on the following Sunday. In CE , the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. Not all Christians observe Easter according to the Gregorian calendar ; most Orthodox Christians still follow the Julian calendar.
Like the Easter date based on the Gregorian calendar, Orthodox Easter falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 in the Julian calendar years In the Gregorian calendar, this corresponds to April 3 to May In some years, Orthodox Easter falls on the same day as western Easter. The next time the two Easter dates coincide will be in April
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