Determining which is the correct date to celebrate Christ's Resurrection has been the subject of ecumenical debate for hundreds of years. The Gregorian calendar points to one set of rules, the Julian calendar points to another.

It's a debate which many - Francis included - would like to end.

"Easter does not take place by our own initiative or by one calendar or another.

"Easter occurred because God ‘so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life'" Francis said during an audience at the Vatican last week.

"Let us not close ourselves within our own ideas, plans, calendars or ‘our' Easter. Easter belongs to Christ!

"Moreover, it is good for us to ask for the grace to be ever more His disciples, allowing Him to be the one to show us the way we should follow."

One Resurrection for all

The delegation members Francis was addressing were from the ecumenical "Pasqua Together 2025" initiative. Founded in 2022, Pasqua calls on Orthodox and mainline Christian churches to celebrate Easter on a common date.

In Easter 2025, the Julian and Gregorian calendars happen by astronomical design to align. Pasqua proposes there should be agreement that the universal celebrations planned for next year should continue every year thereafter.

Pope Francis spoke encouragingly to them in support of their initiative, noting he has been asked several times to seek a solution to the issue of multiple dates for Easter.

"I encourage those who are committed to this journey to persevere and to make every effort in the search for a shared agreement, avoiding anything that may instead lead to further divisions among our brothers and sisters."

Christians should reflect, plan and walk together so that we may bear witness to Christ and that the world may believe, he said.

What's in a date?

Next year will mark both the Holy Year for the Catholic Church and celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.

That Council gave birth to the Nicene Creed, affirmed the full divinity of Christ and set a formula for determining the date of Easter. It was to be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

These days though, we measure time differently from the way we did in 300 AD. The calendar a church uses determines when they'll be celebrating Easter.

Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar which was in use during the Council of Nicaea.

Mainstream Christian churches use the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582 as a more accurate means of keeping time.

Source

• Vatican News
• Catholic Weekly

There will, of course, be many, many entries, however, they will have substantial similarities with each other.

That similarity is Christ is going up and away.

He is usually alone and those daring to hang around often appear scared out of their wits.

An example is the oil painting by Anthony Van Dyck. Painted c 1631 - 32, the oil hangs in The Wadsworth Atheneum an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut.

Click to view a larger image

If, on the other hand, you do a similar search and change just one word a great secret is revealed.

The change is from ‘Western' to Orthodox: ‘Resurrection of Christ in Orthodox Art.

The secret, at least for many Western Christians is hidden in the other half of the universal church, in places like Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt; Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Easter is not usually painted with a solitary Jesus rising from the dead.

Jesus is always surrounded by crowds of people—both haloed and unhaloed.

In fact, in traditional icons, Jesus is pulling people out of Hades.

Hades is not the same as hell, although we sometimes put the two words together, and so we grew up reciting in the creed that "Jesus descended into hell."

Instead, Hades is simply the place of the dead.

There's no punishment or judgment involved.

It's just where a soul waits for God.

So, the Eastern Church was probably much closer to the truth that the resurrection is a message about humanity. It's a message about history.

It's a corporate message for all of us.

Click to view a larger image

An expression of this Orthodox truth of Jesus pulling people out of Hades is a fresco in the Chora Church in Istanbul, Turkey, (c 14th C).

Take a moment to look at the different energy of the people in both illustrations; in the Van Dyck oil, the Risen Christ is heading up and away from; those in the image are cowering not in awe, but rather in fear.

In the Orthodox fresco, Christ is descending, with people clamouring for touch, to be taken, hold up, to be lifted out of that which holds them in place, inert.

Allow the Risen Christ to "descend" to those places in my life which hold me bound; reach out, and be taken by the hand to a new and life-giving place.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes weekly at Restawhile.nz.

Bishop Angaelos who is the head of the Coptic church in the UK, says for example many Coptic Christians in the North Sinai have been forced out of their homes.

They were told by ISIS to "leave or die".

Angaelos says despite the violence shown to Christians we need to act as Christ would.

This means we need to avoid aggressiveness and anti-Islamic rhetoric, which ends up adversely affecting people in the region.

During the past three months alone over 40 Coptic Christians in Egypt have been martyred.

Their killers: militants aligned with the Islamic State terror group that has been waging war against Egypt's forces in the Sinai Peninsula for the past five years.

Angaelos says Christians in the region have reacted very peacefully and nonviolently, even to the extent of forgiving.

What Western Christian need to do first is to pray for them, he says.

"Secondly, [it's important for Western Christians] to keep this message of support and solidarity alive.

"The fact that incidents come off our news feed doesn't mean they cease to exist.

"... Christians [need] to feel that they are most certainly members of the wider body of Christ and that they are not isolated in a certain region of the world, Angaelos says.

Source

• National Catholic Register
• Assyrian International News Agency
• Image: Catholic Herald