Passover Date Confusion

[StGerardMajella]

Catholics celebrated Easter several weeks ago. Yet, today, Friday, April 22nd, 2016, is the celebration of the Jewish Passover. I understand there is a difference between a solar versus a lunar calendar cycle, and that might explain the date differences.

Why aren’t the two dates more closely aligned this year? Hoping one of our wise Jewish or Christian brethren on this forum can advise as to the date discrepancies or clarify the rationale.

Will the two calendars ever be reconciled at some point in the future? Is there any reason as to why the Catholic calendar couldn’t be aligned with the Jewish calendar in the future? What prevents this re-alignment?

 

[powerofk]

The dates used to coincide. I can’t remember the source, but I remember reading that the Church used to ask Jewish leaders every year when 15 Nisan was that year and pick the closest Sunday to it to celebrate Easter. However, eventually, Christian leaders questioned the wisdom of asking our Jewish brethren the date of Passover due to several reasons: Reason 1 (and most obvious) - the Jewish people don’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah, so why ask a group that doesn’t share your belief system about when the date for your most important feast day should fall (and besides, this was probably insulting to the Jewish people as well). Reason 2: At that time, different Jewish communities themselves disagreed when 15 Nisan actually fell. And some of them had 15 Nisan occurring earlier and earlier, sometimes even in February! This would have pushed the beginning of Lent into January, definitely before the feast of the Presentation. Lent would have started before Christmas had even ended! So we just decided to determine when Easter should fall ourselves, determining 15 Nisan to be the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox - and Easter to be the first Sunday afterwards.

The big difference, though, is that the Eastern churches (both Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox) usually celebrate Easter on a different date than the Western churches (Roman Catholics and Protestants). This is because they use a different calendar. I don’t know all the intricacies of the modified Julian calendar (the calendar used by the Eastern churches) as opposed to the Gregorian calendar, but I do know that this year, the Eastern churches celebrate Easter on May 1 - a full five weeks after we celebrated Easter in the West.

 

[ajcstr]

A friend of mine’s wife is a Greek Orthodox and he said some years Easter is the same day and other years it isn’t but he said the Orthodox will not celebrate Easter before Passover.