Do Orthodox and Western Easter ever fall on the same date?

Yes, in some years — they coincided in 2025 (both April 20), for example — though in most years they differ, sometimes by up to 5 weeks.

Which Orthodox churches use this calculation?

Most Eastern Orthodox churches (Russian, Greek, Serbian, and others) calculate Pascha this way. Some, like the Finnish Orthodox Church, follow the Gregorian/Western date instead — a real exception this calculator doesn't specifically flag.

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Orthodox Easter Date Calculator

Orthodox Pascha for any year — a genuinely separate Julian-calendar calculation.

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About the Orthodox Easter Date Calculator

Computes Orthodox Easter (Pascha) for any year — a genuinely separate calculation from Western Easter, based on the Julian calendar.

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How to use it

Enter a year.
Read the Orthodox Easter (Pascha) date.

Formula

The Meeus Julian algorithm, computing the same Council of Nicaea rule (first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon following the spring equinox) against the Julian calendar, then converting the result to the modern Gregorian civil date using exact Julian Day Number arithmetic (not a fixed offset).

Worked example

Orthodox Easter 2026 falls on April 12; 2024 on May 5; 2025 on April 20 (matching Western Easter that year).

Interpreting your result

This is a genuinely separate calculation from Western Easter, not an approximation or a fixed-offset shift of it — the Julian calendar's own drift means the underlying full moon and equinox calculations land on different dates than the Gregorian computus most years.

Recommendations

• The two Easters coincide roughly once every few years and can differ by up to 5 weeks in others — there's no simple fixed gap between them.

Frequently asked questions

Both apply the same Council of Nicaea rule, but Orthodox churches calculate it against the Julian calendar (which the Church has continued using for Paschal calculations) rather than the Gregorian calendar adopted by the West in 1582 — the Julian calendar's own drift shifts the underlying full-moon/equinox dates.