Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars (both of which follow the cycle of the sun and the seasons).

In Western Christianity, using the Gregorian calendar, Easter always falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25, inclusively. The following day, Easter Monday, is a legal holiday in many countries with predominantly Christian traditions.

Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar. Due to the 13 day difference between the calendars between 1900 and 2099, March 21 corresponds, during the 21st century, to the 3rd of April in the Gregorian Calendar. Easter therefore varies between April 4 and May 8 on the Gregorian calendar (The Julian calendar is no longer used as the civil calendar of the countries where Eastern Christian traditions predominate). Among the Oriental Orthodox some churches have changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and the date for Easter as for other fixed and moveable feasts is the same as in the Western church.

But, this year, Sunday, April 24^th is Easter for Protestants, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians alike!

For information on how the Easter Bunny got involved….!   Please see :  wikipedia.org.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 at 9:36 am and is filed under Fine Flowers Around The World, Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.