Will they announce a common Pascha from Nicaea?

Vasileios Xesfiggis | October 31, 2025

 

 

As has been officially announced, in less than a month Pope Leo will travel to Turkey, and together with Patriarch Bartholomew, they have invited representatives of the Christian Churches—including Protestants, Anglicans, Old Catholics, and the Ancient Oriental [i.e., Monophysite] Churches—to be present in Nicaea of Bithynia on the 28th and 29th of November.

It is likely that the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem will also attend, so that the ancient pentarchy of the early Church may be complete.

There, they will pray together for the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.

Both Patriarch Bartholomew and the Pope of Rome have expressed the desire to find a way for a common celebration of Pascha henceforth among the Churches, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.

On this matter, we are attempting to gather information from the West, since mouths remain hermetically sealed in the East.

What we have learned is the following.

The new Pope Leo XIV is not as accommodating as the previous one, Pope Francis.

He does, however, recognize that for a change of date to occur on the part of the Orthodox, a pan-Orthodox council and agreement must take place—something very difficult at this stage, due to the problems caused by the Ukrainian autocephaly.

From the side of the Western Church, things are different.

They wish to remain faithful to the rule established by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea concerning the date of Pascha.

The date of Pascha is calculated as the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring, which is determined after the vernal equinox of March 21st.

However, they do not want this date to be calculated using the Julian calendar, as the Orthodox Church does, but with the Gregorian calendar, as the Western Church does.

This is because they do not want the feast of Pascha to drift too far from the March equinox.

They acknowledge that calculating with the Gregorian calendar sometimes results in the Christian Pascha preceding the Jewish Passover, but they do not consider this a major obstacle of great significance.

Therefore, as regards the announcement of a common date for Pascha, for the time being there is a deadlock.

However, two scenarios are being discussed.

The first, and more likely, is the following:

That the Western Church adopts the method of calculation used by the Orthodox Church for a short time—for a few years—until the Orthodox Church overcomes its current problems, and then all will sit together at one table and establish a new common date.

The second scenario, with fewer chances, is that the churches participating in the anniversary of Nicaea agree on a new common date for Pascha—on the second or third Sunday of April—according to the Gregorian calendar.

This version, however, may lead the Orthodox Church into schism, and for this reason it is considered unlikely to occur.

Nevertheless, if a common Pascha is announced among the churches, then it will take effect starting in 2027.

These are what we have managed to learn on the matter so far.

It was conveyed to us that, given that the Western and Orthodox Churches have thus far recognized in each other two of the three sacraments of initiation—namely baptism and chrismation—the matter of a common Pascha must proceed, so that afterward the third sacrament, the Divine Eucharist, may follow, to achieve the final union of the churches.

Events are unfolding, developments are gradually emerging, and the situation is becoming clearer.

But the final word always belongs to God...

 

Greek source: https://orthi-pisti.blogspot.com/2025/10/tha-anakoinosoun-koino-pasxa-apo-tin-nikaia.html