All Christian Churches resolve to celebrate Easter together in 2025

Meeting of the Local Orthodox and Ancient Oriental Churches. Photo: DECR MP

Participants of the meeting of the Local Orthodox Churches and the Ancient Oriental Churches, held on September 16-17, 2024, in Egypt, expressed support for the initiative to return to a unified date for Easter celebration according to the Julian calendar, in accordance with the decisions of the First Ecumenical Council of 325, reports the DECR MP.

The Joint Communiqué, issued at the end of the meeting, states: “In light of the fact that 2025 marks the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, and all Christians around the world will celebrate Easter on the same day, the representatives of the Churches participating in the meeting expressed the desire for all Christians to follow the canonical tradition of Nicaea and the Orthodox Paschalion for the celebration of Easter.”

It is noted that, from the Orthodox side, delegates from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, the Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Cypriot, Greek, Polish, Albanian Orthodox Churches, and the Orthodox Church in America participated in the meeting. From the Ancient Oriental side, representatives of the Coptic, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic (Catholicosates of Etchmiadzin and Cilicia), and Eritrean Churches were present.

As previously reported by the UOJ, Patriarch Bartholomew of the Ecumenical Patriarchate has called on Christians of both the Western and Eastern rites to celebrate Easter on the same date, starting in 2025.

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