Pope Leo XIV on Saturday said the Catholic Church is open to establishing a common date of Easter among all Christian churches, echoing one of the aims of the Council of Nicaea that met 1,700 years ago.
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The pope spoke to participants of the symposium “Nicaea and the Church of the Third Millennium: Towards Catholic-Orthodox Unity,” which took place this week at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
The Holy Father called the 325 Council of Nicaea “foundational for the common journey that Catholics and Orthodox have undertaken together since the Second Vatican Council.”
This week’s symposium focused on the themes of faith, synodality and “the date of Easter,” Leo said. The lattermost issue was “one of the objectives” of the ancient council.
“Sadly, differences in their calendars no longer allow Christians to celebrate together the most important feast of the liturgical year, causing pastoral problems within communities, dividing families and weakening the credibility of our witness to the Gospel,” the pope said.
“Several concrete solutions have been proposed that, while respecting the principle of Nicaea, would allow Christians to celebrate together the ‘Feast of Feasts’,” the Holy Father said.
“In this year, when all Christians have celebrated Easter on the same day, I would reaffirm the openness of the Catholic Church to the pursuit of an ecumenical solution favouring a common celebration of the Lord’s resurrection,” the pope said.
On April 20 of this year, Easter landed on the same day for both the East and the West. Easter will fall on April 16, 2028, again for both the East and the West, and again on April 13, 2031, and April 9, 2034.
Leo on Saturday said that Christian unity, when it is ultimately achieved, “will not be primarily the fruit of our own efforts, nor will it be realized through any preconceived model or blueprint.”
“Rather, unity will be a gift received ‘as Christ wills and by the means that he wills’,” he said.
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This article was originally published by CNA.
