This year, due to a quirk in calendars and moon phases, Easter was observed on April 24 in all Christian traditions.
The National Council of Churches in the United States proposed a common Easter in a March 10 letter to member churches. The council called it a way of effectively encouraging common witness to the “resurrection we proclaim.”
The letter notes, “almost every year the Christian community is divided over which day to proclaim this Good News (Easter). Our split, based on a dispute having to do with ancient calendars, visibly betrays the message of reconciliation.”
Celebrating a common Easter has been on the ecumenical agenda since a 1920 encyclical of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople.
