THE World Council of Churches (WCC) has called again for a permanent common celebration of Easter by all Christians, as “a concrete expression of the unity for which Christ prayed”.
“The world is not reconciled — and it is questionable whether it is even trying to be,” the WCC said in a Holy Week message. In addition, 2025 marked the anniversary of the (First) Council of Nicaea in 325, and of the ecumenical Stockholm Conference organised in 1925 by the Lutheran Church of Sweden, as well as the rare shared celebration of Easter on 20 April by all Churches, East and West.
“Could it not always be so, with a common feast of Easter, the heart of our shared faith?” the WCC, which includes 350 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, and Old Catholic Churches from 140 countries, asked.
“It would spur more common witness: speaking truth to power and engaging in joint action for justice, peace, and reconciliation.”
While Western and some Orthodox Churches use the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, other Orthodox Churches still follow the Julian calendar, set by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, placing Easter up to a month behind the Western festival, according to lunation tables.
Church leaders, including Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, have previously renewed calls for a common Easter, although concerns exist about the complexity of adopting new dating systems.
In a joint Easter message, Churches Together in England said that the Council of Nicaea had been convoked by the Emperor Constantine in recognition that “harmony in society drew on stability in religious belief,” and that British Churches were also using 2025 to “look to the unity of faith”.
“In a world suffering because of our fallen nature and our desire for each of us to define Truth according to our own understanding, we are given a breath of hope when we reflect on the sacred words of the confession of our common Christian faith,” the message, signed by Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Free Church, Lutheran, and Pentecostal leaders, said.
European church representatives are to gather in Lithuania on 27 April to sign a revised Ecumenical Charter, or Charta Oecumenica, co-sponsored by the Geneva-based Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe.
A CEC statement said that a joint working group had updated an existing 2001 Charter (Books, 17 January 2024) to take account of “changing circumstances in European society and among Christians”.