In a move that could lead to Catholics and Orthodox celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ at the same time, the spiritual leader of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christians has confirmed his support for finding a common date to celebrate Easter.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople told media that conversations are underway between Church representatives to come to an agreement, Zenit reported this week.
According to an earlier report by Vatican News, the patriarch supports such a common date to be set for the year 2025, which will mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea.
Previously, Orthodox Archbishop Job Getcha of Telmessos also suggested that 2025 would be a good year to introduce a reform of the calendar.
One council and two calendars
The First Council of Nicea, held in 325, decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon following the beginning of spring, making the earliest possible date for Easter March 22 and the latest possible April 25.
Today, Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar to calculate the Easter date instead of the Gregorian calendar, which was introduced in 1582 and is used by most of the world. The Julian calendar calculates a slightly longer year and is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in Rome on Oct. 23, 2019. Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, has supported the suggestion that Catholics and Orthodox work to agree on a common date to celebrate Easter.
Cardinal Koch said in 2021: “I welcome the move by Archbishop Job of Telmessos” and “I hope that it will meet with a positive response.”
“It will not be easy to agree on a common Easter date, but it is worth working for it,” he stated.
“This wish is also very dear to Pope Francis and also to the Coptic Pope Tawadros.”
One possible obstacle to a universal agreement could be ongoing tensions between different churches. In 2018, the Russian Orthodox Church severed ties to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople after Patriarch Bartholomew confirmed that he intended to recognize the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
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Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., blesses the newly unveiled “National Life Monument” on the campus of The Catholic University of America’s Theological College on May 17, 2023. / Peter Pinedo|CNA
Washington D.C., May 17, 2023 / 15:58 pm (CNA).
The new “National Life Monument,” a larger-than-life bronze sculpture depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary pregnant with the Christ Child, was unveiled and dedicated today on the campus of The Catholic University of America’s Theological College in Washington, D.C.
According to the Canadian artist Timothy Paul Schmalz, the statue, titled “Advent,” is meant to be a symbol of beauty, a celebration of new life, and a bold pro-life statement in the nation’s capital.
Schmalz was present at the dedication ceremony along with the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet. Gregory prayed over the monument, giving a special blessing to the statue and those present for the dedication.
Gregory praised the monument, saying, “Advent, as a pregnant Madonna, transcends bronze, revealing a deeper significance, deeper truths of God and of us, and his love for each of us, graced as we are in his image and likeness.”
The statue is entirely bronze except for the Blessed Virgin’s womb, which is made of reflective stainless steel. The Virgin Mother lovingly cradles her womb in which Jesus is depicted as an unborn baby. Our Lady is portrayed with a serene and peaceful countenance as she holds the Christ Child in her womb. The steel, which Schmalz describes as a “mystical material,” forms a type of halo around the unborn Christ Child.
“Advent: The National Life Monument,” a larger-than-life bronze statue by Canadian Catholic artist Timothy Paul Schmalz, depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary pregnant with an unborn baby Jesus. Peter Pinedo|CNA
“The hope with this sculpture is bringing a permanent, physical symbol that says ‘yes’ to life, that says life is great,” Schmalz told CNA. “To have it here in the nation’s capital is making a powerful statement. It’s saying that we have to celebrate all human life, and all human life is splendid and wonderful, and it’s mystical.”
Crafting a pro-life sculpture was something like solving a riddle, Schmalz said. For years he pondered how to create something that would send a bold pro-life message that wasn’t just “about the horror of abortion.”
“The idea is very difficult within a culture that, as Pope John Paul II said, we’re in a culture of death,” Schmalz said. “So, to put a sculpture called life in the center of Washington, D.C., is in a sense a peaceful weapon to persuade.”
By placing the monument in a high-traffic, public setting in Washington, D.C., Schmalz hopes his statue will not just “preach to the choir” but also touch the hearts of nonbelievers and even those who may be abortion supporters.
“Ideally, I’ll have people coming across here that might be ambiguous about their ideas of abortion, but they will come take a look at this and they will say, ‘You know, I have to say, that sculpture is beautiful,’ and if they’re saying the sculpture is beautiful, what it’s expressing is also beautiful,” Schmalz said. “If it touches one person, I think it’s done its job.”
To Schmalz, each sculpture he makes is a form of prayer that serves a specific function. As a Catholic artist, he believes that the work of faithful artists is about creating “visible ambassadors” of the faith to witness “in a culture that’s trying to remove Christianity.”
When it comes to his Life Monument, Schmalz’s depiction of the Madonna as a young, pregnant woman sends a very intentional message.
“If you look at the amount of positive life symbols out there, like even paintings of pregnant women or a new family, they’re becoming rare,” Schmalz said. “I’ve noticed over the last decade or so that we’re seeing less babies, less baby carriages, and less symbols around that. Our culture used to be filled with it. But now it’s becoming absolutely minimalized.”
This cultural shift, Schmalz believes, has led many young women to believe that having a child is something negative to be dreaded. The result of this anti-life mindset, Schmalz said, is having a devastating impact on society.
“Pope Francis said we’ve got to stop having pets and start having babies,” Schmalz said. “Elon Musk was basically suggesting the same thing, that we’re going to be in serious trouble if we don’t have babies.”
“We have to celebrate human life and that’s what this sculpture is saying,” Schmalz explained.
Schmalz is one of the most renowned Catholic artists of today. His work is displayed across the world from his “Angels Unawares” piece displaying immigrants at the Vatican to his “Homeless Jesus” in the Holy Land to a multitude of other works, religious and nonreligious, in the U.S. and beyond.
A smaller version of the National Life Monument is also on display in Rome’s Church of San Marcello al Corso. According to the statue’s website, Schmalz has plans to place life-sized copies of the National Life Monument in every state across the U.S.
“Angels Unawares,” another work by Schmalz on The Catholic University of America’s campus, depicts 140 immigrants. Peter Pinedo|CNA
A second casting of Schmalz’s “Angels Unawares,” pictured above, is also on display on Catholic University’s campus.
Father Daniel Moore, provincial superior of the U.S. Society of St. Sulpice, who presided over the dedication ceremony, explained that he hopes Schmalz’s statues will help people realize the sacredness of life and the obligation to help pregnant women, mothers, and those in need.
Schmalz, Moore said, “is using his gift of sculpting, his artistry much like the masons did when they built the great cathedrals, and then the stained glass within the cathedrals. They have become ways of communicating God’s message to us, God’s love to us, the story of how much we are cherished by God.”
The exterior of St. Joseph’s in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. / Credit: Paula Kydoniefs
CNA Staff, Mar 23, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A group of parishioners in the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, is celebrating this month after acquiring a historic church from the diocese and preserving it as a chapel and place of worship.
The Society of St. Joseph of Bethlehem (SSJB) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, announced earlier this monththat the society had purchased St. Joseph’s Church, which opened more than a century ago, from the Allentown Diocese.
“The desire to preserve the church by former parishioners has been steadfast since the church was closed in 2008,” the society’s board said in a letter announcing the purchase. “It has taken time and energy over the years to enter into an agreement with the Diocese of Allentown.”
On its Facebook page, the SSJB says its mission is “to restore and preserve St. Joseph’s Church as a sacred place of worship and a testament to the history and cultural heritage” of the area.
Lina Tavarez, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said the parish ”was closed in 2008 because of a merger of several local parishes.”
“It hosted only one regular Mass per year — on the feast day of St. Joseph — and was available for funerals for former parishioners,” she said.
The Mass of the solemnity of St. Joseph at St. Joseph’s Parish in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Susan Vitez
Paula Kydoniefs, the president of the board of directors of SSJB, told CNA that the group was established “solely for the purpose of buying this church, taking care of it, and sponsoring events.” The church, historically attended by the local Slovenian/Windish community, had its cornerstone laid in 1914 and fully opened in 1917.
Kydoniefs explained that the decision to purchase the property originated several years ago, during a period when the diocese was in the process of merging local parishes.
“In 2008 they were consolidating, and this was one of five churches that was being closed as a parish,” she said. “St. Joseph’s parishioners fought that and appealed it and ended up taking it to the Vatican.”
The Vatican eventually ordered that the parish remain open for use, Kydoniefs said. In 2011 then-Bishop John Barres “gave the parish the ability to have an annual Mass and have funerals of former parishioners.”
The cornerstone at St. Joseph’s Parish in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Dimitri Kydoniefs
The church was used “only occasionally” in this capacity, Tavarez told CNA. In 2023 the diocese moved again to sell the church.
“We went back to the diocese,” Kydoniefs said. “It’s a minor miracle. It was last-minute.”
“They had already announced they were going to sell it. They could have just told us no,” she said. “But, credit to them, they said: ‘If you can come up with $175,000 quickly, you can purchase it.’”
Kydoniefs said “several minor miracles and maybe major miracles” followed, with a benefactor — the James Stocklas Family Trust — quickly coming forward to donate “the whole $175,000.”
“Financially we’re independent, and we’re totally responsible for the care and upkeep and maintenance of the church,” Kyondiefs said.
“According to canon law, it’s a chapel,” she said. “It’s still a Catholic church, it’s still affiliated with the diocese in that way. The diocese has the jurisdiction over what public worship services we can do there.”
“They’ve told us that we must have two Masses a year, one on the feast day of St. Joseph [March 19] and one on Oct. 28, the anniversary of the consecration of the church,” she added.
Presently the church is not suited for occupancy, Kydoniefs said, with inspectors finding several code deficiencies in need of updating. Regulators did work with the community to develop a stopgap mitigation plan that allowed the church to celebrate St. Joseph’s feast day on March 19.
The church “does need a lot of work,” she admitted, but she said the SSJB is prepared to see the building restored and utilized for regular community and religious events “at least monthly.”
“We’ve got a lot of ideas,” she said. “We really want to see this church being used again.”
In a letter issued upon the church’s reopening, meanwhile, the SSJB wrote that “as heartbreaking as it was a year ago, to hear that our cherished St. Joseph’s Church was to be permanently closed and sold on the open market, we now experience the opposite — hearts filled with joy and thanksgiving!”
“To the St. Joseph’s Church community,” the letter said, “welcome home!”
It seems to me that there are three obvious possibilities for finding a common date for Easter, or Pascha: The Orthodox could transition to the Gregorian calculation of Pascha; Rome could return to the Julian calculation; or we could dispense with both calculations and institute a new calculation. None of these proposals is without problems, so what can be done?
Catholics and Orthodox agree on the formula: The solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord is held on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, or, more precisely, March 21st. (For the purposes of calculating Pascha, the first full moon after the vernal equinox represents the Jewish “Passover,” or Pesach, from which “Pascha” is derived. Passover is always held on the 14th of Nisan, the full moon of the first month of the Jewish calendar, which always falls in the spring.)
The problem is that “March 21st” according to the old Julian calendar, which included a leap year every 4 years without exception, now falls on what we reckon as April 3rd on the Gregorian calendar — about 11 days after the true vernal equinox. That’s because a leap year every 4 years without exception is a bit of an overcorrection, and adds an extra day every 128 years, and three days every 400 years. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decided to do something about it, and implemented a new calendar that would skip leap year once a century three times out of four. So 1600 was a leap year, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not; 2000 was a leap year, but 2100, 2200, and 2300 will not be; etc. (This means that whereas an “average” Julian calendar year was exactly 365.25 days, an averge Gregorian calendar year is a bit shorter, i.e., 365.2425 days, which is very, very, very close to the actual solar year of 365.2422 days. Over a course of millennia, it will be necessary to correct the Gregorian calendar by one day every 7,700 or so years.)
Pope Gregory also dropped 10 days from the calendar in October of 1582, so that October 4th was directly followed by October 15th. Of course Protestant and Orthodox countries didn’t want to take marching orders from the pope, but eventually they mostly came around—but not when it comes to calculating the date of Orthodox Pascha. They still use the Julian calendar for that. (They also don’t go by the actual phases of the moon, but by a 19-year lunar cycle called the Metonian Cycle, after an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer named Meton, that was also updated in the Gregorian reform.)
The divided celebration of Jesus’ resurrection is a tragedy and a scandal. Easter, or Pascha, is the Solemnity of Solemnities, the apex of the entire Christian calendar, and it should belong to all Christians—not my Pascha/Easter vs. your Pacha, but our Paschal celebration.
But how can we achieve this?
In the very long term, the Orthodox are either going to have to accept that their Pascha is sliding further and further toward summer, or reform their system. On the other hand, very little ecumenical progress has ever been made by people saying “We’re right and you’re wrong.” Successful ecumenism involves give and take. What does that leave us with?
1. We could ditch the whole calculation based on the equinox and the phases of the moon and agree on a new formula like “the second Sunday in April” or “the 12th Sunday after January 6th” or something. But this is a terrible idea: severing Pascha from Pesach, cutting us off both from our patristic heritage as well as from the Jewish roots of our faith. So what are better options?
2. For the sake of unity, Rome might agree to return to the Julian calculation of Pascha—at least for a time. Potentially a long time, like 500 years—say, from 2025 to 2525. (The Gregorian calendar is a bit less than 500 years old, so there’s a nice near-symmetry to this.) Then, in 2525, we could all ecumenically transition to the Gregorian calculation. I don’t know how well this suggestion would go over with the Orthodox, but I think it’s worth thinking about!
3. The Orthodox could agree to accept the Gregorian calculation of Pascha—but what comparable move could we offer in exchange for their doing so? Here’s something I think worth considering: We might agree to drop the filioque from liturgical recitation of the Creed. (This was an innovation introduced in the West for divisive reasons, contrary to papal authority, and eventually more or less imposed on Rome through force. Nothing wrong with the theology, but we should be happy to return to the original, canonical, and ecumenical form of the Creed!)
Oh dear what can the matter be, the unresolved is so long at the fair!
Your thoughts are fair minded and reasoned, still, we Christians face difficulties of even greater proportions as you point out here and elsewhere. It is sometimes difficult for those of the faith to find concordance, yet Jesus knows our plight!
Thank you for your approach to serving the Lord. The talents he has given you have not been buried!
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 Corinthians 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Your Recommendaton #3: So, the solution to a difference in calendar dates is to be traded for possibly different translations tied up in the meaning of the filioque? My own non-expert impression is as follows…
The Holy Spirit was the focus of the ecumenical Council of Constantinople (A.D.381). The filioque (the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and from the Son”) was present in the ancient texts and put forth by the Synod of Aachen in A.D. 809 (my recollection is that Charlemagne was concerned about an uptick of Arianism in Moorish Spain), and later introduced in Rome during the coronation of Emperor Henry II (A.D. 1014). The filioque was adopted by both the Greeks and the Latins at the Councils of Lyon (II, 1274), and Florence (A.D. 1438-1445) where it was initially agreed that the Greek “through the Son” did not differ essentially from the Latin “from the Son.”
The mutually agreed wording:
“In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the approval of this sacred and universal Council of Florence, we establish that this truth of faith must be believed and accepted by all Christians: and thus all must profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally of the Father and the Son [!], that He has His existence and His subsistent being from the Father and the Son together [!], and that He proceeds from the one and from a single principle [!] and from a single spiration.”
But the Greeks at home rejected the agreement, and have disagreed ever since. Spurred in part by the earlier devastation and looting of Constantinople by the rerouted Latin and Fourth Crusader in A.D. 1204…
So, what if, instead of deleting the clarifying filioque, some of the plunder from the tragic Fourth Crusade (A.D. 1204) were returned to the Orthodox world? The museum-piece four giant bronze horses, replicated above the entrance to St. Mark Cathedral in Venice, might still say “neigh,” and it would be useless to mention the considerable booty absconded back to France. The revolutionaries of A.D. 1789 destroyed or tossed most into the Seine during their blood lust against any kind of religious faith.
Are the eastern and western understanding of the filioque really identical? The filioque is the tip of a complex iceberg, and probably not a poker chip. But what difference do such fineries of wording make? Oh, wait, the Nicene Creed, itself, in the relation between the Father and the Son, turns on a single letter—homoousios rather than homoiousios!
Peter, I’m no historian myself, but based on my reading I tend to regard the filioque controversy largely, though not entirely, as a historical accident involving linguistic and other cultural differences, including varying religious pressures in the West and the East, but also political machinations and expediencies. This does not mean that the Eastern objections are unwarranted, however, particularly as regards liturgical use of the filioque.
Very briefly, Christianity was born in a world linguistically united by koine Greek, but by the fifth century Western Christian writers like Augustine often had little if any Greek, while in the East Justinian I in the sixth century was the last Byzantine emperor to speak Latin as a first language. The divide between East and West was further exacerbated by the fall of Rome in the fifth century and the rise of Islam in the East in the sixth and seven centuries, and finally by the rise of the Frankish state and the founding of the Carolingian empire at the dawn of the ninth century.
In this culturally and linguistically divided world, varying theological emphases emerged in East and West, in part due to pressure from different heretical controversies. The filioque championed by Augustine and widely accepted in the West reflected an abiding concern over Arianism, while in the East defending Trinitarian belief from the charge of warmed-over polytheism coming from and Islam led to emphasis on the monarchy of the Father and his unique role as the one source of the Godhead as the guarantee of God’s oneness.
Differences in context and emphasis can easily contribute to misinterpretation. Unfamiliar conceptual approaches and language, particularly in translation, can easily be seen in an unduly critical light. Categories of orthodoxy and heresy are constructed around accepted or proscribed formulation to maintain unity, but also to explain or rationalize differences or tensions that exist partly for other reasons. Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century had no theological problem with the filioque, but by the ninth century the Ecumenical Patriarch Photios I denounced the filioque as sufficient blasphemy to smite the Franks “with a thousand anathemas, even if the other charges did not exist,” and in 1285 the Council of Blachernae, with the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory II presiding, anathematized the filioque as a heretical novelty.
The rise of Eastern anti-filioque sentiment in the ninth century is inseparable from the Frankish introduction of liturgical use of the filioque in the recitation of the Creed, a practice advocated by the Carolingians (who championed both the doctrine of the filioque and its use in the Creed) as a two-pronged instrumen against both Byzantium (which condemned both) and Rome (which defended the doctrine but condemned the interpolated Creed). The accusation of heresy against the Byzantines, who did not accept Charlemagne’s imperial claims, was obviously politically expedient. But the Frankish use of the filioque in liturgical recitation of the Creed was firmly rejected by Pope Leo III, not because of its theology, but because of the Creed’s ecumenical significance. The pope’s defense of the original text of the Creed was so strong that he had the text of the Creed without the filioque engraved in both Greek and Latin on silver plaques that were publicly displayed in Rome. In spite of the pope’s resistance, the Frankish interpolation spread, and finally in 1014 the Creed with the filioque was sung in Rome for the first time at the request of King Henry II of Germany, who had come to Rome to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor after first helping to restore Pope Benedict VIII to the papacy following the usurpation of Antipope Gregory VI. So Rome capitulated—that doesn’t seem too strong a word—to the use of the filioque only at the request of an emperor to whom the current pope owed his own reign!
The short-lived union of the Council of Lyons was effected without theological discussion or debate, the Latins having condemned the errors of the Greeks in the second session of the council, before the Greeks even arrived. The Creed with the filioque was sung in both Latin and Greek at least five times, a humiliation to which the bishop of Nicaea reportedly did not submit. Gravely compounding this counter-ecumenical imposition, Pope John XXI later insisted, contrary to the conciliar agreement, that the Eastern Churches add the Filioque to the Creed—a demand that, of course, only further destabilized the precarious union. Needless to say, this is among the more shameful pages in the annals of what we can only loosely call ecumenism!
Well done! Thank you. I do agree, most especially, with the linguistics disconnect.
But on the other hand, what if the filioque is a good “accident of history?”
What if the entire mystery of the “circumincession” is providentially affirmed by the fragmentary filioque relationship between the Father and the Son? What if the internal relationship of the Divinity is not even partly Byzantine “monarchical,” but rather, the fully reciprocal existence the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, each fully in each other, all three distinct Persons of the Trinity fully in each of the other two and vice versa? Fully complementary; clearly not linear as in “the Holy Spirit from the Father and through the Son.”
But, yes, the perfect storm: a collision of historical accidents culminating a thousand years past…
As for the accidents of today, to exchange a common calendar date for Easter with retraction of the filioque would, in my opinion, open the door to widespread consternation. And a full circus of illegitimate and disintegrating retractions, e.g., the mutations coming out of sin-nod Germany et al, even including but not limited to upending our inborn natural law itself and binary/complementary (!) human sexuality.
With the overall doctrine of the “circumincession,” the uncritical synodal chorus that “the (disconnected?) Holy Spirit is on the move” inevitably descends into ideology. Dejas vu! The stale and linear three ages of Joachim of Fiore with his sequential Age of the Father, Age of the Son, and now Age of the Holy Spirit.
Once you start from here, see quote from CATHOLIC ANSWERS “Why is Easter date moveable”, you can easily find the best calendar system to use. This is the gist of it.
Immediately therefore we see that the Orthodox calendar system is out of step; and moreover the filioque question has no bearing on how to rectify dating decisions.
The Catholic method mustn’t rely on the Rabbis/Jews to make the determinations, because, they already succeeded, ONCE AND FOR ALL, in the part given to them to do.
The Gregorian calendar system is the perfecting of a natural system of the ancient Greco-Roman calendar. This one alone can be tailored to better perfections.
This natural system is the only one that hinges to the actual event on Mt. Calvary. All others result in deviation and complexity that have to accommodate to caprice.
Why then not approach it this way and bend yourself to the obvious.
‘ The reason why the Church has retained the Jewish method in the case of the death and Resurrection of Christ is chiefly based upon the religious significance of these events. The paschal lamb of the Old Law, celebrating the liberation of the Jews from captivity in Egypt by the slaying of a lamb to preserve them from the slaughter of the children of the Egyptians, was but a type or figure of Christ, the true Lamb of God. By his death and resurrection we are liberated from the captivity of Satan. In order to bring out the identity between the figurative paschal lamb of the Old Law, and the true Lamb of God in the New, the Church insists that Easter be celebrated at that very time when the Jews used to celebrate the Passover. ‘
Filioque questions can’t be a way of calculating dates; THEREFORE, drawing into the dating issue, the old fight, is irrational too if not non compos mentis. Date calculation could be a way to address the old fight, so then why excise Filioque?
Dates are sacred because Filioque is IN them; hence the particular importance of the Calvary calendar.
As it turns out, it is the singular part of the calendar that can have a definite and conclusive determination, both as to when the Redemption was fulfilled and when the anniversary happens.
This peculiar detail is ANOTHER WITNESS OF FILIOQUE.
Filioque is two issues, not one. One is theological, and on that score filioque is the truth. But the other is liturgical and ecumenical, and on that score filioque represents an ecumenically harmful, unilateral interpolation to an ecumenical and conciliar symbol of faith: one opposed by popes and imposed through disobedience and power. It is no attack on the faith to say that the original ecumenical and conciliar text of the Creed, properly recited in every particular Church within the Catholic communion except the Latin Church, is the version we should recite in Mass.
I shall differ to the death! filioque is Revelation and so we must write it Filioque and it necessarily determines and conditions everything else, liturgy, interiority, etc. Philosophically, Filioque is “rock truth” the very foundation of unity.
There’s nothing complicated here. The complication that set in back in those days was the outwork of PRIDE and this is the discussion that never proceeded that is pending still.
It seems to me that there are three obvious possibilities for finding a common date for Easter, or Pascha: The Orthodox could transition to the Gregorian calculation of Pascha; Rome could return to the Julian calculation; or we could dispense with both calculations and institute a new calculation. None of these proposals is without problems, so what can be done?
Catholics and Orthodox agree on the formula: The solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord is held on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, or, more precisely, March 21st. (For the purposes of calculating Pascha, the first full moon after the vernal equinox represents the Jewish “Passover,” or Pesach, from which “Pascha” is derived. Passover is always held on the 14th of Nisan, the full moon of the first month of the Jewish calendar, which always falls in the spring.)
The problem is that “March 21st” according to the old Julian calendar, which included a leap year every 4 years without exception, now falls on what we reckon as April 3rd on the Gregorian calendar — about 11 days after the true vernal equinox. That’s because a leap year every 4 years without exception is a bit of an overcorrection, and adds an extra day every 128 years, and three days every 400 years. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decided to do something about it, and implemented a new calendar that would skip leap year once a century three times out of four. So 1600 was a leap year, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not; 2000 was a leap year, but 2100, 2200, and 2300 will not be; etc. (This means that whereas an “average” Julian calendar year was exactly 365.25 days, an averge Gregorian calendar year is a bit shorter, i.e., 365.2425 days, which is very, very, very close to the actual solar year of 365.2422 days. Over a course of millennia, it will be necessary to correct the Gregorian calendar by one day every 7,700 or so years.)
Pope Gregory also dropped 10 days from the calendar in October of 1582, so that October 4th was directly followed by October 15th. Of course Protestant and Orthodox countries didn’t want to take marching orders from the pope, but eventually they mostly came around—but not when it comes to calculating the date of Orthodox Pascha. They still use the Julian calendar for that. (They also don’t go by the actual phases of the moon, but by a 19-year lunar cycle called the Metonian Cycle, after an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer named Meton, that was also updated in the Gregorian reform.)
The divided celebration of Jesus’ resurrection is a tragedy and a scandal. Easter, or Pascha, is the Solemnity of Solemnities, the apex of the entire Christian calendar, and it should belong to all Christians—not my Pascha/Easter vs. your Pacha, but our Paschal celebration.
But how can we achieve this?
In the very long term, the Orthodox are either going to have to accept that their Pascha is sliding further and further toward summer, or reform their system. On the other hand, very little ecumenical progress has ever been made by people saying “We’re right and you’re wrong.” Successful ecumenism involves give and take. What does that leave us with?
1. We could ditch the whole calculation based on the equinox and the phases of the moon and agree on a new formula like “the second Sunday in April” or “the 12th Sunday after January 6th” or something. But this is a terrible idea: severing Pascha from Pesach, cutting us off both from our patristic heritage as well as from the Jewish roots of our faith. So what are better options?
2. For the sake of unity, Rome might agree to return to the Julian calculation of Pascha—at least for a time. Potentially a long time, like 500 years—say, from 2025 to 2525. (The Gregorian calendar is a bit less than 500 years old, so there’s a nice near-symmetry to this.) Then, in 2525, we could all ecumenically transition to the Gregorian calculation. I don’t know how well this suggestion would go over with the Orthodox, but I think it’s worth thinking about!
3. The Orthodox could agree to accept the Gregorian calculation of Pascha—but what comparable move could we offer in exchange for their doing so? Here’s something I think worth considering: We might agree to drop the filioque from liturgical recitation of the Creed. (This was an innovation introduced in the West for divisive reasons, contrary to papal authority, and eventually more or less imposed on Rome through force. Nothing wrong with the theology, but we should be happy to return to the original, canonical, and ecumenical form of the Creed!)
Oh dear what can the matter be, the unresolved is so long at the fair!
Your thoughts are fair minded and reasoned, still, we Christians face difficulties of even greater proportions as you point out here and elsewhere. It is sometimes difficult for those of the faith to find concordance, yet Jesus knows our plight!
Thank you for your approach to serving the Lord. The talents he has given you have not been buried!
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 Corinthians 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
God bless you as you honour Him.
Your Recommendaton #3: So, the solution to a difference in calendar dates is to be traded for possibly different translations tied up in the meaning of the filioque? My own non-expert impression is as follows…
The Holy Spirit was the focus of the ecumenical Council of Constantinople (A.D.381). The filioque (the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and from the Son”) was present in the ancient texts and put forth by the Synod of Aachen in A.D. 809 (my recollection is that Charlemagne was concerned about an uptick of Arianism in Moorish Spain), and later introduced in Rome during the coronation of Emperor Henry II (A.D. 1014). The filioque was adopted by both the Greeks and the Latins at the Councils of Lyon (II, 1274), and Florence (A.D. 1438-1445) where it was initially agreed that the Greek “through the Son” did not differ essentially from the Latin “from the Son.”
The mutually agreed wording:
“In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the approval of this sacred and universal Council of Florence, we establish that this truth of faith must be believed and accepted by all Christians: and thus all must profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally of the Father and the Son [!], that He has His existence and His subsistent being from the Father and the Son together [!], and that He proceeds from the one and from a single principle [!] and from a single spiration.”
But the Greeks at home rejected the agreement, and have disagreed ever since. Spurred in part by the earlier devastation and looting of Constantinople by the rerouted Latin and Fourth Crusader in A.D. 1204…
So, what if, instead of deleting the clarifying filioque, some of the plunder from the tragic Fourth Crusade (A.D. 1204) were returned to the Orthodox world? The museum-piece four giant bronze horses, replicated above the entrance to St. Mark Cathedral in Venice, might still say “neigh,” and it would be useless to mention the considerable booty absconded back to France. The revolutionaries of A.D. 1789 destroyed or tossed most into the Seine during their blood lust against any kind of religious faith.
Are the eastern and western understanding of the filioque really identical? The filioque is the tip of a complex iceberg, and probably not a poker chip. But what difference do such fineries of wording make? Oh, wait, the Nicene Creed, itself, in the relation between the Father and the Son, turns on a single letter—homoousios rather than homoiousios!
Peter, I’m no historian myself, but based on my reading I tend to regard the filioque controversy largely, though not entirely, as a historical accident involving linguistic and other cultural differences, including varying religious pressures in the West and the East, but also political machinations and expediencies. This does not mean that the Eastern objections are unwarranted, however, particularly as regards liturgical use of the filioque.
Very briefly, Christianity was born in a world linguistically united by koine Greek, but by the fifth century Western Christian writers like Augustine often had little if any Greek, while in the East Justinian I in the sixth century was the last Byzantine emperor to speak Latin as a first language. The divide between East and West was further exacerbated by the fall of Rome in the fifth century and the rise of Islam in the East in the sixth and seven centuries, and finally by the rise of the Frankish state and the founding of the Carolingian empire at the dawn of the ninth century.
In this culturally and linguistically divided world, varying theological emphases emerged in East and West, in part due to pressure from different heretical controversies. The filioque championed by Augustine and widely accepted in the West reflected an abiding concern over Arianism, while in the East defending Trinitarian belief from the charge of warmed-over polytheism coming from and Islam led to emphasis on the monarchy of the Father and his unique role as the one source of the Godhead as the guarantee of God’s oneness.
Differences in context and emphasis can easily contribute to misinterpretation. Unfamiliar conceptual approaches and language, particularly in translation, can easily be seen in an unduly critical light. Categories of orthodoxy and heresy are constructed around accepted or proscribed formulation to maintain unity, but also to explain or rationalize differences or tensions that exist partly for other reasons. Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century had no theological problem with the filioque, but by the ninth century the Ecumenical Patriarch Photios I denounced the filioque as sufficient blasphemy to smite the Franks “with a thousand anathemas, even if the other charges did not exist,” and in 1285 the Council of Blachernae, with the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory II presiding, anathematized the filioque as a heretical novelty.
The rise of Eastern anti-filioque sentiment in the ninth century is inseparable from the Frankish introduction of liturgical use of the filioque in the recitation of the Creed, a practice advocated by the Carolingians (who championed both the doctrine of the filioque and its use in the Creed) as a two-pronged instrumen against both Byzantium (which condemned both) and Rome (which defended the doctrine but condemned the interpolated Creed). The accusation of heresy against the Byzantines, who did not accept Charlemagne’s imperial claims, was obviously politically expedient. But the Frankish use of the filioque in liturgical recitation of the Creed was firmly rejected by Pope Leo III, not because of its theology, but because of the Creed’s ecumenical significance. The pope’s defense of the original text of the Creed was so strong that he had the text of the Creed without the filioque engraved in both Greek and Latin on silver plaques that were publicly displayed in Rome. In spite of the pope’s resistance, the Frankish interpolation spread, and finally in 1014 the Creed with the filioque was sung in Rome for the first time at the request of King Henry II of Germany, who had come to Rome to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor after first helping to restore Pope Benedict VIII to the papacy following the usurpation of Antipope Gregory VI. So Rome capitulated—that doesn’t seem too strong a word—to the use of the filioque only at the request of an emperor to whom the current pope owed his own reign!
The short-lived union of the Council of Lyons was effected without theological discussion or debate, the Latins having condemned the errors of the Greeks in the second session of the council, before the Greeks even arrived. The Creed with the filioque was sung in both Latin and Greek at least five times, a humiliation to which the bishop of Nicaea reportedly did not submit. Gravely compounding this counter-ecumenical imposition, Pope John XXI later insisted, contrary to the conciliar agreement, that the Eastern Churches add the Filioque to the Creed—a demand that, of course, only further destabilized the precarious union. Needless to say, this is among the more shameful pages in the annals of what we can only loosely call ecumenism!
Well done! Thank you. I do agree, most especially, with the linguistics disconnect.
But on the other hand, what if the filioque is a good “accident of history?”
What if the entire mystery of the “circumincession” is providentially affirmed by the fragmentary filioque relationship between the Father and the Son? What if the internal relationship of the Divinity is not even partly Byzantine “monarchical,” but rather, the fully reciprocal existence the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, each fully in each other, all three distinct Persons of the Trinity fully in each of the other two and vice versa? Fully complementary; clearly not linear as in “the Holy Spirit from the Father and through the Son.”
But, yes, the perfect storm: a collision of historical accidents culminating a thousand years past…
As for the accidents of today, to exchange a common calendar date for Easter with retraction of the filioque would, in my opinion, open the door to widespread consternation. And a full circus of illegitimate and disintegrating retractions, e.g., the mutations coming out of sin-nod Germany et al, even including but not limited to upending our inborn natural law itself and binary/complementary (!) human sexuality.
With the overall doctrine of the “circumincession,” the uncritical synodal chorus that “the (disconnected?) Holy Spirit is on the move” inevitably descends into ideology. Dejas vu! The stale and linear three ages of Joachim of Fiore with his sequential Age of the Father, Age of the Son, and now Age of the Holy Spirit.
Once you start from here, see quote from CATHOLIC ANSWERS “Why is Easter date moveable”, you can easily find the best calendar system to use. This is the gist of it.
Immediately therefore we see that the Orthodox calendar system is out of step; and moreover the filioque question has no bearing on how to rectify dating decisions.
The Catholic method mustn’t rely on the Rabbis/Jews to make the determinations, because, they already succeeded, ONCE AND FOR ALL, in the part given to them to do.
The Gregorian calendar system is the perfecting of a natural system of the ancient Greco-Roman calendar. This one alone can be tailored to better perfections.
This natural system is the only one that hinges to the actual event on Mt. Calvary. All others result in deviation and complexity that have to accommodate to caprice.
Why then not approach it this way and bend yourself to the obvious.
‘ The reason why the Church has retained the Jewish method in the case of the death and Resurrection of Christ is chiefly based upon the religious significance of these events. The paschal lamb of the Old Law, celebrating the liberation of the Jews from captivity in Egypt by the slaying of a lamb to preserve them from the slaughter of the children of the Egyptians, was but a type or figure of Christ, the true Lamb of God. By his death and resurrection we are liberated from the captivity of Satan. In order to bring out the identity between the figurative paschal lamb of the Old Law, and the true Lamb of God in the New, the Church insists that Easter be celebrated at that very time when the Jews used to celebrate the Passover. ‘
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-is-christmas-day-fixed-but-easter-moveable-a-radio-reply
Filioque is not linguistics; it is the Truth.
Filioque questions can’t be a way of calculating dates; THEREFORE, drawing into the dating issue, the old fight, is irrational too if not non compos mentis. Date calculation could be a way to address the old fight, so then why excise Filioque?
Dates are sacred because Filioque is IN them; hence the particular importance of the Calvary calendar.
As it turns out, it is the singular part of the calendar that can have a definite and conclusive determination, both as to when the Redemption was fulfilled and when the anniversary happens.
This peculiar detail is ANOTHER WITNESS OF FILIOQUE.
Filioque is two issues, not one. One is theological, and on that score filioque is the truth. But the other is liturgical and ecumenical, and on that score filioque represents an ecumenically harmful, unilateral interpolation to an ecumenical and conciliar symbol of faith: one opposed by popes and imposed through disobedience and power. It is no attack on the faith to say that the original ecumenical and conciliar text of the Creed, properly recited in every particular Church within the Catholic communion except the Latin Church, is the version we should recite in Mass.
I shall differ to the death! filioque is Revelation and so we must write it Filioque and it necessarily determines and conditions everything else, liturgy, interiority, etc. Philosophically, Filioque is “rock truth” the very foundation of unity.
There’s nothing complicated here. The complication that set in back in those days was the outwork of PRIDE and this is the discussion that never proceeded that is pending still.