When and How Is Easter Celebrated?
What is Easter, why does its date change each year and how is it celebrated? A neutral guide to Holy Week, dates and traditions.
What is Easter, and when is it celebrated? Because it does not fall on the same date each year, this question comes up often. Easter is the most important festival of the church calendar, commemorating in the Christian tradition the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. After touching briefly on the meaning of the festival, this article focuses on two practical questions: why does Easter shift every year, and how is it celebrated? As an independent guide, we offer a neutral view that keeps equal distance from the different traditions — Western and Eastern churches alike.
What is Easter? A brief reminder
Easter rests on an event recounted at the end of the Gospels: the crucifixion of Jesus and the finding of his tomb empty on the third day. The resurrection is regarded as one of the central claims of Christian faith; Easter is therefore not merely a seasonal celebration but the day this event is remembered. We covered the conceptual depth of the festival — what the resurrection means, how the crucifixion story is told — in a separate article. The What Are Easter and the Resurrection? guide answers those questions in detail. Here we look at the "when" and the "how."
When is Easter celebrated? Why does it change each year?
Unlike Christmas, Easter has no fixed day; each year it falls on a different Sunday in spring. This is because the date is calculated not by the solar calendar but by a rule tied to the phases of the moon. The traditional rule can be summed up like this: Easter is the first Sunday following the first "ecclesiastical full moon" — not the full moon observed in the sky but a calculated moon in the church tables — that falls on or after March 21. In the Western reckoning the spring equinox is treated not as approximate but as a fixed March 21. Because the lunar and solar cycles do not align exactly, the date shifts from year to year; in the Western reckoning it usually falls somewhere between late March and late April, while in the Eastern reckonings it can run into early May.
This date is also linked to the Jewish festival of Passover (Pesach), because in the Gospel account Jesus' final days coincide with the days of Passover. The origin of the name "Easter" is connected to this too: in many languages the word "Pascha" comes from "Pesach," the name of the Passover festival; the Turkish "Paskalya" shares the same root. So both the timing and the name of the festival are intertwined with the historical background of the story.
How was a common date agreed on?
The effort to tie Easter's date to a common rule is very old. In the early centuries different communities celebrated the festival on different days; to resolve this disorder, the early churches agreed on a common standard at the council held in AD 325 in what is today İznik: Easter would fall on a Sunday and be set by a calculation tied to the spring equinox. The rule used today rests, at its root, on this agreement. Even though the calendars later diverged so the result is not the same everywhere, the logic followed is the same. An interesting detail: İznik, where this historic decision was made, lies within the borders of present-day Turkey.
Is Easter always on a Sunday?
Yes. The resurrection account relates that the event was discovered on the morning of the first day of the week — that is, Sunday; this is why Easter always falls on a Sunday. For the same reason, Sunday came to stand out as the weekly day of worship in many traditions. In this sense Easter can be thought of as, in a way, "the greatest Sunday of the year."
Why do Western and Eastern churches celebrate on different dates?
Even though the same rule is used, the result is not always the same. The Western churches (Catholic, Protestant, Anglican) go by the Gregorian calendar, while many Eastern Orthodox churches rely on the Julian calendar. The gap between the two calendars separates the day of celebration by several weeks in most years; in some years the two traditions land on the same day. This is not a matter of right or wrong but of calendar and tradition — both traditions commemorate the same event.
Upcoming Easter dates
For the next few years the dates are as follows: in 2027 the Western churches celebrate Easter on March 28, while the Orthodox tradition marks it on May 2. In 2028 the two traditions rarely coincide on the same day, April 16. Since the exact date is set each year by the lunar-calendar rule above, if you are curious about another year it is enough to consult the church calendars.
How is Easter celebrated? Holy Week
Easter is less a single day than the peak of a series of days known as "Holy Week." This week remembers the final days of Jesus step by step and, in most traditions, is marked with special services:
In many traditions Holy Week is preceded by a period of preparation called "Lent." This spans roughly the forty days before Easter and is spent in simplicity, fasting and self-examination. In this way the festival is experienced less as a single day than as a peak reached after weeks of preparation.
The Easter service and traditions
The Easter service takes different forms by tradition but carries a shared air of joy. In Eastern churches the resurrection service held at night is known for its candlelight and the greeting "Christ is risen"; in Western churches the service on Easter morning has the feel of a celebration adorned with hymns and flowers. Alongside these are folk customs that vary from culture to culture: painted Easter eggs (a symbol of new life), shared meals and family gatherings. Most of these customs are later cultural additions; at the center of the worship stands the resurrection account.
Customs also vary from region to region. In many parts of Greece and Eastern Europe, red-dyed eggs, special breads and meals shared after the night service stand out; in Western Europe and the Americas, customs aimed at children, such as the Easter bunny and the egg hunt, are widespread. This variety shows how the same festival takes on its own color in different cultures. The common element is a feeling of rebirth and hope that coincides with the arrival of spring.
Easter in Istanbul and Kadıköy
Istanbul is a city where churches from different traditions exist side by side; during the Easter season many churches hold services according to their own tradition. Because service times and forms vary from church to church, those who wish to attend are best served by checking the announcement of the community in question. You can find the churches in and around Kadıköy, together with their addresses and contact details, in our church guide.
Start reading the resurrection account
If you want to read the story on which Easter rests firsthand, the Holy Week reading plan, which follows the final week of Jesus day by day, is a good start; it offers a seven-day journey from the entry into Jerusalem to the empty tomb. If you are curious about the meaning of the festival in greater depth, our What Are Easter and the Resurrection? guide summarizes the crucifixion and resurrection accounts neutrally. Both resources are free and ad-free on this site.