Calculating dates of the Lenten season in the Orthodox Church

[Bob Hendry]

Greetings to all!

After reading the post from Fr. Raphael in the Formatting thread, I am curious if Lent in the Orthodox Church is the same as in the RC Church, calendar wise.

In his post, he stated:


I pray we all have a spiritually profitable 2nd week of Great Lent.

Just curious, as today is Palm Sunday - and the the start of the last week of Lent in the RC Church.

In Christ,

Bob Hendry

[Alex Haig]

I don't really want to go into the precise calculations but Orthodox work out the date of Pascha[*] differently from the Catholics and Protestants: sometimes they coincide, sometimes Pascha is one week after Catholic Easter but this year it's five weeks after the Catholics!

The Orthodox still use the Jewish way of calculating the first full moon after the spring equinox (when the day is as long as the night, normally 21 march). Pascha is the first Sunday after this date but it also cannot come before Jewish Passover. We started Lent last Monday (14 March) and Pascha comes on 1 May.

With love in Christ

Alex

[*] 'Pascha' is often used by Orthodox instead of 'Easter'. It is a Greek word deriving from 'Passover' and is used as Pascha is our passing over from death to life.

[Anthony]

In addition, the 40 days of Lent are reckoned differently in relation to Pascha than is done in the Roman church. Hence, for example, Orthodox Lent begins on Clean Monday while Western Lent begins on Ash Wednesday; and Orthodox Lent excludes Holy Week and the weekend of Palm Sunday. I forget the details, but I think The Lenten Triodion has a summary.

Anthony

[Irene]

There are some articles on the old and new calendars here (http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/cross_sign.aspx) and also here. (http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/calsci_ch4.aspx)

[Herman Blaydoe]

Bob,

Just so you know, Great and Holy Pascha (Easter) will be celebrated on 1 May in the Holy Orthodox Church this year.

BTW, St. Thomas is having Wednesday night services during Lent (Presanctified Liturgy) starting at 7PM, feel free to drop by!